Yordan Alvarez trade rumors are an invite for Mariners to do the funniest thing ever

However realistically, Yordan Alvarez is ostensibly a trade candidate right now. And while an actual deal with the Houston Astros is hard to fathom, the Seattle Mariners should get involved if for no other reason than just for the heck of it.

On a more serious note, the first quarter of the 2026 MLB season has made it clear that the Mariners need a hitter. The offense is generally trending around average-ish, and it increasingly feels like waiting on Cal Raleigh to recapture last year's 60-homer form is a bad idea.

Alvarez, meanwhile, is one of the best there is at the plate. He has a 165 OPS+ for his career, and he's hovering above that with a 185 OPS+ and 13 home runs this year. One scout even told Bob Nightengale of USA Today that the 28-year-old is the best pure hitter since Barry Bonds. Heck, he's even a rare left-handed hitter with a better OPS against lefties (.975) than against righties (.962).

More interesting, though, is what one executive had to say about Alvarez to Nightengale: “If they traded him, I think they’d get a better package than what the Nationals got for Juan Soto."

A Juan Soto trade, eh? Not many teams can make a deal like that… and the Mariners are one of them.

The Mariners should put in an offer for Yordan Alvarez just to see what happens

To clarify, the Soto reference is to the trade that sent him to from the Washington Nationals to the San Diego Padres in 2022. That one netted Washington former top prospect MacKenzie Gore and all three of the Padres' best prospects at the time.

This was when Soto had two-and-a-half years until free agency. Alvarez has two-and-a-half years left on his six-year, $115 million contract, and those pay out $26.8 million per year. The total for 2027 and 2028 is actually less than what Soto made in his last two years before free agency.

This is to say the comparison works, and that makes it a question of which teams could knock the Astros' socks off with a trade offer. To this end, the Mariners are one of only four clubs with as many as six prospects in MLB Pipeline's top 100.

The Nationals are one, and they're still rebuilding. The Los Angeles Dodgers are another, and they couldn't play both Alvarez and Shohei Ohtani at DH. This leaves the Milwaukee Brewers, whose DH spot needs to be reserved for Christian Yelich when he's healthy.

The Mariners, on the other hand, shouldn't see Dominic Canzone as a barrier in the way of Alvarez. And while they surely wouldn't offer Colt Emerson (MLB Pipeline's No. 5 prospect) or Kade Anderson (No. 13), they wouldn't necessarily have to.

Even if the Mariners insisted on the Astros taking Luis Castillo for salary-balance purposes, some combination of Ryan Sloan (No. 23), Lazaro Montes (No. 32), Michael Arroyo (No. 51) and Jonny Farmelo (No. 61) could get a deal done. The Astros taking on Montes would be especially amusing, given that he's basically Alvarez's Mini-Me.

Of course, fair questions abound. Would the Mariners really want to ship so many top prospects to an AL West rival? For that matter, would the Astros be comfortable with their best player suiting up for the division's new de facto power? The common answer may well be, "Hell no."

Yet since this is a World Series or bust year, Jerry Dipoto should at least kick the tires on the concept.

If Dipoto actually traded for Alvarez, he'd cement the Mariners as a World Series favorite while simultaneously burying the Astros' AL West dynasty. Even if he only succeeded in making an offer that his counterpart, Dana Brown, was ordered not to accept by owner Jim Crane, that would at least succeed in creating a smaller market for Alvarez, and hopefully less leverage accordingly.

Either way, Mariners fans should not get their hopes up for an Alvarez trade. Yet even if it's a pipe dream of a pie in the sky, let's stop short of writing it off completely.

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