The Mariners’ bullpen has been battered enough that the idea of a “super ’pen” no longer sounds like a luxury. It sounds like a plan.
Matt Brash, Cooper Criswell and Carlos Vargas are all expected back sometime in August, and there’s already been chatter about Kade Anderson and Ryan Sloan joining the mix for the stretch run. But if Seattle really wants to lean into that vision, the move that changes everything is clear: go get Mason Miller.
With the Aug. 3 trade deadline closing in, the Mariners need at least one impact reliever, especially with no firm timetable on Brash, Criswell or Vargas and the possibility of more setbacks. The best available arm might be the best reliever in the game.
Miller’s numbers are outrageous: a 0.96 ERA, a 0.796 WHIP and a 48.6 strikeout rate. He sits in the 100th percentile in Fastball Velo, Hard-Hit%, Whiff% and xBA, and he leads the NL with 23 saves.
For a Mariners club that has gotten improved but still uneven work from Andrés Muñoz, that kind of cover would be huge.
The obvious catch is that Miller plays for the Padres, and the question is whether they’d actually move him. Mark Feinsand of MLB.com has raised that possibility, and there is at least some reason to think it could happen.
San Diego has stumbled to 46-46 after once being 11 games over .500. The Padres are 14.0 games behind the Dodgers in the NL West and 4.5 games out of the NL’s final wild card spot, with the sixth-worst record in the league.
You can understand why they might at least listen.
Still, this would be a massive swing. The Padres only acquired Miller from the Athletics a year ago, and it cost them a major package, headlined by shortstop Leo De Vries, now the No. 2 prospect in baseball according to MLB Pipeline.
The expectation is that it would take another huge haul to pry him loose, and one NL executive Feinsand spoke with believes it would be hard for A. J.
Preller to get the same kind of return this time because no other general manager thinks quite like he does.
Even so, San Diego would still likely get a serious package back. The real question is whether the Padres are willing to absorb a little less value than what they gave up to land Miller in the first place.
For Seattle, that’s the kind of gamble that fits the moment. The Mariners have already lived through too many games where one shutdown inning would have flipped the result.
If they truly believe this is a World Series team, then this is the time to act like it. Miller would fit the pitching-first identity, and in a market where impact hitters are scarce, he stands out even more.
He’s also not a rental. Miller is under club control through 2029, which makes the price easier to justify.
Yes, it would push Jerry Dipoto outside his usual comfort zone. But if the Mariners want to show they’re all-in on this season, this is the kind of move that says it plainly.
In Other News...
Mariners Just Suffered Another Brutal Loss They Handed Away
The Mariners left Miami with a sweep on their record and another reminder of how quickly a game can slip away when the margin for error disappears. Seattle fell 8-4 in the finale after the fourth inning turned into the kind of defensive mess that has haunted this club at times, with Bryce Miller unable to stop the damage once the Marlins started stacking contact and pressure.
Before the game got away, Seattle had a chance to set a different tone early but came up empty with runners on. Josh Naylor later provided a brief spark with some aggressive baserunning, but the offense never fully caught up to the hole it had dug, and Millers rough afternoon only deepened the frustration as the series ended with the Mariners having handed away another one. [Read more 🡒]
Mariners Keep Running Into The Same Development Problem
Seattle has done a solid job over the years turning out big leaguers at a lot of spots, but first base has remained the glaring exception in its development pipeline. Alvin Davis stands out as the lone clear homegrown success there, and the club has spent much of its history patching the position with outside help instead of waiting for a drafted first baseman to become the answer.
That pattern has only sharpened the focus on how hard this spot has been to solve internally, especially after recent attempts did not give the Mariners the kind of long-term stability they wanted. The front office has kept circling back to trades and free-agent fixes at first, which says plenty about where the organization sees its own system and why the search for a true homegrown fit still feels unfinished. [Read more 🡒]