3 Yankees-Mariners trades we’re surprised haven’t happened yet

We don’t get it. Don’t the Yankees like attempting to pluck pieces from the league’s middling teams?

Don’t the Mariners like to trade with anyone and everyone, one of the few teams in baseball so enthusiastically willing to wheel and deal that Jerry Dipoto and Co. don’t avoid the Yankees at all costs?

So what’s the holdup here? Where’s the moving and shaking in an offseason where both sides can clearly help each other?

The Yanks and M’s haven’t made a deal since the James Paxton trade of late 2018, which you could label a disappointment only because of how we lost 2020 nearly in its entirety due to injuries that may never have arisen if not for a pandemic-filled back surgery rehab. We’ll never know.

Though the most iconic moment in Mariners history involves the Yankees — that depressing Edgar Martinez double into the corner to cap a comeback from down 0-2 in the ALDS — one could argue the Yanks were smart for losing that game and keeping baseball in Seattle. After all, if the M’s had left, we might never have gotten Paxton’s ALCS Game 5 start, or Montero-for-Pineda, or Ichiro, or … Dustin Ackley!

OK, missing out on that one might’ve been fine.

Bottom line, though, we’re getting antsy. And in much the same way they did when they dealt us Tino Martinez following Don Mattingly’s retirement, the Mariners could again insert themselves in the Yankees’ hole-filling conversation.

3. Marco Gonzales Trade

The Yankees could still use as many possible innings-soaking arms as they can get in the rotation mix, and Marco Gonzales has the highest upside with the least impressive stuff of any potentially-available starter.

All Gonzales does is induce soft contact and, generally, thrive, and his rubber arm could be quite valuable in a rotation that doesn’t have a lot of sure things involved.

Under control through 2024 and equipped with a team option that takes him through the next year, too, the Mariners have plenty of leverage in any Gonzales talks that ensue, especially since the crafty lefty posted the best numbers of his career in 2020 (7-2, 3.10 ERA, 64 whiffs in 69.2 innings pitched).

What would a Marco Gonzales trade cost the Yankees?

Gonzales will not be a bargain. He certainly won’t be any easier to obtain than Paxton, whose greatest weaknesses were his greatest strengths. Paxton brings high variance; Gonzales brings durability, and he’ll bring it to your rotation for quite a while.

It would be difficult to see the Yankees escaping these talks without surrendering both Deivi Garcia and Luis Medina, but it would give them a guaranteed bracket to their rotation. A load-bearing arm, which they currently do not have for Game 3.

Yusei Kikuchi #18 of the Seattle Mariners (Photo by Thearon W. Henderson/Getty Images)

2. Yusei Kikuchi Trade

Yusei Kikuchi arrived in the bigs as a 27-year-old just in time for Opening Day of the 2019 season, which took place against the Oakland A’s in the Toyko Dome in Japan. It was a pretty cool scene that portended great things from the man who was sure to be Seattle’s next great Japanese import.

Unfortunately, things haven’t turned out the way Kikuchi envisioned when he agreed to be posted prior to that campaign; both of his MLB seasons have finished with ERAs over 5.00.

Things did start to trend in the right direction for the buy-low candidate in 2020, though, as his whiff rate climbed close to where it needs to be (47 in 47 innings, following a disappointing and bedeviling 116 in 161.2 innings the year prior).

Most people intentionally ignore the underlying statistics in order to keep up their preconceived notions — in other words, Yusei I only hear what I want to.

There is a lot to like below the surface of what Kikuchi did last season, including his world-class FIP of 3.30 (meaning his true-talent ERA could’ve been a remarkable run-and-a-half lower than his output) and his lowered WHIP, down to 1.298 from 1.515. Bottom line, Kikuchi handled his own business far better in 2020 and controlled the controllables in Year 2.

So, how could the Yankees get Kikuchi?

No matter how much you like the peripheral progress, Kikuchi was still quite bad last year, and is only under contract for 2021 in case he struggles again in Year 3 — there’s an endless stream of team options baked in for every year from 2022 through 2025.

It’s like Trevor Bauer’s obsession with one-year deals except the player has no power at all. Weird!

Without a lot of security or any on-field production to definitively point to, we’d guess Kikuchi could go for just a pair of 40-man guys; perhaps Mike Ford, who the Mariners swiped in the Rule 5 once upon a time?