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 #2: LHP Tanner Scott

Going along with the theme of pursuing relievers, Tanner Scott has been an excellent closer for Miami this year and is one of the few crown jewels left in the franchise. He's pitched to a 1.93 ERA over 28 innings this year. He's only got eight saves but he's only had ten save opportunities, typical for a team with a combined .636 OPS.

A typical fastball/slider closer, he does nearly everything incredibly well. His average exit velocity of just 83.0 mph leads MLB while his whiff rate and ground-ball rate are both in the top 10% of the league. His four-seam fastball is particularly devastating, with opposing batters averaging a measly .085 and slugging just .106 against the pitch. His slider has a whiff rate of 41.2% but he's not striking out batters at an incomprehensible rate, just 26.1%.

Unfortunately, no one is perfect and one thing he does terribly is command the strike zone. His walk rate of 16.8% is one of the worst in the league and is exactly eight times higher than George Kirby's walk rate. It's an interesting weakness to have and it shows in his WHIP which, at 1.21, is disproportionately high given his sub-2.00 ERA. In comparison, Andrés Muñoz has an ERA of 1.55 with a 0.97 WHIP.

Nonetheless, adding a high-impact lefty who can clearly handle high-leverage pitching situations would probably pay dividends for Seattle. He'd be a rental trade with his free agency arriving in 2025, so if the Mariners do enjoy his services, they can always try to extend him. If he disappoints or prices himself out, they can let him walk and continue to develop Muñoz into an elite closer. Either way, Scott is of little use to the Marlins unless they plan on being able to compete for him in the free agent market, which they probably won't do given their penchant for having tight purse strings.