How Mariners’ trade deadline fix could come from ’21 Braves

The Seattle Mariners’ trade deadline needs seem imposing, even if they mostly all fall into the same category.

The M’s need bats. Emphasis on the pluralization.

Losses, hitting woes, injuries piling up for reeling Mariners

Seattle’s offense is in rough shape. It had already been bad before the All-Star break, when the Mariners were clinging onto an evaporating but still existing lead in the AL West. That lead is now gone, and the offense has turned from worrisome to not even functional, scoring all of three runs combined as they were swept in three games by the lowly Angels this week. Oh, and J.P. Crawford and Julio Rodríguez are on the injured list now, too.

There have been all kinds of big names thrown out as potential trade targets to help save the M’s lineup, including Vladimir Guerrero Jr., Luis Robert Jr. and Isaac Paredes. But as next Tuesday’s trade deadline approaches, the number of well-known sluggers available seems to only be shrinking due to MLB’s current traffic jam of a playoff race.

Seems like a problem for the Mariners, right? Well, yes. But then again, maybe this was never the path Seattle needed to take anyways. Their offensive holes are myriad, and an All-Star with a high price tag on the trade market still only fills one spot in the batting order.

The Mariners, as ESPN MLB insider Jeff Passan put it Tuesday during his weekly conversation with Seattle Sports’ Brock and Salk, need to “re-shape” their roster. No easy task in the middle of the season, as evidenced by the fact that when Passan was asked by Mike Salk if there’s an example of a team that’s ever done that, he couldn’t think of an answer.

There probably isn’t a team that has “re-shaped” itself in one single trade deadline, but when I heard the exchange between Passan and Salk, it made me think of one recent World Series winner who pulled off something that looks an awful lot like what the Mariners could use right about now.

The Braves blueprint

The 2021 Atlanta Braves lost two key outfielders for the season: Marcell Ozuna and Ronald Acuña Jr., the latter of whom tore his ACL just 10 days before the trade deadline. Rather than letting that demoralizing injury to their young superstar at a particularly inopportune time derail their season, the Braves took a chance that, in hindsight, wasn’t even all that risky. They were 51-54 and five games back in the NL East on the day of the deadline, but they looked at how wide open the race was in a down year for the division (sound familiar?), decided to throw their eggs all in one basket, then (apology for combining metaphors here) throw the whole basket at the wall.

On July 30, 2021, the Braves made three separate one-for-one trades for veteran outfielders who could hit. They got Eddie Rosario from Cleveland for a past-his-prime Pablo Sandoval. They acquired Jorge Soler from the Royals for pitching prospect Kasey Kalich. And they brought back a familiar face in Atlanta, Adam Duvall, by sending Alex Jackson to Miami for him.

There was another trade before the Acuña injury that actually got this ball rolling. On July 15, the Braves got Joc Pederson from the Cubs for first base prospect Bryce Ball.

Did it work? Well, the Braves went 37-19 the rest of the way and won the NL East with an 88-73 record, then saw big moments from each of those four hitters they acquired during a postseason run that ended with them hoisting the World Series trophy in Houston. None of those trades were blockbusters, but together, those experienced hitters sure made a difference.

Sounds like a blueprint the Mariners could attempt to follow that has potential for low risk and high reward, and would satisfy a fanbase desperate to see action to repair a broken offense.

How it applies to the Mariners

This isn’t to say the the Mariners are exactly like those Braves were. Atlanta still had Freddie Freeman and Austin Riley in its lineup. The M’s don’t have any hitters of that caliber (unless Julio gets it going upon his return), but their pitching now is a tick better than the Braves’ was then (and that Atlanta pitching staff was still pretty good).

This also isn’t to say that the market at the trade deadline this year is anything like it was for the Braves in ’21, because it most likely isn’t. There are a lot of potential buyers and only so few clear sellers, so maybe Seattle can’t swing four one-for-one deals that cost them hardly any players of consequence. But there has to be opportunity somewhere, right?

The Mariners find themselves arguably in a better spot than Atlanta was in then, too, because they’re just a game behind Houston in the AL West. Yeah, the 10-game lead that Seattle had in the division just last month is long gone, and things have been bleak especially since the All-Star break, but there are still two months to go in the season. It’s not too late to get this thing turned around.

The M’s don’t need to turn into an offensive juggernaut. We all know how good this rotation has been. The bullpen has had its issues lately, sure, but the offense has basically been asking it to be perfect. That’s not a recipe for success. Seattle just needs its offense to produce near an average level to take advantage of its truly elite pitching staff.

Bringing in three or four veteran bats could be all the difference the Mariners need. Remember how important Carlos Santana was as a midseason trade addition for the M’s in 2022? Think how different Seattle’s lineup would look if you added a few hitters just around that level to this lineup.

Soler may be out there again with his San Francisco Giants five games under .500. Infielder Paul DeJong has 17 home runs for a White Sox team going nowhere. Switch-hitting first baseman Josh Bell is on one of the clear sellers, the Miami Marlins. None of them would move the needle on their own, but they have experience that could pay off down the stretch.

I know it’s a tough sell to Mariners fans tired of seeing hitters in their 30s come to Seattle and fall flat, but you have to try something. And if a haul of hitters like that trio doesn’t work, none of them should cost the Mariners any of their cache of prospects ranked in the top 100 by Baseball America and MLB.com, so it’s not that much of a risk.

You know what else that means? It shouldn’t get in the way of the Mariners still using one or more of those prospects to get a bigger bat on the market like, say, Paredes or Oakland slugger Brent Rooker.

Yeah, it’s bad right now. But it isn’t over, and the answer to saving this Mariners season may not be as painful as you think.

More on Seattle Mariners and MLB trade deadline

• Trade Rumor: M’s ‘pretty aggressive’ trying to get Guerrero, says insider
• Passan: Mariners’ recent slide shouldn’t change their trade plans
• Mariners Trade Targets: Three bats from teams on the bubble
• ESPN’s Passan: One hitter makes most sense for a Mariners trade
• Salk: The bats Seattle Mariners could pursue at limited trade deadline

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