The Seattle Mariners have a pleasantly manageable shopping list for filling out their roster this holiday season. Returning Josh Naylor has satisfied the most obvious issue with their lineup, leaving the M\u2019s with at least one more infield bat and\/or DH to acquire for at least a satisfactory reload at defending their AL West title (wow that\u2019s novel to write). The rest of the improvements seem likely to be focused on the bullpen, which is strong at the back, but could use reinforcement to mitigate another season like 2025 where the rotation is less than teflon. Fortunately for the folks who\u2019ve brought you DDT (Draft, Develop, Trade), the league just became slightly more Jerry-attuned.<\/p>\n
The Colorado Rockies, fresh off hiring Paul DePodesta away from the Cleveland Browns (of the National Football League, not the 1924 National Negro Leagues club of the same name) to be their President of Baseball Operations, have inked Josh Byrnes to be their General Manager. Byrnes has spent the past decade and change as Andrew Friedman\u2019s scouting and farm system director for the Los Angeles Dodgers, ultimately departing with the title of Senior Vice President for his return to GM-hood in Denver. Byrnes goes way back with Jerry Dipoto, having been front office members together in the late 90s and early 2000s in Colorado, moving to the Boston Red Sox in 2003-04 alongside Dipoto, then bringing Dipoto along to Arizona when Byrnes became the GM of the Diamondbacks. Dipoto took over as interim GM for Byrnes when he was fired in 2010, though Byrnes landed on his feet at the helm of the Padres for the 2011-2014 seasons.<\/p>\n
This longtime relationship may shatter the ice on one of the most surprising barriers in the Dipoto era. Just two clubs have not made a trade of some sort with Seattle since he took the helm after the 2015 season: his prior employer the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim, and the Colorado Rockies. The last move consummated by Seattle and the Rox was the April, 2013 deal sending RHP prospect Steven Hensley to Colorado for veteran RHP Aaron Harang, a swap Seattle managed to lose despite Hensley never making the majors as the Harangatan was atrocious with the M\u2019s. Byrnes\u2019 arrival may signal a new era in Colorado, and the inexplicable embargo\u2019s lifting provides a viable fit for both ballclubs to address their needs.<\/p>\n
The Rockies have little at the big league level worth harvesting for a World Series contender like Seattle (again, wow, what fun). 24 year old shortstop Ezequiel Tovar is coming off a disappointing, injury-marred campaign. He is the only player projected by Steamer and FanGraphs\u2019 Depth Charts to outperform any Seattle position player at their corresponding position, and only by a few tenths of a point does his WAR expectation outdo that of J.P. Crawford. Rockies ace, veteran LHP Kyle Freeland, narrowly projects to outperform M\u2019s No. 5 starter Bryce Miller.<\/p>\n
You don\u2019t lose 119 games on accident, folks.<\/p>\n
Despite this, Colorado has an interesting assortment of relievers, several of whom may now be available with new leadership at the helm. Seattle faces Rockies prospects at three of the four affiliated levels (Low-A Modesto \u2014> now Inland Empire, High-A Everett, and Triple-A Tacoma), meaning the system is familiar even if the only exposure the big league club had came in the division-clinching homestand to close 2025.<\/p>\n
RHPs Victor Vodnik, Seth Halvorsen, Zach Agnos, and\/or Jaden Hill<\/p>\n
Be still our hearts, as this murderer\u2019s row strikes fear in the hearts of, okay, precious few. Colorado\u2019s pen features many unrefined ores, some of whom show glimmers of greatness under a pile of mountain dust. Here\u2019s a brief report on each, followed by a possible package or two:<\/p>\n
The most prized of the group from my perspective, Vodnik has been the source of lofty expectations<\/a> from Rockies fans at times. While he\u2019s not an ace reliever, he\u2019s more in the pre-acquisition Gregory Santos range as a flawed player with obvious big time talent. The 26 year old has a 4.06\/3.85 ERA\/FIP in 133.0 innings of relief across the past three seasons, spending portions of 2024 and 2025 as the de facto closer for Colorado following injuries and trades. Mariners fans may be most familiar with him for yielding Josh Naylor\u2019s bases-clearing double to functionally clinch a playoff berth in late September, and that pitch highlights Vodnik\u2019s biggest bugaboo. Despite sitting 98-99 mph and routinely clipping triple-digits, Vodnik has one of the most hittable four-seamers in baseball. Coors Field doesn\u2019t help matters (for him or any of this crew), but Vodnik\u2019s heater has a Justus Sheffield-esque lack of rise that, along with mediocre command, makes it an awful pitch.