3 Miami Marlins the Mariners should target at the trade deadline

Now that we're more than 70 games into the 2024 season, it seems pretty clear that the Mariners have a strong hold over the AL West. They have a 9-game lead over the second-place Rangers and Astros and are the only team in the division with a winning record.

However, they have the fourth-best record in the American League and are neck-and-neck with the AL Central runner-up Royals, so it's clear that if Seattle wants to increase their championship equity, they'll need to make some moves at the trade deadline.

The Marlins make for a great potential trade partner. They're sitting at the bottom of the NL East with a pitiful winning percentage of just 33.3%, better than just the White Sox, and have a below-average farm system so they likely won't be playoff contenders for at least the next few years. Furthermore, some of their assets would complement the Mariners' existing roster extremely well, so let's take a look at a few of the most enticing names.

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.

Mariners Target #3: 2B/OF Jazz Chisholm Jr.

This is likely the most contentious name on this list. Seen as the face of the franchise (and MLB The Show, apparently) not too long ago, it's clear that he hasn't been enough to build around since he arrived to the league in 2020. They'll need to start over with a new nucleus of young players, and the best way to do that is to shed their old skin. After all, the Marlins have just five more wins than the White Sox who are willing to trade away their franchise player, Luis Robert Jr., so why shouldn't Miami look to do the same with Jazz?

Jazz is a good player but not a great one. This actually works in Seattle's favor because they don't really need someone to save their souls but instead just a few incremental upgrades to avoid selling off too much of their future. Jazz is slashing a decent .254/.319/.435 over 285 plate appearances, nearly right in line with his career average. He doesn't do one thing exceptionally well but that consistency might be just what the Mariners need right now.

He's not enough of an impact outfielder to really make a postseason difference, especially for existing contenders, However, the Mariners have struggled with offensive production at second base since Polanco has been disappointing nearly three months into the season. They have the 28th best OPS from second base at .581, better than just White Sox and Red Sox.

He'll be a free agent in 2027, likely still too early for Miami to have cobbled together a competitive roster that could hold it's own against the Braves and Phillies. This encourages the Marlins to get future value for him while it gives his new team some team control to leverage in the short-term.