Ronny Mauricio’s place with the Mets looks shaky enough that a trade is starting to feel less like a possibility and more like the logical next step.
Mauricio never really got a long runway in 2026. His best chance to make a real impression came when Francisco Lindor landed on the IL with a calf injury, but Mauricio got hurt soon after and never turned that opening into a sustained run.
He finished with only 20 major league games under his belt, hitting .220/.258/.441. Three of his four home runs came in the final two games, and his 4-for-7 finish pulled the season line out of the gutter a bit.
Even so, the Mets’ handling of him told the story. They had chances to play him down the stretch and barely did.
With no minor league options left, Mauricio is in the kind of spot where a move feels inevitable. Rather than non-tender him, the Mets should be working the phones, and the first call should go to Seattle.
The Mariners make sense as the first team to ask about Mauricio because they have obvious issues on the left side of the infield. They were one of the weakest clubs statistically at both shortstop and third base, with injury and poor performance both dragging them down.
J.P. Crawford is a free agent at shortstop, while Brendan Donovan is set to remain under team control for another year but can be moved around the diamond.
Seattle does have some young help coming, but it hasn’t been enough to erase the need. Colt Emerson, a 20-year-old shortstop who debuted this year, hit only .190 in 241 plate appearances before getting hurt. That doesn’t necessarily block a Mauricio deal, either, since he looks better suited to handle third base in the majors.
There’s also room for the two teams to line up in a broader deal. Seattle’s rotation was crowded until the club traded Luis Castillo to the Chicago White Sox at the deadline, and an injury to Emerson Hancock opened up another spot. With the Mariners having been cautious about payroll in the past, they could be a team willing to move another starter this winter.
A clean one-for-one swap does not really jump off the page. Logan Gilbert, even after a down year, is too much to discuss in a straight Mauricio deal, and the younger, more controllable arms are off limits. So if the Mets and Mariners do something here, it likely comes in one of three forms: Mauricio bundled in a package, Mauricio dealt for a player at another position to address a different Mets need, or Mauricio flipped for a prospect the front office believes it can develop.
The numbers underline the Mariners’ problem. Their -0.4 bWAR at third base ranked last in MLB, and their 0.6 bWAR at shortstop ranked 28th. Those are spots crying out for change, and Mauricio at least fits the profile of a player worth a look if Seattle’s offseason keeps trending toward bigger shakeups.
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