Awful baseball teams tend to deal away veteran talent. Such is common practice in Major League Baseball.
The Seattle Mariners, until recently, fit the bill of one of those awful baseball teams. Only twice did they surpass the 75-win plateau from 2004 to 2013. The M’s, like any other dreadful team in their situation, dealt away most players of worth. Out the door went Cliff Lee, Michael Morse, Ichiro Suzuki, et al.
While Seattle has a recent history of losing trades in spectacular fashion (Rafael Soriano for Horacio Ramirez was a huge blunder), its trades with the Detroit Tigers have all generally gone up in flames.
Starting with the loss Carlos Guillen and winding through the transactions logs all the way to the Doug Fister debacle, here are some of the M’s notable failed trades with the Tigers.
Carlos Guillen
Mariners Acquired: Ramon Santiago and Juan Gonzalez
Tigers Acquired: Carlos Guillen
The history of these lopsided deals can be traced back to Carlos Guillen’s departure from Seattle.
Guillen was a solid, but not spectacular shortstop during his days in the Emerald City. He drove in 211 runs for the team from 1998 to 2003 and hit .264 along the way. Guillen also produced 122 extra base hits over four years as a regular contributor. A nifty feat considering shortstop is generally an offense-derived position.
Knowing this, you would think the Mariners would have received a return that ranked somewhere in between “good” and “great,” considering they were trading a solid offensive player (and not a shabby defender either) at a premium position not known for its hitting.
The Mariners received minor league pitcher Juan Gonzalez and infielder Ramon Santiago from Detroit.
Upon arriving in Motown, Guillen was a staple of the Tigers’ mid-2000 teams, was a three-time All-Star as a Tiger and garnered MVP votes on two separate occasions. At the peak of his powers in 2006, Guillen was an offensive-minded shortstop who had a WAR of 6.0, posted a .920 OPS with 85 runs batted in and 20 stolen bases.
Also an above-average defender, Guillen was quite the dynamic player in his prime. He would later show his versatility in Motown, moving all over the diamond to accommodate the likes of Brandon Inge and Miguel Cabrera while playing shortstop, third base, first base and left field.
Some of this was done to incorporate better hitters into the lineup, but it was also implemented to lengthen Guillen’s career. Before all of this, Guillen was a key player for the M’s at the turn of the century, appearing in close to 500 games (473 to be exact) from 2000 to 2003.
Back in Seattle, Gonzalez never panned out, and Santiago went back to Detroit. Yes, back to Detroit. The M’s let Santiago leave after he posted a .170 batting average and .482 OPS in Seattle. It can be argued that Santiago never received his chance with the Mariners. Yes, his numbers were exceptionally poor, but he only played in 27 games for Seattle.
Then Detroit pounced.
It’s one thing to lose a trade spectacularly because the player traded away went on to achieve massive success. It is, however, another thing entirely to have a team trade away a player who flourishes somewhere else, then let one of the key players acquired in return go back to the team that originally traded him.
Basically, the Tigers acquired Carlos Guillen for Ramon Santiago and a minor leaguer. Then Seattle gave up early on Santiago, who promptly went back to Detroit and became Guillen’s backup no less! In the long run, the Mariners came away with nothing while Detroit eventually had both Guillen and Santiago on payroll. Both players played a part in sending the Tigers to the World Series in 2006—a feat the Mariners have never accomplished.
This deal serves as the poster child example of a number of Mariner trades over the years. The M’s either give up on a player too early or don’t get enough in return. This is true of a number of players dealt to the Tigers. Guillen is part of a long list of players who the M’s shipped out, but who went on to achieve bigger and better things.
Jarrod Washburn
Mariners Acquired: Pitchers Luke French and Mauricio Robles (Minors)
Tigers Acquired: Jarrod Washburn
One player that Seattle didn’t give up on too early—but still failed to receive a proper value for—was Jarrod Washburn.
The M’s signed Washburn from the Angels before 2006. During his Seattle tenure, Washburn never posted an ERA under 4.30 and failed to surpass 10 wins in a single season. In fact, Washburn’s numbers were pretty pedestrian in his time in the Emerald City. Pedestrian, that is, until 2009 when the lefty went 8-6 with a 2.64 ERA in 20 starts. The M’s attempted to sell high on the former Angel, dealing him to the Tigers for Luke French and Mauricio Robles.
