Mariners must aim higher than Casey Schmitt if they're going to trade George Kirby

The hypothetical proposals are rolling in ahead of MLB's trade deadline, and we already have a good reminder that no such a proposal has ever been met with 100 percent approval. Jim Bowden's George Kirby-for-Casey Schmitt pitch takes two parts of two separate good ideas, and mashes them together to form a bad one.

To be fair, Bowden's actual pitch for the Seattle Mariners and San Francisco Giants at The Athletic also involves left-hander Erik Miller going to Seattle. It's meant to be a two-birds, one-stone solution to the Mariners' needs for a right-handed hitter and a proven reliever, and one that would further clear up their rotation logjam.

It sounds reasonable enough… until you really drill down into what the Mariners would be getting with Schmitt.

Precisely because he's a versatile right-handed hitter who's crushing lefties for a .327 average and an .853 OPS, Schmitt should be on Seattle's radar. Yet even the "career year" he's having has been going off the rails. Since posting an .880 OPS through May, he has a .683 OPS ever since.

This was probably inevitable. Schmitt came into this year with only a .667 OPS to show for 225 games with the Giants between 2023 and 2025. And at 27 years old, he's no longer an up-and-comer. He is what he is at the plate. That's a hitter with a dismal career walk rate of 4.8 percent, and sans an elite bat-to-ball skill or slugging capabilities. He has what he needs to run hot, but him also running cold is unavoidable.

If the Mariners are going to go get Schmitt and his three additional years of club control, it should be for an appropriate price tag. Kirby doesn't feel like it just in the abstract, and Baseball Trade Values flatly rejects Bowden's Schmitt-and-Miller package. Miller has a live arm, but he's way too volatile (i.e., 14.6 BB%) to be a true shutdown reliever.

The Mariners should only trade George Kirby for one of the market's big prizes

As for the Kirby side of all this, he's certainly not the starting pitcher the Mariners want to trade. They're reportedly open to moving a starter, but seemingly reluctantly even if it's Luis Castillo who has to go.

That said, the door should not be altogether closed on trading Kirby. He's only getting closer to the end of his club control in 2028, and there's some indication that he'll be the hardest of the club's homegrown starters to lock down with a contract extension. And the longer the Mariners wait to trade him, the less value he'll have.

As of this moment, his value is very strong. After a trying season in 2025, the 28-year-old righty is back to being a horse (3.76 ERA, 110 IP) who resembles a strong No. 2 starter. And given his two additional years of club control, he hypothetically appeals to contenders of all stripes.

But if Kirby is going to be traded for anyone, Schmitt ain't it. The Mariners should only put Kirby on the table if also going on the table is someone like Tarik Skubal. Or Byron Buxton. Or Mason Miller. You know, one of those guys, and those might honestly be the only three reasonable targets out of literally dozens as the trade market counts down to August 3.

Barring an outcome like that, expect Kirby to stick around for a while.

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