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The Seattle Mariners have a pleasantly manageable shopping list for filling out their roster this holiday season. Returning Josh Naylor has satisfied the most obvious issue with their lineup, leaving the M’s with at least one more infield bat and/or DH to acquire for at least a satisfactory reload at defending their AL West title (wow that’s novel to write). The rest of the improvements seem likely to be focused on the bullpen, which is strong at the back, but could use reinforcement to mitigate another season like 2025 where the rotation is less than teflon. Fortunately for the folks who’ve brought you DDT (Draft, Develop, Trade), the league just became slightly more Jerry-attuned.
The Colorado Rockies, fresh off hiring Paul DePodesta away from the Cleveland Browns (of the National Football League, not the 1924 National Negro Leagues club of the same name) to be their President of Baseball Operations, have inked Josh Byrnes to be their General Manager. Byrnes has spent the past decade and change as Andrew Friedman’s scouting and farm system director for the Los Angeles Dodgers, ultimately departing with the title of Senior Vice President for his return to GM-hood in Denver. Byrnes goes way back with Jerry Dipoto, having been front office members together in the late 90s and early 2000s in Colorado, moving to the Boston Red Sox in 2003-04 alongside Dipoto, then bringing Dipoto along to Arizona when Byrnes became the GM of the Diamondbacks. Dipoto took over as interim GM for Byrnes when he was fired in 2010, though Byrnes landed on his feet at the helm of the Padres for the 2011-2014 seasons.
This longtime relationship may shatter the ice on one of the most surprising barriers in the Dipoto era. Just two clubs have not made a trade of some sort with Seattle since he took the helm after the 2015 season: his prior employer the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim, and the Colorado Rockies. The last move consummated by Seattle and the Rox was the April, 2013 deal sending RHP prospect Steven Hensley to Colorado for veteran RHP Aaron Harang, a swap Seattle managed to lose despite Hensley never making the majors as the Harangatan was atrocious with the M’s. Byrnes’ arrival may signal a new era in Colorado, and the inexplicable embargo’s lifting provides a viable fit for both ballclubs to address their needs.
The Rockies have little at the big league level worth harvesting for a World Series contender like Seattle (again, wow, what fun). 24 year old shortstop Ezequiel Tovar is coming off a disappointing, injury-marred campaign. He is the only player projected by Steamer and FanGraphs’ Depth Charts to outperform any Seattle position player at their corresponding position, and only by a few tenths of a point does his WAR expectation outdo that of J.P. Crawford. Rockies ace, veteran LHP Kyle Freeland, narrowly projects to outperform M’s No. 5 starter Bryce Miller.
You don’t lose 119 games on accident, folks.
Despite this, Colorado has an interesting assortment of relievers, several of whom may now be available with new leadership at the helm. Seattle faces Rockies prospects at three of the four affiliated levels (Low-A Modesto —> now Inland Empire, High-A Everett, and Triple-A Tacoma), meaning the system is familiar even if the only exposure the big league club had came in the division-clinching homestand to close 2025.
The Targets
RHPs Victor Vodnik, Seth Halvorsen, Zach Agnos, and/or Jaden Hill
Be still our hearts, as this murderer’s row strikes fear in the hearts of, okay, precious few. Colorado’s pen features many unrefined ores, some of whom show glimmers of greatness under a pile of mountain dust. Here’s a brief report on each, followed by a possible package or two:
RHP Victor Vodnik
The most prized of the group from my perspective, Vodnik has been the source of lofty expectations from Rockies fans at times. While he’s not an ace reliever, he’s more in the pre-acquisition Gregory Santos range as a flawed player with obvious big time talent. The 26 year old has a 4.06/3.85 ERA/FIP in 133.0 innings of relief across the past three seasons, spending portions of 2024 and 2025 as the de facto closer for Colorado following injuries and trades. Mariners fans may be most familiar with him for yielding Josh Naylor’s bases-clearing double to functionally clinch a playoff berth in late September, and that pitch highlights Vodnik’s biggest bugaboo. Despite sitting 98-99 mph and routinely clipping triple-digits, Vodnik has one of the most hittable four-seamers in baseball. Coors Field doesn’t help matters (for him or any of this crew), but Vodnik’s heater has a Justus Sheffield-esque lack of rise that, along with mediocre command, makes it an awful pitch.
Fortunately, VV has two ferocious off-speed pitches that Seattle could encourage him to use more relentlessly, as much of his repertoire is well-geared towards groundball and swing-and-miss contact if his heater is secondary or tertiary. Giving Vodnik the Andrés Muñoz pitch mix would allow his slider and changeup to shine, even with no other tweaks. Here are those two, respectively.
