Dreaming of capitalizing on a Mariners fire sale

It’s fun to stare off into nowhere land and dream about being somewhere else. Maybe somewhere tropical, or somewhere that’s just far enough away from it all. It’s fun not to think about work and what has to be done. It’s fun to do anything other than some mundane office task, or whatever kind of task that has to be completed to put a little bit of cash into the bank account.

It’s also fun to imagine being rich, ya know, the kind of rich where spending a thousand dollars would feel like chump change. The kind of rich where you could travel wherever you wanted whenever you wanted. The kind of rich where you bought whatever you wanted whenever you wanted and even gave some money away while you were at it. And it’s fun to imagine all this shit because it allows us to escape reality for a few minutes. It’s fun to imagine not worrying about mortgage payments or rent or any of the dumb bills.

That’s why so many people play the lottery. I don’t play the lottery because it makes me feel like a loser when I don’t win, but I get why people do. Unfortunately, winning the lottery is about as likely as Vladdy being on the Opening Day roster or the Jays landing Mitch Haniger this offseason.

Hopefully, most of you enjoy your work and are happy with the money that you make and all that stuff. I couldn’t think of anything worse than hating your job and having to wake up doing that thing you hate every single damn day.

So the reason I’m going on about all this far-fetched dreaming nonsense and winning the lottery garbage is because it’s ‘cold’ stove time and sometimes Jays fans think big on certain free agents or trades that they hope the organization makes.

At this point in time most fans are all in on the future prospects and the hope that that they grow into MLB somethings. Most Jays fans are fully aware of the fact that next year the club would need about 10 to 15 ifs to break extremely right for this team to be in any kind of wild card hunt in July, which is fine – it’s not the Jays time yet.

Now, even though we know all of this stuff, it’s still fun to dream on big time trades. Ben Nicholson-Smith wrote a great Jays offseason piece. In it he examines what bullpen arms the Jays should pursue, as he searches specific traits of a coveted big-league reliever and goes through the data to get his answer. If you haven’t read the piece, you most definitely should and it’s about as realistic as it gets.

After he walks you through his search, he narrows it down to six bullpen pitchers: Yency Almonte of the Rockies, Adam Conley of the Marlins, Amir Garrett of the Reds, Jose Castillo of the Padres, Austen Williams of the Nationals and Caleb Frare of the White Sox. And, sure, Jose Castillo would be a fine addition as would any of these arms.

But, as good and realistic as this piece is, it’s still cool to think about other ‘bigger’ things. I remember last offseason Drew Fairservice tossed out the idea that he would trade Bo Bichette for the baseball knight Christian Yelich back when Miami was in the middle of their fire sale and the Jeter pawn shop was open for business.

Now, we all know that the Jays front office did check in on Yelich, but Miami wanted Vladdy, which, no thanks…instead Jeter settled for outfielder Lewis Brinson, infielder Isan Diaz, outfielder Monte Harrison and right-handed pitcher Jordan Yamamoto.

The reason I’m bringing this up is because Seattle is setting fire to the present to begin their ‘tank’ era just like Jeter’s Fish did last year.

So if the Mets can get players at the Jerry Dipoto pawn shop, why the hell can’t the Jays? It’s fun to dream. I mean, Atkins should certainly walk around and look through some pieces and find out what the asking price is for some hot ticket items.

The one player sitting on the Jerry shelf that I’d love to see the Jays get would be outfielder Mitch Haniger. Sure, the Jays have an outfield logjam right now, but it’s not a good jam. It’s a mediocre jam. As much as the team needs pitching and more pitching, they could use some real talent to cover some outfield turf and hit some baseballs.

Seattle still needs to field a baseball team next season, so maybe the Jays could send back Pillar plus some top prospects to make a deal like this happen. Clearly, Pillar and his consistently poor wOBA, declining defensive metrics, and really shitty stats would not be the major piece to get something like this done, but he could be included along with a top prospect like Bo Bichette.

The Mariners currently have five outfielders rated in their top ten prospects list: Kyle Lewis, Julio Rodriguez, Dom Thompson-Williams, Braden Bishop, and Josh Stowers. Certainly a couple of these magic beans should grow into MLB talent. So, why wouldn’t the Mariners trade Mitch Haniger? They want to be really shitty, so it just makes sense. Dipoto seems to be in tank hard or don’t tank at all mode, so it won’t surprise me if Haniger gets dealt this winter.

The shitty thing is that we all know Seattle would want big Nate in any deal with the Jays involving Haniger and that’s just not cool because big Nate might actually be Noah Syndergaard 2.0:

I know that this Haniger talk is just talk and it won’t happen. But, he doesn’t become a free agent until 2023, so he would be a nice piece to add to this future Vladdy team that we expect will rock the 2021 casbah.

The 27-year-old outfielder had a great year slashing .285/.366/.493, was worth 4.6 WAR, and had a 138 wRC+. In 2018, his K% dropped down a point to 21.7 and his BB% went up a couple points to 10.2. He still needs a little work on the defensive side of the ball, but whatever.

I know that this happening is about as likely as the Orioles not being trash, but why not talk about it. I mean, shit, the Mets are getting in on the action, so why can’t the Jays?