Seattle Mariners Received Inquiries From Teams For All 5 Starting Pitchers
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The Seattle Mariners had clear needs going into the offseason: first, second and third base. The Mariners had limited payroll of roughly $15-20 million to find solutions for all three positions. The limited funds available led to speculation that the organization would look to the trade market to find an answer.
Aside from some depth moves made to the 40-man roster, the trade market yielded no solutions for Seattle. The only two starting-caliber bats the Mariners acquired, Jorge Polanco and Donovan Solano, were both free agents.
It was an unusually slow offseason for the Mariners, who haven't been shy to make deals during President of Baseball Operation Jerry Dipoto's nine-year tenure in the front office. And the reason why there weren't any significant trades looks to be because of Seattle's unwillingness to break up their elite pitching rotation.
In a news conference held via Zoom on Feb. 3, Dipoto emphasized the organization's desire to keep the rotation together for 2025, and shined some light on why that made the trade market difficult to navigate.
"Not shockingly, we had inquiries on all five of our starting pitchers and dozens of prospects along the way," Dipoto said in the news conference. "Obviously, we opted not to go that route. We had more than a few deals that made you scratch your head and say, 'hey, what do you think guys?' But by and large, we just feel like the value of what our pitching staff, as a whole, provides us — there's a reason why we were so good pitching at home. Because the guys attack the strike zone, they're really good at what they do, they buy into our programs. ... Why disrupt that?"
Pitchers To Do The Following since 1969
— Switch (@IISwitchII) January 15, 2025
≥ 205.0 IP
≥ 220 K’s
≤ 0.900 WHIP
2024 Logan Gilbert
2019 Gerrit Cole
2019 Justin Verlander
2015 Clayton Kershaw
2015 Jake Arrieta
2004 Randy Johnson
2000 Pedro Martinez pic.twitter.com/ffSJJRUqF0
According to Dipoto, most of the trade interest from other teams was directed towards the starting rotation. Seattle was firm on trying to keep the group together and the organization was already expecting a slow offseason (per Dipoto). Based on his comments, it seems like it would have taken a huge haul for the Mariners to even consider moving one of their starters.
Unless something unexpected develops in the next several weeks, Seattle will go into spring training and the regular season with the starting rotation intact. And the only position left to sort out in the lineup is second base.
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