3 Miami Marlins the Mariners should target at the trade deadline

Mariners Target #1: RHP Declan Cronin

Like many other teams in baseball this year, pitching injuries have been a cause for concern for the Mariners. Luckily, their rotation has been largely unaffected aside from issues at the beginning of the year for Bryan Woo, but the same cannot be said about the bullpen. Both Gregory Santos and Matt Brash have been on the 60-day IL with Santos yet to pitch this year and Brash out until the 2025 season following his Tommy John procedure. Gabe Speier also landed on the 15-day IL recently with a left rotator cuff strain and who knows what's yet to come.

Even with a patchwork quilt of relievers, the Mariners have maintained a respectable body of work, posting a bullpen ERA of 3.57, 11th best in MLB. However, outside of closer Andrés Muñoz, they lack other arms that are able to show up in the later innings to shut things down. Righty Declan Cronin could be a solution to that problem.

You might not have heard of him before but he's currently the fourth-most valuable member on the Marlins by rWAR at a mark of 0.9, a great figure for a non-closer reliever. Over his 31.2 innings of work so far, Cronin has put together a 2.84 ERA. He's got an incredibly interesting pitching profile, being below average in most things including fastball velocity (93.3 mph), and strikeout rate (21.5%), and actually has an average exit velocity in the bottom decile of qualified pitchers. However, what he does extremely well is create unfavorable launch angles for hitters. His 60.7% ground ball rate is in the 97th percentile of MLB and he has had a negative average launch throughout his short career.

This is due to his slider/sinker arsenal. Because of the sheer amount of drop in both of his pitches, hitters have an incredibly hard time getting under the ball to generate lift. Sure, they hit the ball hard, but it's more often than not spiked straight into the ground instead of the second deck.

A few other pros of pursuing Cronin are his years of team control. Technically still a rookie since he pitched just 11 innings for the White Sox in 2023, he could provide tons of value for the Mariners in the long term. Normally this may make it harder for other teams to pry him from Miami's hands but given their need for more impact talent, especially position players, they might be willing to let him go for the right price.