<\/p>\n Fortunately, VV has two ferocious off-speed pitches that Seattle could encourage him to use more relentlessly, as much of his repertoire is well-geared towards groundball and swing-and-miss contact if his heater is secondary or tertiary. Giving Vodnik the Andr\u00e9s Mu\u00f1oz pitch mix would allow his slider and changeup to shine, even with no other tweaks. Here are those two, respectively.<\/p>\n You could put almost every bit of the kit together for Vodnik, add a few inches of height and a few ticks of velo and call it good, and you\u2019ve got Halvorsen. That\u2019s reductive, of course, as the will-be 26 year old righty from Tennessee has flashed traits of<\/a> one of the game\u2019s more impressive relievers when healthy. Halvorsen roars in at triple digits on average with his four-seam, and pairs it with a split-change and slider of his own. In the minors, as the majors, he struggled with command, which ultimately lost him high-leverage work in his first full big league season before a flexor strain sidelined him in early August. He should be full go in spring, and has a 4.15\/4.89 ERA\/FIP in 52.0 IP that belies the potency of his stuff. The length of time still under his contract (at least five years of club control) might make him trickiest to target, though the Mariners new bullpen coach<\/a> will have some familiarity with all of these folks.<\/p>\n Another injury-stifled Rockie, Agnos threw 31.1 innings in his debut campaign, earning a few cracks at high-leverage work but ultimately getting shelled into mop-up work before an elbow issue sidelined him for all of August and most of September. Shaped like Vodnik in an aptly compact, fantasy dwarven stockiness that powers his mountain-level high heat, Agnos is the first of this group to demonstrate quality backspin skills on his fastball. That\u2019s good, as the heater sits a few ticks down at a \u201cmere\u201d 95-96 mph. The East Carolina standout was untouchable when I saw him with High-A Spokane a year ago, and up until running an atrocious 56.1% strand rate in the bigs and wearing a few massive innings with the moribund Rockies, he\u2019d seemed like a multi-inning stalwart. With a quality changeup and a couple variations on his off-speed, both of which should be leaned on more aggressively (sensing a theme?), Agnos has the stache and the stash to be a more appealing depth arm than some of the back end options Seattle\u2019s currently rocking.<\/p>\n 26 years old. Stellar numbers in the minors. Sits in the upper-90s with their fastball. Should really ditch (one of) his fastball(s). No, you\u2019re not seeing quadruple. Hill comes with a greater heraldry, having been a seven-figure signee as the 44th pick of the 2021 draft out of LSU, following an uneven career on campus. Injuries and a cessation of starting on the way up have waylaid Hill at multiple stops, robbing him of his consistency and command, albeit not his ability to induce whiffs. 2025 seemed like the coalescence, as the 6\u20194 righty found home near enough the zone to let his four pitch mix eat. Hill was the most promising of the bunch in the bigs last year, with a 3.38\/3.44 ERA\/FIP, and his heater\/slider\/changeup combo is quite imposing, though he may need to ditch his sinker.<\/p>\n Mariners send RHP Logan Evans, 2B Ryan Bliss, and OF Kevin Alcantara What I am seeking in this deal is to not purely assume Colorado will tear down to the baseboards and seek low-minors options for even cost-controlled arms like the three included. Another version of this deal centers around C Luke Stevenson and, say, RHPs Walter Ford and\/or Ruddy Navarro, but this is the version more tangible and, to my mind, plausible.<\/p>\n Seattle ships away one of its primary rotation depth options, a 25 year old to-be whose primary role headed into 2026 seems assuredly No. 6-8 starter, if things go well for the M\u2019s. The highly touted ascent of LHP Kade Anderson should not be counted upon, but clearly is in Seattle\u2019s consideration as a \u201cthis year\u201d situation, which would certify Evans as depth over design in terms of his rotation role. That doesn\u2019t make him superfluous, but to an organization like Colorado still casting about wildly with their rotation, slated to start Ryan Feltner and Tanner Gordon, Evans can carve a better path to earning a long-term role.<\/p>\n
Rockies send RHP Victor Vodnik, RHP Zach Agnos, UTIL Tyler Freeman, and LHP Luis Peralta<\/p>\n