RHP Seth Halvorsen
You could put almost every bit of the kit together for Vodnik, add a few inches of height and a few ticks of velo and call it good, and you’ve got Halvorsen. That’s reductive, of course, as the will-be 26 year old righty from Tennessee has flashed traits of one of the game’s more impressive relievers when healthy. Halvorsen roars in at triple digits on average with his four-seam, and pairs it with a split-change and slider of his own. In the minors, as the majors, he struggled with command, which ultimately lost him high-leverage work in his first full big league season before a flexor strain sidelined him in early August. He should be full go in spring, and has a 4.15/4.89 ERA/FIP in 52.0 IP that belies the potency of his stuff. The length of time still under his contract (at least five years of club control) might make him trickiest to target, though the Mariners new bullpen coach will have some familiarity with all of these folks.
RHP Zach Agnos
Another injury-stifled Rockie, Agnos threw 31.1 innings in his debut campaign, earning a few cracks at high-leverage work but ultimately getting shelled into mop-up work before an elbow issue sidelined him for all of August and most of September. Shaped like Vodnik in an aptly compact, fantasy dwarven stockiness that powers his mountain-level high heat, Agnos is the first of this group to demonstrate quality backspin skills on his fastball. That’s good, as the heater sits a few ticks down at a “mere” 95-96 mph. The East Carolina standout was untouchable when I saw him with High-A Spokane a year ago, and up until running an atrocious 56.1% strand rate in the bigs and wearing a few massive innings with the moribund Rockies, he’d seemed like a multi-inning stalwart. With a quality changeup and a couple variations on his off-speed, both of which should be leaned on more aggressively (sensing a theme?), Agnos has the stache and the stash to be a more appealing depth arm than some of the back end options Seattle’s currently rocking.
RHP Jaden Hill
26 years old. Stellar numbers in the minors. Sits in the upper-90s with their fastball. Should really ditch (one of) his fastball(s). No, you’re not seeing quadruple. Hill comes with a greater heraldry, having been a seven-figure signee as the 44th pick of the 2021 draft out of LSU, following an uneven career on campus. Injuries and a cessation of starting on the way up have waylaid Hill at multiple stops, robbing him of his consistency and command, albeit not his ability to induce whiffs. 2025 seemed like the coalescence, as the 6’4 righty found home near enough the zone to let his four pitch mix eat. Hill was the most promising of the bunch in the bigs last year, with a 3.38/3.44 ERA/FIP, and his heater/slider/changeup combo is quite imposing, though he may need to ditch his sinker.
Mariners send RHP Logan Evans, 2B Ryan Bliss, and OF Kevin Alcantara
Rockies send RHP Victor Vodnik, RHP Zach Agnos, UTIL Tyler Freeman, and LHP Luis Peralta
What I am seeking in this deal is to not purely assume Colorado will tear down to the baseboards and seek low-minors options for even cost-controlled arms like the three included. Another version of this deal centers around C Luke Stevenson and, say, RHPs Walter Ford and/or Ruddy Navarro, but this is the version more tangible and, to my mind, plausible.
Seattle ships away one of its primary rotation depth options, a 25 year old to-be whose primary role headed into 2026 seems assuredly No. 6-8 starter, if things go well for the M’s. The highly touted ascent of LHP Kade Anderson should not be counted upon, but clearly is in Seattle’s consideration as a “this year” situation, which would certify Evans as depth over design in terms of his rotation role. That doesn’t make him superfluous, but to an organization like Colorado still casting about wildly with their rotation, slated to start Ryan Feltner and Tanner Gordon, Evans can carve a better path to earning a long-term role.
Bliss has fallen out of conversations for a spot with the M’s, but on another, less infield-rich club, the 26 year old has a shot at a utility role with base stealing upside. It’s a cost-saving swap for Colorado with Freeman, who is the same age as Bliss but more lengthily a big leaguer. That leaves the contact-heavy utility man projected for $1.8 million by MLB Trade Rumors, a sum he could merit as a Miles Mastrobuoni substitute due to his ability to be optioned (unlike Mastrobuoni, who finds himself in potential limbo). Alcantara is not a top level prospect, but he’s put up some mildly interesting offensive numbers on the complex, and is just 20 years old, giving Colorado a lottery ticket to lengthen the deal’s timeline.
Peralta, for his part, is a promising southpaw whose repertoire is not too far off that of Gabe Speier’s, with the added fun of being Freddy Peralta’s younger brother. He’s gotten just a few dozen frames in the bigs, and missed time with injury in 2025, but is an interesting secondary southpaw option (with options), something Seattle clearly is prioritizing in their offseason.
This is a deal Seattle could use to bump the Casey Legumina/Carlos Vargas/Jackson Kowar segment of the bullpen down a few notches on the priority list, with the additional versatility that all four players are optionable, while none of the three relievers just listed have any options remaining. Roster flexibility, with at least a couple arms capable of entering the Bazardo-to-Brash range, Vodnik seemingly already on that precipice, it’s a means to give the M’s pen a low-cost, high-upside look in the front end while only dealing from positions of significant depth.