Drayer’s Rebuttal: Why Mariners shouldn’t trade a starting pitcher

To trade a starter or not to trade a starter, that is the question. And a question that will no doubt be with us until all five current Seattle Mariners starters report to Peoria next February or a move is made.

Last week, Seattle Sports’ Mike Salk laid out his case for making the move, a move he conceded wouldn’t be easy, stating that even writing the words made his skin crawl.

Salk: It’s time for the Mariners to trade a pitcher – but which one?

Always up for a good discussion – and Salk and I have had this discussion both on and off air – I will take a shot here at the case to keep ’em all.

Knowing the situation the Mariners are currently in while acknowledging the value of starting pitching, Salk comes to the conclusion that having five top starters is cool but unnecessary, and that the offensive boost of the return player would be worth the falloff in starting performance. Salk believes whoever replaced the traded starter need only be near league average. Emerson Hancock should be ready to be near a league-average starter. Prospect Logan Evans should be ready to help later in the season. Available free agents Lance Lynn, Matthew Boyd, Alex Cobb or Kyle Gibson should be able to make contributions.

I’m not convinced league-average would be enough, and I’m not sure you can find that internally. It is a small sample, but Hancock was not near league average this year, posting an ERA+ of 78 (league average is always 100) in 12 starts. And while there’s a chance I could be sold on the right veteran starter, I’m not comfortable with it. The starting pitching has been far too important to any success the Mariners have had of late. This is not the offseason for “should be” with pitching or offense.

Further complicating is the idea of a trade. Because the Mariners by design are so reliant on pitching, the value in sum these starters have to Seattle is likely greater than the value they would have as individuals to other teams. This feels like they would need to make not what Mariners president of baseball operations Jerry Dipoto likes to call a “good baseball trade”; rather, it would need to be a trade they win. Winning a starter trade, however, could be a particular challenge this winter because with the number of starters of all caliber available, it appears this may not be a good offseason for such transactions.

Sure, Baltimore has a ton of young hitting talent and is in the market for top-tier starting pitching, but there are plenty of options both in trade and free agency – Garrett Crochet and Max Fried being just two examples. With new ownership in place and a roster that is still young and largely inexpensive, the Orioles do not look like a team that needs to trade young hitters for pitching. There are other teams that have pitching needs, but, again, it is a pitching-rich market.

Even if the Mariners were able to make a trade that brings back players they think would offset the value of a starter given up, they wouldn’t be out of the woods. Rare is the offensive player these days that comes to the Mariners and hits right away, and what if the biggest potential bump in the road – significant missed time by one of the remaining four starters – presents itself? The Mariners have enjoyed remarkable health with their rotation, and a ton of credit goes to both the organization and the individuals in accomplishing this. This doesn’t just happen. It also is something you can’t just rely on. If five top starters suddenly becomes three, would the Mariners have enough offense to overcome that scenario?

Related: Change that would help Seattle Mariners’ bats? Pushing fences back

I do agree with Salk that “small dabblings” in free agency for hit-or-miss players is not going to get the job done. I don’t believe, however, it is an either/or situation. Either Yoan Moncada and Justin Turner, as he mentioned, or the hitting equivalent of a George Kirby or Luis Castillo. There is a lot of room in between there and plenty of options that wouldn’t cost the Mariners a starter. In their time with the Mariners, Dipoto and general manager Justin Hollander have been very good at putting together trades involving prospects at all levels for major leaguers. I believe this avenue could help in an area that has not received as much attention as the offense but could be of great impact as well.

Where the additions should be made

In his column, Salk talked about making a trade in which the Mariners could reconfigure their assets in a more beneficial and balanced way. While more offense is needed, the balance is never going to be 50/50 in T-Mobile Park the way it is configured, and because of that, Mariners teams of late have not been constructed to be balanced. They are going to lean on their pitching, which is given the benefit of the home pitching environment. They expect – and have for a number of years now – to play close games, and it was the close games that got them last season. Not being able to push a winning run across the plate was an issue, but at that part of a game, protecting close leads was a bigger problem at key times.

While there are a multitude of games where the offense failed to push across a critical late run that could have been a difference maker in a “just missed” season, what happened with the Mariners’ bullpen between July 12 and Sept. 1 cannot happen if you hope to be playing past September. In that time span, the Mariners dropped eight games to the 63-win Angels. In five of those games, the bullpen gave up a late lead. The Mariners were not able to capitalize against the weakest team in the division, finishing the season series with the Angels 5-8. The division-winning Astros were able to do so, getting nine wins off the Angels.

Dipoto and Hollander worked hard to bolster the bullpen, adding Gregory Santos last offseason, Ryne Stanek in spring training when Matt Brash was lost, and Yimi García at the trade deadline. Unfortunately, these moves did not pay off. Lesson should be learned. The Mariners are big believers in that you can never have enough starting pitching depth. When built to play to close games, the same should apply to leverage reliever depth. There are options in free agency and there should be options available in trade for a price tag that does not include a big league starter.

Don’t bet on it

While anything can happen – Dipoto and Hollander will always listen to offers – it seems unlikely a move involving a starter will be made this winter. Last offseason it was explored, but at that time the Mariners found themselves in a different situation that Dipoto acknowledged last week on ESPN’s Baseball Tonight with Buster Olney podcast.

“It was something we explored a great deal last year at this time,” Dipoto told Olney, “and a lot of that was due to some of the payroll or economic restrictions that we were likely to deal with. This year, not so much. While we’re open to exploring anything, and we have talked to multiple teams about a variety of what I would call just making good baseball trades this year, those trades won’t be financially motivated.”

Drayer: What makes ‘Who is the best Mariners pitcher?’ a great question

Playing in the ballpark they play in, seeing what happens to offense there in the first two months of the season, and, quite frankly, the struggles with finding offense in recent years that has translated into – that all plays a part in not being eager to make a move.

Starting pitching has been Seattle’s backbone. There has been far more certainty in pitching than hitting for the Mariners.

Whether or not now is the right time to roll the dice remains to be seen, but when it comes to impact, the surer bet would seem to be on the arms.

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