Mariners need to try again with Jose A. Ferrer after trade hype landed with a thud

The Seattle Mariners only made a handful of moves last offseason, and the Jose A. Ferrer trade was supposed to be one of the big ones. It cost a top-100 prospect to get him, yet the message was: Don't worry, there's more here than meets the eye.

Anyone else feel misled after 2026?

Ferrer came to Seattle from the Washington Nationals, for whom he had made 142 relief appearances and racked up an uninspiring 97 ERA+. So even if it is commendable that he co-led the Mariners with 73 appearances, it's not ideal that his fast start to 2026 devolved to a point where his ERA+ finished at a mere 94. Nor is it ideal that other key performance indicators like his FIP, xERA, WHIP and K/BB also took a turn for the worse.

Remember, this is a guy who Jerry Dipoto touted as "the No. 1 trade target on our list.” That obviously flew in the face of the 26-year-old lefty's credentials, yet fixing the disparity was supposed to be simple. He already had the high-90s sinker and the ability to throw strikes. What he needed was a pitch mix adjustment, specifically with more sliders and more changeups.

This sort of panned out, but only in the sense that Ferrer threw more sliders. The more notable change involved him doubling down on his sinker, upping its usage by seven percentage points. There was no real benefit to that, as hitters got to it for a .297 average and six of the seven home runs Ferrer allowed on the year.

If it's back to the drawing board from here, a closer look at Ferrer's pitch mix reveals a potentially under-utilized pitch that should get more play in 2027:

See the changeup? It was a solid pitch for Ferrer in 2026, which makes it somewhat hard to explain why he actually dropped his usage of it from 21.9 percent in 2025. It was also his one and only effective weapon against righties, who had a .951 OPS against him despite only hitting his changeup at a .146 clip with a 40.0 Whiff%.

So, "More changeups, please" seems like a wise and achievable directive for Ferrer in 2027. It otherwise wouldn't be the worst thing if he learned a new pitch altogether, even if it meant turning his slider into more of a sweeper. Because while the arm is clearly good enough for a high-leverage role, what he throws with it is not.

Don't worry, the Mariners aren't losing the Jose A. Ferrer trade… yet

As for the other side of the Ferrer trade, the decision to send Harry Ford to Washington felt like a well-calculated risk right from the beginning.

He was one of those top-100 prospects with a general sense of hype, but seemingly nothing but questions lurking beneath the surface. Whether he would stick at catcher was a big one. Whether he had enough pop for the majors was another.

It's not the best sign for the Nationals that these questions still exist a year later. Ford just didn't have a good year in 2026, either in the minors or in the majors. If anything, his under-the-hood metrics (i.e., bat speed, exit velocity, pop time) in 38 games as a National only further underscore doubts about his offensive and defensive potential as a catcher.

Even so, Ford is still just 23 years old, and 46 games at the majors is far from enough to wipe out all the good things that were said about him as he was coming up through the minors. Even if he's not cut out to be a catcher, there could still be a version of him who's athletic and patient enough to hack it as a high-OBP corner outfielder with occasional power.

The Mariners can continue to try to tinker with Ferrer. But after 215 games' worth of middling results, he may be who he is.

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