2 Mariners fans should miss, 2 they shouldn't

The front office of any baseball team is constantly shifting players around. No one is safe from sudden trades and even marquee players have been sent packing for some reason or another. As a team who has done their fair share of moving players around in the past few years, let's take a look at a couple of players who went on to do great things after leaving Seattle and a couple of players who the team was right to let go.

Fans Should Miss - Paul Sewald

A bit of a late bloomer, Sewald was drafted by the Mets and wasn't called up the major leagues until the age of 27. After his first four years, he had accumulated a 5.50 ERA over 147 ⅓ innings and was non-tendered. After signing a minor league contract with the Mariners, he hit an incredible stride, improving in nearly every aspect. Across his 171 ⅔ innings with the organization, he posted a 2.88 ERA, 0.93 WHIP, and a 12.4 K/9, incredible numbers for any reliever.

Part of the improvement was simplifying his arsenal down to two pitches and really dialing in on his four-seam fastball. While his velocity on the pitch has always been below-average (it typically sits in the low-90s), he learned to master his wonky arm slot and VAA, or vertical approach angle. FanGraphs published an extremely detailed, nerdy article about his evolution in 2021 that might be worth a read if you're trying to avoid doing work or spending time with your family. Don't get me wrong though, his sweeper is also a fun little weapon for batters to face.

In a stunning move that many saw as a sell at the trade deadline, he was sent to the Diamondbacks in exchange for Josh Rojas, Ryan Bliss, and Dominic Canzone. He didn't do much in Arizona. All he did was accumulate 13 regular season saves, pitch eight scoreless innings in the NLWC, NLDS and NLCS, and help lead Arizona to the World Series.

With the Mariners within striking distance of the AL Wild Card spot and AL West division, who knows what could've happened if he had stuck around.