The Tattered Remains of Better Teams

After the Mariners gave Austin Nola and Dan Atlavilla to the Padres for Cal Quantrill, Andres Munoz and Luis Torrens, it occurred to me how ...un-theirs this Mariners team feels. We've given them a lot of credit for the callups of Kyle Lewis and Evan White, but...you look around this team and you see the remnants of other trades, other teams, and other farm systems.

Most obviously, the free agents brought in to save this team recently, like Mallex Smith, Dee Gordon,  Kendall Graveman and Yusei Kikuchi, come from other places, but...it's more complex than that. J.P. Crawford came from the Phillies, Erik Swanson, Justus Sheffield, Brady Lail and, heh, Luis Torrens were all products of the Yankee farm system [Sheffield was an Indians prospect first], Shed Long came up with Cincinnati [as did insanely recent pickup Phil Ervin], Sam Haggerty's a Cleveland prospect, Jose Marmolejos was a Nationals signee, and even Yohan Ramirez was an Astros Rule 5 dealing.

Even the heir apparent of this team, Jarred Kelenic, is a former Mets prospect. Nothing the Mariners have is truly theirs.

At least Nick Margevicius owns his status as a former Padres prospect, and although he probably wishes he was on that team rather than this one, he's still one of the highlights of this team right now. He's got a 3.86 ERA in 4 starts with 23 strikeouts, and he, Marco Gonzales and Justin Dunn are doing the best at keeping teams down as the Ms slowly make it to THIRD place in the AL West. Yes, we'd prefer to see better things from Yusei Kikuchi, but three solid starters isn't bad. Sadly, after the deadline, the bullpen seems gutted, and the Ms are gonna have to replenish quickly. Even if they continue to use the remains of other teams, they need something.

This isn't the team the Mariners wanted to work with in 2020, but it's better than nothing, and it's still a third place team.

Coming Tonight: Considering how they've been throttling the Rockies lately, it's only natural that I post a Giants custom...appropriately enough, of an ex-Rockie.