Stephen Vogt’s name has become one of the more surprising ones to watch this offseason, and the Mariners angle is only making the speculation louder.
Seattle’s opening came after the club fired manager Dan Wilson at the end of September, and the conversation picked up again once the Guardians were out of the postseason and more people could fully turn their attention to what Vogt’s next move might look like. MLB.com’s Anthony Castrovince added more fuel to that talk earlier this week during an appearance on 92.3.
“As I said on air, I don’t want this aggregated into something definitive when it’s not. Would have been unfair to ask Vogt this during playoff run & he wouldn’t answer straight anyway.
He’s under contract. But impossible not to wonder if SEA becomes an option for him.
That’s all.”
Castrovince also pointed to a practical reason the Seattle fit keeps coming up: Vogt’s family lives in Olympia, Washington, which is about an hour from Seattle. He noted that it’s been tough for Vogt to spend so much of the season away from his family, and a move to Seattle would solve that issue.
Still, the biggest hurdle is obvious. Vogt remains under contract with the Guardians, even if the exact length isn’t known publicly. ESPN’s Jeff Passan reported last year that Vogt signed a multi-year deal after the 2024 season.
That means Seattle would have to be ready to pay up, and then some, before Cleveland would even seriously consider moving him.
Manager trades are rare enough already. They’ve happened only five times in MLB history: Joe Gordon to the Tigers for Jimmy Dykes in 1960, Chuck Tanner to the Pirates for Manny Sanguillen in 1977, Lou Piniella to the Devil Rays for Randy Winn in 2002, Ozzie Guillén and Ricardo Andres to the Marlins for Jhan Marinez and Ozzie Martinez in 2011, and John Farrell to the Red Sox for Mike Aviles and David Carpenter in 2012.
Any deal for Vogt would have to clear a much higher bar than those swaps. He’s had plenty of success with the Guardians, he’s only 41, and he’s still under contract.
And the Mariners aren’t the only team dealing with this kind of uncertainty. The source of the issue is the same: former Astros manager Joe Espada, and it’s hard to imagine the process dragging on much longer.
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For a team still trying to add more power to the lineup, the calculus is not simple. Cleveland can keep Kwan and explore an extension, or it can listen to trade interest before he gets any closer to free agency, and the speculation around him has not gone away even with his recent surge. That leaves the front office trying to balance present value, payroll concerns and the possibility that one of its most reliable players could become the centerpiece of a bigger offseason decision. [Read more 🡒]