DANNY AND GALLANT

O’Neil: Mariners can go big at trade deadline if it’s for Rockies ace Márquez

Jun 29, 2021, 11:05 AM | Updated: 12:13 pm

Mariners RHP German Márquez...

Rockies RHP German Márquez is one of the better young pitchers in baseball. (Getty)

(Getty)

We’re roughly a month from the 2021 MLB trade deadline, and it’s unclear what the Mariners – who sit at three games over .500 – will be doing come July 30.

With M’s winning now, how should they approach the trade deadline?

Do the Mariners continue to add young, controllable pieces to the farm system by selling off veterans like Kendall Graveman, Mitch Haniger or Kyle Seager? Will Seattle decide to stand pat and be comfortable with who’s on the roster to close out the 2021 campaign? Or could the Mariners actually go out and be buyers?

Danny O’Neil of 710 ESPN Seattle’s Danny and Gallant thinks there’s a strong case to be made for the Mariners making an aggressive addition at the trade deadline, and he has his eyes set on one player in particular.

“(Last) Wednesday, you got a pretty good look at a guy I’m very interested in at the trade deadline: Germán Márquez, right-hander from the Colorado Rockies,” he said.

Márquez, 26, is one of the top young arms in the game even if you may not realize it. Since making his MLB debut at 21 years old in 2016, he has a career 48-36 record, 4.21 ERA, and 729 strikeouts to 211 walks in 724 2/3 innings. Márquez led all MLB pitchers in innings in the shortened 2020 season, and this year he’s 6-6 with a 3.99 ERA and two complete games.

As O’Neil mentioned, Mariners fans saw up close and personal what Márquez can do as he threw eight innings of one-run ball in Seattle while picking up the win. That accounts for one of just three losses the Mariners have in their last 13 games entering Tuesday.

What makes Márquez’s numbers and accomplishments more impressive, O’Neil pointed out, is that he makes roughly half of his starts at Coors Field in Colorado, the most hitter-friendly ballpark in MLB.

Márquez is signed through he 2023 season and will make $26 million combined the next two seasons, per Spotrac. But his contract also has a club option for $16 million for the 2024 season, meaning if a team acquires him from the Rockies, he’s under club control for three years.

“I think he’s a really good pitcher,” O’Neil said. “He’s not cheap … I think he’s going to be the top player who’s available on the trade market at the deadline. And I’m almost certain that the Rockies are moving on from him, and they’ve certainly indicated that they’re cutting salary.”

The Rockies are one of the worst teams in MLB this year at 32-47 and they traded one of the franchise’s best players, third baseman Nolan Arenado, to the St. Louis Cardinals in the offseason in a deal that signaled a slash in payroll and a shift towards a rebuild.

With the Rockies looking to rebuild and the Mariners trying to contend for playoff berths in the near future, O’Neil thinks acquiring Márquez makes a ton of sense for Seattle for a number of reasons.

“You’re going to have him for three years after (this season) for about $41 million,” he said. “I’m pretty interested in him because I think if you add him to Logan Gilbert and Yusei Kikuchi and then Marco Gonzales, then I think you’ve got the look of a really good (rotation). I’m not sure if you’ve got an ace out of that group, but that’s a really good rotation. That has the makings of a really good rotation for 2022.”

Paul Gallant, O’Neil’s Danny and Gallant co-host, played devil’s advocate and questioned whether acquiring Márquez is worth it because he may not get any better than he already is and would likely cost a pretty penny in terms of prospect capital. O’Neil pointed to where the Rockies’ trajectory is as an organization compared to where the Mariners stand.

“His prime, which is right now, is of no use to them,” O’Neil said of the Rockies. “He gets them to 70 wins instead of 60 wins and that’s not something as a team that (the Rockies) are interested in. They’re motivated to move him and he’s a good player. And (the Mariners) actually have some prospects that you could move to get him, and I’m not sure it would cost you one of your top prospects … He is added to the front half of your rotation and I think you can go into next season thinking, ‘Yeah, if our offense develops like we think it does and Julio Rodríguez gets to the big leagues, I think we’ve got a chance to not just contend for a playoff spot, but we might be up there battling for the division.'”

So if the Mariners are indeed interested in adding Márquez to the rotation for the foreseeable future, what would the Rockies be asking for? And what would the Mariners be OK with giving up from their well-regarded farm system?

“They’re going to ask for (Jarred) Kelenic or Julio Rodríguez and I’m not willing to pull the trigger on either one of them,” O’Neil said. “And I’m probably not willing to go Noelvi Marte. If it’s going to take (Justus) Sheffield or (Justin) Dunn and Cal Raleigh, I’m not really interested in trading, but George Kirby – if it’s going to take a collection of prospects of that caliber, I’m thinking long and hard about this. I’m thinking long and hard about how things line up.”

Gallant doesn’t think Seattle would be able to acquire Márquez without parting with a top young prospect.

“If you want him, you have to be willing to part with something that you like,” he said. “And at the very least, you’re going to have to go into this and (offer) Noelvi Marte at the very least.”

If that’s the case, O’Neil thinks Seattle should think long and hard about that, especially because Marte is a shortstop and the Mariners have a good, young player at the spot already in J.P. Crawford.

This past offseason, the Mariners were speculated as a team to watch for former Cy Young winner Blake Snell, a Seattle-area native who was on the trade block after spending 2020 with the Tampa Bay Rays. Ultimately, Snell was traded to the San Diego Padres. O’Neil said at the time of those talks that he didn’t think Seattle was ready to make a deal of that caliber. But now as we near the 2021 trade deadline and the Mariners are playing good baseball, he thinks now may be the time for Seattle to pull the trigger.

“Eventually you’re going to move some of your prospects for pieces that put you over the top,” he said. “I think Germán Márquez might be that kind of guy, and his timeline adds up (with the Mariners’ timeline).”

Listen to O’Neil’s conversation with Gallant in the podcast at this link or in the player below. The segment starts around the 24:30 mark.

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O’Neil: Mariners can go big at trade deadline if it’s for Rockies ace Márquez