This simply wasn’t enough for a dependable innings eater like Washburn. Seattle needed young pitching, seeing as they were relying on Ian Snell and Chris Jakubauskas to pitch a major amount of innings, but French and Robles never panned out.
At the time of the trade, French and Robles weren’t elite prospects, but considering Washburn’s value, you feel like the Mariners could have gotten more from the trade. Despite Washburn struggling immensely in Motown, this still must be looked at as a win for the Tigers and, as a result, a loss for the Mariners. Seattle received two pitchers who didn’t have tremendous upsides when they could have received much more. French’s WAR over the course of his Seattle tenure was 0.1. Robles never reached the big leagues in a Mariners uniform.
Doug Fister
Mariners Acquired: Pitchers Charlie Furbush and Chance Ruffin, minor league third baseman Francisco Rodriguez and outfielder Casper Wells
Tigers Acquired: Doug Fister and relief pitcher David Pauley
The Mariners worst fleecing at the hands of the Tigers occurred at the 2011 MLB trade deadline when the M’s dealt Doug Fister to Detroit.
At the time, the trade was met with widespread shrugs. It turned out to be one of the most lopsided deals in recent history.
Fister has improved every single year since leaving the Mariners, starting off with a stretch run in 2011 when the ex-Mariner posted an 8-1 record with a 1.79 ERA and a highly absurd 57-5 strikeout-to-walk-ratio. Every season since, Fister’s WAR has inexplicably gone up, rising to 3.3 in 2012, 4.1 in 2013 and 4.5 in 2014. During the pitcher’s time in Detroit, he compiled 32 wins in two and a half seasons, nearly three times as many as he had over the same span in Seattle.
What was the Mariners’ return for a pitcher who was widely perceived as one of the best 20 players at his position?
Casper Wells, Charlie Furbush, minor leaguer Francisco Martinez and a player to be named later (Chance Ruffin). At first, the return seemed substantial. Wells and Furbush showed promise in limited action for the Tigers, while Martinez and Ruffin were both highly regarded prospects. Baseball America rated Martinez as the team’s fourth best prospect at the time, while Ruffin (a former first-round pick) was seventh. Both players ranked higher than Drew Smyly and Avisail Garcia.
That was 2011. This is 2014. The Mariners would go on to lose the trade in an absurd fashion. Fister has gone on to great success, while the M’s effectively acquired Furbush—a pitcher who has parlayed his career into that of a successful reliever with ERAs of 2.72, 3.74 and 3.61 in the last three seasons. Other than that, the players acquired failed to stick.
Wells never got a chance to claim a full-time job as he was pushed out of an overcrowded Seattle outfield. To further the point, Wells hit .126 with a .334 OPS and had one singular RBI in 53 games for three different major league teams in 2013. None of them included the Mariners.
The highest rated prospect in the deal (Martinez) had a mixed bag of results during his time in the Mariners’ organization. He got off to a solid start, hitting .310 in 33 games in Double-A Jackson before falling back to earth with a .227 batting average the next year for the same team. 2013 saw his Double-A average plummet further to .206. Seattle soon moved on from Martinez and dealt him to (you guessed it) Detroit. Is this another Ramon Santiago in the making? Time will tell.
Elsewhere in the trade, Ruffin gave up 16 runs in 22 innings for Seattle on the way to a 5.70 career ERA as a Mariner. He recently retired from baseball.
Seattle was showed up in its attempt to acquire anything of value for Fister. The Mariners did receive Furbush for their troubles, but the forgotten wrinkle of the trade is that Seattle gave up reliever David Pauley in the transaction. Pauley was in the midst of an extremely effective season as a reliever, posting a 2.15 ERA in 54.1 innings pitched.
Thanks to Furbush’s success, the team has essentially lost Fister and acquired a younger version of David Pauley.
The moral of the story here is that Mariners’ general manager Jack Zduriencik probably shouldn’t seriously consider any trade offer from his Tigers counterpart Dave Dombrowski—unless he wants to risk trading Robinson Cano for some catching gear.
All stats courtesy of http://www.baseball-reference.com/ unless otherwise noted.
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