With less than one month remaining until spring training, the Seattle Mariners are still working on finalizing a roster that they believe can contend for the first World Series in franchise history.

So far this offseason, the M's have brought back Josh Naylor on a five-year deal worth $92.5 million and signed Rob Refsnyder and Andrew Knizner to one-year deals. They also acquired hard-throwing reliever Jose Ferrer in a trade for catching prospect Harry Ford.

But there's still more to do. The Mariners could use another arm in the bullpen and they could use an additional offensive piece. The name we keep hearing is Brendan Donovan of the St. Louis Cardinals, and Adam Jude of the Seattle Times recently indicated that he still believes the M's will are best suited to land the talented All-Star.

But over the last two days, additional trade possibilities with the Cardinals have arisen. One Cardinals reporter linked the M's to reliever JoJo Romero, and on Thursday, Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic connected them to outfielder Lars Nootbaar.

"The idea of Lars Nootbaar and Brendan Donovan together in Seattle, I could see that being a possibility."

@Ken_Rosenthal still sees the Mariners as the favorite for Brendan Donovan.

Now 28 years old, Nootbaar is a five-year veteran of the Cardinals. He's a career .242 hitter who has hit between 12-14 homers in each of the last four seasons. A disciplined hitter, his career on-base percentage (.341) is 99 points higher than his career batting average. 

Nootbaar famously helped Team Japan win the 2023 World Baseball Classic, but he will not play this time around as he's recovering from dueling heel surgeries. 

He's under team control for two more seasons.

The Mariners are looking to improve their contact rate and Nootbaar is solid in that regard -- his strikeout rates have hovered around 20 percent his entire career, which is lower than the league averages. He runs fairly well and plays solid defense, both of which are valuable to the Mariners.

First off, Nootbaar hit just .201 against left-handers in 2025, so he mainly projects as a platoon player. If that's the case, the Mariners already have multiple of those in the left-handed form of Luke Raley and Dominic Canzone. Do they really need more of them? And would they really move on from one of them in order to get Nootbaar?

Secondly, the cost to get Donovan is already going to be high. Do the Mariners really want to go and add more to bring in a player that doesn't definitely make them better - and who is coming off dueling foot surgeries? That seems unlikely.

It's understandable that Rosenthal thinks the Mariners need a better answer in right field, but is Nootbaar really better than a platoon group of Raley/Canzone/Victor Robles/Refsnyder?

It doesn't feel like it.

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