All-time Mariners' pitching staff of best players who got away

SP - Pablo Lopez - (7/20/2017) SP Pablo Lopez, Brayan Hernandez, Brandon Miler, and Lukas Schiraldi to the Miami Marlins in exchange for RP David Phelps.

The 2017 Mariners were a team with high hopes, who just could not get the job done to make the playoffs. But they had a chance. Hence why this trade at the time wasn't too big of a deal. Any contending team needs to ensure that their bullpen is deep enough to make that push, which is why bringing in David Phelps made sense. When you look back years later though, it doesn't as much.

Phelps was a good bullpen arm, having posted a 3.45 ERA with a K/9 of 9.8 with Miami before the trade went down. He was solid with the Mariners the rest of that 2017 season as well, after pitching a whole 8.2 innings. Yes, just 8.2 innings. He left the game vs. the Kansas City Royals with an arm injury, that later turned out to require Tommy John surgery. Thus forcing him to miss the 2018 season.

All in all, looking at the 2 major parts of this trade with Phelps and Lopez, it is safe to say that the 8.2 Innings of work that the Mariners received from Phelps did not pan out. Lopez is in the midst of a very promising career, having been voted into his first All-Star game last season, ironically which took place at T-Mobile Park.

After proving himself for several years with the Marlins, the Minnesota Twins signed Lopez to a 4YR/$73.5M contract, in which he will be entering his second year. Thank you to the baseball gods for making sure the Mariners have a top pitching rotation in all of baseball now. Otherwise, this would be yet another trade that M's fans would all be losing sleep over. Pablo Lopez definitely cracks our starting rotation.