The Mariners will have to step outside their comfort zone, but are they willing? We asked Buster Olney of ESPN.
When the Seattle Mariners missed out on Jorge Polanco, I essentially said that I understood why the team wouldn't want to give a 32-year-old infielder coming off a career year a two-year and $40 million deal. Especially when he has an injury history as well.
However, I also said that in order to make the rest of the offseason a success that the M's were going to have to eventually get uncomfortable.
I said these exact words on the 'Refuse to Lose' podcast:
...Okay, if you don't want to do that, then what are the other options out there? All of them will make you uncomfortable in some way. Every single move you can make from this point forward will make you uncomfortable. Either you overpay Polanco, you could go out and you can sign Bo Bichette, you can sign Alex Bregman, you could sign Kyle Tucker, and you can pay massively in free agency, something we know they don't want to do, something that would make the team better, but something they don't want to do. That would make you uncomfortable. You can go out and trade three of your top prospects for Ketel Marte. You could trade a pitcher off your Major League roster to help expedite that deal, a Major League pitcher and multiple top prospects for Ketel Marte. That would make you uncomfortable.
And of course, the discomfort extends to other moves like potentially paying Eugenio Suarez to return, or trading top prospects for Brendan Donovan. The team could end up just giving jobs to Cole Young and Colt Emerson, but the uncertainty of their growth should also make them uncomfortable.
Well, I said those comments about two weeks ago, and thus far, nothing else has happened on the M's front. On the most recent edition of the podcast, I asked ESPN MLB Insider Buster Olney if the Mariners were being a little too risk-averse.
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Here's his answer:
Well, and I think that there are times when clearly that has been the case. I don't think how they've done their business over the last six months necessarily reflects that. I think they're being aggressive within their own context and where they fall in payroll. The fact that they went out at the trade deadline and stepped out for Eugenio Suarez and stepped out for Josh Naylor and then they paid Josh Naylor, you know, they're not like the Mets or the Yankees or the Toronto Blue Jays, the Dodgers, where they can just, I think, sort of willy nilly say, 'sure, we'll pay the extra 5%, the extra 10%.'
I think there'll be players that they'll do that with going forward. But maybe Jorge Polanco, who is a complementary support player versus being a core player, maybe that's where they drew the line, and I think it's absolutely reasonable that they did that.
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