Drayer: What Jose Ferrer trade means for Seattle Mariners

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Twenty-four hours before the start of the winter meetings in Orlando, Jerry Dipoto and Justin Hollander checked another item off their offseason to-do list.

The Seattle Mariners acquired left-handed reliever Jose Ferrer from the Washington Nationals on Saturday in exchange for catching prospect Harry Ford and minor league pitcher Isaac Lyon, who was selected in the 10th round of the 2025 MLB Draft.

Mariners trade Harry Ford to Nationals for lefty reliever

The Mariners prioritized relief help this winter, with Hollander acknowledging at a press gathering in November that the heavy bullpen usage in 2025 would necessitate bolstering the group in ’26.

“The reality is that our high-leverage group just worked really hard for an extra month of the season,” Hollander said. “We would be silly not to expect that to take a toll over time.”

They should get a boost from Ferrer, who brings a 97.7 mph sinker along with three years of big league experience with him. The big question – and what ultimately should largely determine whether or not this trade was a success for the M’s – is can they make improvements with the soon-to-be 26-year-old?

They no doubt like his sinker – which is the second-highest-velocity fastball for a reliever in baseball – along with the 1.89 walks per nine innings this past season, the 76 1/3 innings pitched and the 18 games finished. The third-best groundball rate for a reliever (62.6%) is no doubt a plus, but what should be of concern in a leverage relief position is the 8.37 strikeouts per nine innings, which puts Ferrer in the 95th spot among relievers.

It will be interesting to see how the Mariners’ pitching group goes to work on Ferrer. With most acquisitions, the changes have not been dramatic – usually just the reinforcement of strike-throwing, which Ferrer already does, and then a tweak of the arsenal, which could likely be the path here. Last year, the lefty threw his sinker 70% of the time, with the changeup being his second pitch at 22% and the slider bringing up the rear at 7.5%. It’s not hard to see the Mariners making a change with the mix, perhaps asking Ferrer to throw his slider more, which batters slashed .105/.116/.158 against last year with a 52.5% whiff rate.

Entering his age-26 season, it’s not far-fetched to think there are still improvements that can be expected to be made. Ferrer was targeted for a reason, and with or without tweaks, his addition improves the bullpen. As of now, the Mariners are entering the season with four high-leverage arms in Andrés Muñoz, Matt Brash, Gabe Speier and Ferrer. In 2025, they had just two (Muñoz and Speier) on the opening day roster. This should help them both early and late in the season.

The Mariners, however, have created a hole in the roster as Ford was slated to be the backup catcher. The M’s have been open to bringing back Mitch Garver on a lesser contract if the need arose, and we could see that explored in the coming weeks. For Ford, who found himself blocked behind Cal Raleigh, this could be a good move as he should find much more opportunity with the Nationals.