MLB Network’s Amsinger: How Mariners are set up to ‘win’ trade deadline

Jun 28, 2023, 7:51 AM

Seattle Mariners Scott Servais Jerry Dipoto...

Mariners president of baseball operations Jerry Dipoto and manager Scott Servais in March. (Photo by Steph Chambers/Getty Images)

(Photo by Steph Chambers/Getty Images)

BY BRANDON GUSTAFSON

Assistant Editor of SeattleSports.com

With the Seattle Mariners continuing to hover right around .500, what will they do at the 2023 MLB trade deadline? Seattle has just over a month to figure that out as the Aug. 2 deadline is fast approaching.

MLB Network’s Amsinger: Mariners ‘politely losing’ is a bad look

The Mariners need offensive help in a big way, as they rank near the bottom of MLB in batting average, on-base percentage and slugging percentage.

“To look at the batting averages every single day is is nauseating. I can’t believe this team, which I believed going into the year had so many outstanding high-end offensive players, would be so below-average,” MLB Network host Greg Amsinger told Seattle Sports’ Wyman and Bob on Monday.

So could the M’s be in play for a big bat at the upcoming trade deadline?

“I think they’ve got enough on the mound. They’ve got enough to win. Unfortunately, they’re a bat away,” Amsinger said. “They’re a major bat away and they fall in to this cluster of a group of teams that clearly need to make a massive move to jolt this roster to make sure that every single day they show up, they’re not in this complacent performance where they’re losing one-run games.”

What the Seattle Mariners do have in terms of a resource is young pitching. Seattle has two rookies in the five-man rotation in Bryce Miller and Bryan Woo, as well as third-year starter Logan Gilbert and second-year hurler George Kirby. Of those four, Gilbert is the oldest at just 26 years old. Kirby is 25, Miller is 24 and Woo is 23.

Amsinger, like his MLB Network colleague Jon Morosi, thinks Seattle’s wealth of young pitchers could help the Mariners get what they need in a trade.

“I think the pitching depth is so immense in Seattle that they can take advantage of a weak market,” Amsinger said.

Amsinger expects a number of big-name arms to get traded at the deadline, such as Lance Lynn and Lucas Giolito of the Chicago White Sox, Shane Bieber of the Cleveland Guardians, and Eduardo Rodríguez of the Detroit Tigers if he’s healthy.

While those names are more widely-known than what the Mariners have, they’re older, and they’re on more expensive contracts with less team control. Trading a younger, cheaper and more controllable arm could get the M’s quite the haul, Amsinger said.

“If you look at what the Mariners have – controllable, young starting pitching, who have come up and impressed … I think they have an opportunity to really cash in,” he said. “The market screams ‘Mariners win’ on trade deadline day, and I think they need to explore it.”

Listen to Wyman and Bob full conversation with Amsinger at this link or in the player below.