[jaa36]

AG: Welcome back to The Wheelhouse- the Trade Deadline edition! With me as always is Jerry Dipoto.

JD: Hey Aaron, glad to be here.

AG: I wanted to do something a little bit different this week, and I think you'll see why in a minute. Let's take some mail to start the show.

JD: Whoa, Aaron! I can't handle this kind of change! Slow down, buddy!

AG: (laughs) Easy, Jerry. You'll be all right. We got a lot of questions about the trade deadline this week, so let's start there. The question comes from Tieran, who you may remember several months ago asked if we could post the stats on the podcast, even though that is technically impossible.

JD: I remember that! Tieran, what's up buddy!

AG: All right. Tieran asks, what do you consider the biggest position of need for this team to address at the deadline?

JD: Yeah, good question. I touched on this a bit last week, that really we are in pretty good shape across the whole diamond. But we did make a couple of moves this week, and the biggest one was bringing in Kevin Pillar from the Blue Jays.

AG: Pillar was a big add, and really quite a coup for the Mariners to get a player of his caliber. Hitting a career-high .280, career-high .329 on-base percentage, career-high .419 slugging percentage... it's been a great year for him.

JD: It sure has, Aaron, and that doesn't even begin to touch all the things he can do. He's a great baserunner, and his outfield defense is second to none. Plus, he's a guy we have under team control for this year and the next two, at a pretty reasonable rate, so he's not a rental.

AG: And he came right into the mix with five hits, including two home runs in his first three games with the Mariners.

JD: He's a huge addition for us, no question. And as it is for players of his caliber, the cost was high, but we think worthwhile.

AG: You've put him in left field the first three games here. Clearly an outstanding center fielder as well, and one with a lot of experience out there. Any thought to shifting Dee Gordon over to left?

JD: We considered that, but in the end we thought it would be a bit cruel to Dee to learn yet another new position this season. And Kevin can play left field with the best of them too, so either way, we've got two outstanding defenders out there, or three if you include Mitch Haniger.

AG: It's been a common theme for you to trade away highly-regarded prospects. This time the main piece going the other direction was Kyle Lewis. Are we going to be rueing this day five years from now as the day Jerry Dipoto traded away Kyle Lewis?

JD: (laughs) Well, it's possible there will be some rue-ing. You'll notice that I also traded back for Tyler O'Neill this week, who I traded last year, to try to neutralize some of the negative ju-ju coming from Mariners fans.

AG: I did notice that! That was quite a move, parlaying Travis Denker into O'Neill and a couple of pitchers.

JD: Yeah, we'll come back to that one in a minute. But yeah, losing Kyle Lewis hurts a bit. He had a really good year with the bat at Modesto this year, and he plays a good center field even after the knee injuries. But you've seen my philosophy on this. The game, and fans and the media in particular, tend to overrate prospects these days, and underrate players who are already contributing at the big-league level. I feel really confident that Kevin Pillar is going to give us two and a half years of above-average major league production. And as accomplished as Kyle Lewis is at the age of 23, I feel much less confident that we'll get that type of production from him in the future.

JD: The other pieces going to Toronto were Ben Gamel and Nick Vincent, both of whom had really played major roles on this team the last couple of years. What was it like to trade them?

JD: Really tough, honestly. Nick Vincent was, and is, just a guy who consistently gave us good innings in the bullpen, even last year when the rest of the pitching staff was in shambles. I don't know if you noticed, but he's walked only four guys this season. Four! In sixty innings! He's been terrific, and it's hard to lose him, but we needed to find a way to even out the salaries for Pillar, and we do have a very deep bullpen. As for Ben, obviously he was coming off the injury earlier this year, and played really well in Tacoma, but hadn't carried that production forward to the big-league team. The future is bright for him, and we're certainly sorry to lose him, but to be honest, he wasn't going to get much playing time with Kevin coming on board here, so it's a better opportunity for him in Toronto.

AG: The other acquisition coming over with Pillar is catcher Reese McGuire. Tell us a little bit about him.

JD: Well, our catching depth in the minor leagues hasn't been one of our strengths, and that changes quickly with Reese on board. He's sort of a post-hype prospect, a former first-round pick who reached double-A at the age of 21, and then he got traded and his progress sort of stalled a bit. He's an excellent defender, and we think we'll be seeing him in the majors, probably as a backup to Mike Zunino, a few years down the road. Really, to be honest, a guy whose prospect stock is equal to that of Lewis.

JD: Another move that you made this week was to trade first baseman Brock Stassi, who you had acquired earlier in the year, and outfielder Ian Miller to the Royals for reliever Richard Lovelady and infielder Nicky Lopez. Walk us through that deal.

JD: Stassi did nothing but hit for the month he was with us. As you remember, we acquired him the same day we re-acquired Mike Ford, and we felt a little better about Mike going forward, but Stassi turned into a real asset for us, and we were able to flip him to Kansas City for a couple of potentially very valuable players in Lovelady and Lopez. Richard is young, six years of club control left, and similar to a lot of guys we've picked up over the years, doesn't necessarily do it with just his fastball. He's got a really good changeup, and tends to get a lot of ground balls. He just tore through the minors the last few years, and he struggled a bit with Kansas City earlier this year, but we think he could be a very important part of our bullpen in the years to come. And Lopez is a good natural shortstop who just has a knack for getting on base. We may groom him for a utility role in the upcoming seasons.

AG: You touched on the Tyler O'Neill deal. Were you trolling Mariner fans with that one?

JD: I got a lot of negative reactions when I traded O'Neill to get Marco Gonzales last year. Now Marco's pretty much the king of Seattle- apologies to Felix, of course- and we have Tyler too. And in addition to him, we got John Gant, who's just had a sensational year in Triple A, and Austin Gomber, and both of them help our depth quite a bit moving forward.

AG: So where does the merry-go-round stop, Jerry? Are you doing wheeling and dealing?

JD: (laughs) You know me, Aaron, my phone's always on. I may have completed another deal by text while recording this.

AG: What?!? Really?

JD: (laughs) No. But we're always looking to upgrade wherever we can. Obviously Mike Leake and Erasmo Ramirez have struggled the last few turns through the rotation. I'd love to add another guy I could slot in after James and Felix.

AG: Let's keep the question coming from Tieran. He also asked, are you at all worried about Nelson Cruz? He looks like age might finally be catching up to him.

JD: Tieran probably wasn't watching our games last week. Nelson has definitely had a down year, with a two-month stretch where he was hitting well under .200, but he's certainly been turning it around recently. Two long, long home runs, and five for his last sixteen. I'm not worried about Nelson. Like a lot of power hitters, he is streaky, and he can hit home runs in bunches. I think he'll finish the year north of 30 home runs and a hundred RBI.

AG: OK, Jerry, since we're working backwards here, let's finally talk about the games this week. Two pretty good wins against the Giants, then three pretty bad losses to the Angels.

JD: The Angels losses were particularly difficult given that Kevin had given us such good games- we kind of wanted to make a better first impression than that. But seven home games coming up, so we'll turn it around this week.

AG: OK, Jerry. Well, we spent a lot of time on the deadline deals, so let's call it a podcast.

JD: So be it, Aaron.

AG: Thanks for being with us. And thanks to all of you for listening. We'll see you next week, on The Wheelhouse.