A big offseason has arrived for the Seattle Mariners.
When a team gets to Game 7 of the championship series, everything takes on an added urgency in the winter, because there’s a desire to get over that final hump. That’s especially true for the Mariners, who have never even played in a World Series and were oh so close.
They’ve got a couple high-caliber free agents to make decisions on, Josh Naylor and Eugenio Suarez.
But beyond that, there could be big moves to make with other teams, as well.
Bleacher Report predicts one such move that’s really a double whammy, suggesting that the Mariners will make a trade with the Tampa Bay Rays to acquire both Yandy Diaz and Brandon Lowe.
“The small-market club is always looking to get younger and cheaper, and that generally means trading away veteran talent each offseason,” B/R writes. “Yandy Díaz ($12 million salary) and Brandon Lowe ($11.5 million club option) will be two of the highest-paid players on the team next year, and the odds are high that at least one of them will be traded. The Mariners could be a landing spot for both of them in a packaged deal, and with baseball’s top farm system, they have the prospect talent to make that type of move if they are prepared to go all-in on chasing a championship in 2026.”
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The predictions article also writes that the Mariners will bring back Naylor but not Suarez.
It’s not immediately clear how Jorge Polanco would fit into the new plan, given that between Lowe, Diaz and Naylor, you pretty much have your second baseman, first baseman and DH in some arrangement.
But it’d be an exciting move in a headline, for sure. Lowe and Diaz can both still really hit. Seattle would love to add a couple bats like that to the lineup, if the cost wasn’t too high.
