Mariners have a chance to scout coveted trade chip in series with Twins

The Seattle Mariners' primary objective for the next four days is to keep their bats hot. They're rolling into Minnesota fresh off a series win over the Chicago Cubs that saw them blast 10 home runs and cross the plate 30 times.

Yet there should also be a second objective: Take whatever chance they get to size up Jhoan Duran as a trade target.

To be perfectly clear, there are no solid rumors linking the Mariners to the hard-throwing right-hander. This is more so us pulling an idea out of a hat that was presented by Thomas Harrigan of MLB.com, who listed Duran among his trade candidates who could be had from playoff bubble teams.

At 37-40 and 2.5 games off the pace in the American League wild card race, the Twins certainly match that description. And even if they don't have any rumored interest, the Mariners are a team that should be interested in Duran.

Twins closer Jhoan Duran would be a perfect addition to the Mariners' bullpen

Let's be fair to Seattle's current group of relievers and give them this much: June has been a good month for the bunch.

After posting ERAs of 3.70 and 3.88 in the first two months of the season, the bullpen's ERA is down to a sturdy 3.36 so far this month. It's a nice bit of stabilization that comes off even better when you realize that Andrés Muñoz has barely participated with only four appearances in June.

This said, Mariners relievers are still lagging behind the competition in an oh-so-important statistic for modern bullpens. They have fanned just 23.5 percent of the batters they have faced this month, which only ranks 12th in MLB.

When it comes down to it, only Muñoz and Gabe Speier have been reliable purveyors of whiffs out of the bullpen for Dan Wilson. The pen as a whole is allowing a 78.1 contact percentage, the fifth-highest mark in the majors. It needs more swing-and-miss, and seemingly everyone knows it.

Which brings us to Duran, who might just be the most purely intimidating reliever in MLB today.

The 27-year-old ranks behind only Mason Miller with an average fastball of 100.2 mph, yet it is actually his second-best pitch after his splinker. He's probably more hittable than you'd expect for a guy with these weapons, but he's nonetheless in the 87th percentile with his whiff rate and the 80th percentile with his strikeout rate.

As the 6-foot-5, 230-pound Duran is otherwise making a modest $4.13 million and is under club control through 2027, he isn't going to come cheap if the Twins do decide to cash in his value in a trade. Baseball Trade Values puts his surplus value at $22.6 million. In Mariners terms, that makes him worth Cole Young in a straight-up swap.

Of course, Jerry Dipoto does have other options if he comes to covet Duran, be it this week or any of the weeks after between now and July 31. The farm system is absolutely loaded, and we know that Dipoto is in a mood to be aggressive.

As to the actual baseball part of this series, the Mariners are basically encountering a wounded animal. The Twins won 13 in a row back in May, but are 11-20 since then and have dropped 13 of their last 16 games. They've given up eight runs per game in the process, which we swear is a real statistic and not hyperbole.

As such, a matchup with Twins pitchers may well add more fuel to the fire that the Mariners lit with their bats over the weekend. And it wasn't even all Cal Raleigh, as he hit "only" four of the 10 home runs that the Mariners launched in the three games.

The bigger question concerns when Julio Rodríguez is going to get his power going again. He hasn't homered since May 27, and he generally seems to be buckling underneath the weight of a bold, yet risky approach at the plate. It's thankfully the only missing link in his game right now, as he's otherwise hitting for a high average and playing amazing defense in center field.

Whatever the case, the Mariners will hope to exit the Twin Cities on Thursday with their second straight series win. Even if it'll take three Ws to secure that result, that feels eminently doable given how these two teams are trending.

Game Times and Probable Pitchers for Mariners vs. Twins, June 23-26

• Monday, June 23 at 4:40 p.m. PT: Bryan Woo vs. Bailey Ober
• Tuesday, June 24 at 4:40 p.m. PT: Luis Castillo vs. Chris Paddack
• Wednesday, June 25 at 4:40 p.m. PT: George Kirby vs. Joe Ryan
• Thursday, June 26 at 10:10 a.m. PT: Emerson Hancock vs. Simeon Woods Richardson