Rumor: Seattle Listening To Offers On Closer Paul Sewald

[Brock Beauchamp]

As most of you probably identified over the past few weeks, the Mariners and Twins share many traits: they pitch pretty well and don't hit nearly enough.

Combine that with the dearth of true, wholesale sellers on the trade market this year and it leads to a situation where the Mariners are open to dealing their excellent closer with 1.5 years of control remaining, Paul Sewald.

Sewald, 33 years old, has saved 52 games over the past three seasons, carrying a 137 ERA+ and over 12 strikeouts per nine innings during that time. He has some of the same allure (and dangers) of Jorge Lopez last season but has a much longer track record of success in MLB.

The Twins have a slew of left-handed hitting corner players, at least one of which could be packaged into a deal to acquire Sewald... but should the Twins try to acquire another controllable closer after what happened at the last deadline?

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[dxpavelka]

Last year didn't work out so, yes, we should put our heads in the sand this year.

 

[John Belinski]

Yes we need a good closer.  Every winning team needs a good closer and Duran just isn't ready to be a good closer as we saw last night. No good closer walks 2 men in a row that are very weak hitters and then pitches to good hitter. Those 2 walks should have been outs and game over.

[JD-TWINS]

So, no surprise, after watching Floro last night there’s no high leverage spots for him in the future.

Need 2 guys in the Pen. If we don’t get at least one we are in real trouble.

Now we see Stewart as a maybe, and leaning toward, “probably can’t rely on him even if he comes back!”

Thielbar sounds like he’s ready.

Pagan - Thielbar - Jax - Duran - Floro - Winder - Moran - Stewart……..that’s our best look for August at this point. The last 3 guys are all questionable for one reason or another.

If Seattle is willing to take guys that aren’t on our big club, we should deal for control through next year.

Again from me, Suter/Hand from Rockies or Fulmer (Cubs may not sell?) or any other reasonable guy WITH experience is what we need. If Moran & Winder & Duran we’re all 2-3 years deeper into their careers with same stuff, I’d be confident. They all get anxious in tight spots and don’t know how to deal with it yet……..IMO. Spells unreliable!

[CRF]

Depends on if he's really available, and what we'd have to give up for him. 

[Danchat]

Crazy how he doesn't hit free agency until age 35... but I'd consider it, he's got stellar numbers over the past 3 years.

[JD-TWINS]

22 minutes ago, JD-TWINS said:

So, no surprise, after watching Floro last night there’s no high leverage spots for him in the future.

Need 2 guys in the Pen. If we don’t get at least one we are in real trouble.

Now we see Stewart as a maybe, and leaning toward, “probably can’t rely on him even if he comes back!”

Thielbar sounds like he’s ready.

Pagan - Thielbar - Jax - Duran - Floro - Winder - Moran - Stewart……..that’s our best look for August at this point. The last 3 guys are all questionable for one reason or another.

If Seattle is willing to take guys that aren’t on our big club, we should deal for control through next year.

Again from me, Suter/Hand from Rockies or Fulmer (Cubs may not sell?) or any other reasonable guy WITH experience is what we need. If Moran & Winder & Duran we’re all 2-3 years deeper into their careers with same stuff, I’d be confident. They all get anxious in tight spots and don’t know how to deal with it yet……..IMO. Spells unreliable!

Who’s going to get outs in our bullpen Mike?

Floro? Moran?…….Ortega is in AAA

I forgot about Balazovic earlier - he’s reasonable.

Winder & Sands can’t because Rocco won’t put them in the game.

Stewart is a BIG maybe.

We going to use Castro there too? Can’t just hope some rookie appears and is lights out.

[Jocko87]

Right up my alley.  Expensive, but a perfect fit.

[Doctor Gast]

Seward has a good relef history so you should be able to depend on him if he's OK physically. That they should look into more carefully & not over look red flags if there's any. Duran has been over relied upon & it's been showing. We need another high leverage RP to share the load. Seward could be that one, he wouldn't be that costly.

[cmoss84]

Larnach and Gordon for Sewald

[Richard]

Larnach and Miranda for Sewald and Hernandez.

Larnach is an older prospect with a high ceiling and there is no spot on today's or the future's lineup for Miranda.

The Mariners are 5.5 games out of a Wild Card spot, and they have a closer in Munoz.  I don't think it would be too much of a stretch to say that they would be willing to part with two guys who don't seem to be a part of the future.  I think that Larnach and Miranda would be intriguing to Seattle.