We all know Henri Matisse the painter, with his vivid use of color and bold brushstrokes, leading with emotion over realism (distinct characteristics of Fauvism, so named after critics referred to the artists of the movement as fauves, or “wild beasts”). But in his later years, declining health made painting inaccessible, so he shifted to cut-outs, with aid from his studio assistants. Matisse would hold the scissors and they would rotate the paper until he’d reached his desired shape, and from there they would pin the cut-out to a surface, be it paper or wall, that allowed him to continue to adjust its location.
Initially dismissed as childish, respect for this era of Matisse’s work grew over time. They are deceptively simple and utterly beguiling, beckoning the viewer to look again, and again, and again. One of the most frequently cited examples of negative space, they are an eternally paradoxical visual of cause-and-effect. Which part of the piece was the original cutout? What part is leftover? In some pieces, like “Composition, Black and Red,” Matisse used both the positive and negative forms of the cut-out, leaving the viewer to puzzle further over what matches and what is just in imitation.
Henri Matisse. Composition, Black and Red (Composition, noir et rouge). 1947 – Museum of Modern Art
Right now, before the season has begun, before pitchers and catchers have even reported for Spring Training, the reality of José Ferrer is obscured by the looming negative space left behind by Harry Ford. A high-profile trade where your team receives a reliever can be hard to swallow. A high-profile trade where your team trades their MLB-ready first round draft pick for a reliever can be like trying to stuff a chainsaw down your gullet. I don’t seek to relitigate the grading of the trade here; that’s been done many times over and, frankly, the deal itself is done. It’s time to move on. Instead, let us peer into that space and see what shape Ferrer might take in Seattle.
Jerry Dipoto and his front office have allegedly had their eyes on Ferrer since 2019 when, according to Daniel Kramer’s story, they tried to acquire him at the trade deadline. “We feel like we got the number one trade target on our list,” Dipoto crowed at the Winter Meetings. And while Ferrer lacked some of the name recognition of baseball’s top relievers, he’s squarely alongside – or ahead – of them on various leaderboards. He’s got a sub-3.0 FIP in his last two years of work, having adjusted some early-career control challenges and mitigating hard contact – in 2025, he only allowed five home runs in his 76.1 innings. As Connor Donovan pointed out in the news write-up, he is an elite ground ball pitcher whose ground ball rate of 62.6% was third among all relievers (minimum 50 innings pitched), after Jhoan Duran and Tim Hill.
Ferrer leads with a 98 MPH sinker, the fuel for those groundball rates, and mixes in a slider against lefties and a changeup for righties. A welcome second lefty in the ‘pen, he is a compelling player for the Mariners’ pitching development staff to tinker with. On a basic level, it seems likely they’ll have him seek to diversify his pitch mix, upping the changeup and slider rates and easing back on the fastball. I would also be quite curious to watch his bullpens in Spring Training, to see if any adjustments are made to his slider, which is certainly effective as-is but lacks some of the command that could maximize its efficacy like this nasty game-ender:
As John Trupin wrote earlier this week, Eduard Bazardo was a workhorse for Seattle’s bullpen last year, throwing 18 ⅓ innings on no rest – eighth-most in MLB. At sixth was Ferrer, pitching for 20 innings after an outing the day before. The Nationals were using him as their primary closer by the end of 2025, but that obviously will not be his role in Seattle. With club control through 2029, there’s ample flexibility for his development and his position within the ‘pen. His presence eases the burden on Gabe Speier when it comes to facing high-leverage lefties, and while they certainly would never be so rigid, it’s not hard to imagine a routine with Ferrer in the seventh, Matt Brash in the eight and Andres Munoz to close it out. Currently, the Mariners are looking at a locked-in relief corps of Munoz, Brash, Speier, Bazardo and Ferrer. That’s the kind of bullpen core that World Series teams are made of.
To the surprise of nobody who knows me, I found it exceptionally hard, in my ill-fated college art class, to relinquish control and make room for the negative space. I wanted to fill and coax and bodily drag the viewer into seeing exactly what I intended by drawing it all out for them. But that’s not how negative space works. It’s meant to be left alone, to shape through absence, and it tests both the resolution of the artist and the presence of the art around it. It is a show of strength, a leap not of faith but of surety, to leave blank space upon a canvas.