His early work didn’t inspire much confidence, but after four shaky starts, Gonzales settled into a groove and pitched to a 3.60 ERA over his final 150 innings, averaging 7.6 K/9 and 1.7 BB/9 along the way. There’s no buyout on the $15MM option for the 2025 season. The Mariners have selected a college right-hander with their top pick in each of the past three drafts — The Mariners’ rebuild began in earnest following a disappointing finish to the 2018 season, when GM Jerry Dipoto first began talk of re-imagining his roster. And while O’Neill can still change how we look at the deal in the long run, it’s worked out about as well as the Mariners could’ve hoped.Though it has been a fairly quiet winter for the Seattle organization, the club has now managed to strike two notable long-term deals. News : Starling Marte went 3-for-5 with an RBI single and a run scored in Tuesday's loss to the Rockies. It’s worth noting that both reports emphasize the variability remaining in the situation. Certainly, the organization’s slate of contract commitments represents that of a contending team, with large and lengthy commitments to several players. Those same factors, though, also can easily be interpreted as supporting a different approach. He reported that Marco Gonzales has been the subject of trade talks, but there is no indication these talks are anything more than just general … In 2019, Gonzales posted a 3.99 ERA that was nearly identical to his 4.00 ERA from 2018 — but he did it in a larger sample of 203 frames.Setting aside his rocky debut in 2018, Gonzales has given the Mariners 369 2/3 frames of 3.99 ERA ball with an even better 3.83 FIP, 7.1 K/9, 2.1 BB/9, 0.97 HR/9 and a 42.5 percent ground-ball rate. There’s real talent on the roster, to be sure, and the club did just win 89 games even after a late-2018 tailspin. Gonzales still has four years remaining, including one more on the More from around the baseball world as we wrap up Thanksgiving…Generally speaking, it seems as though the Mariners will be open-minded to moving shorter-term assets — Paxton and Zunino both have only two years of control remaining — while also trying to gather some controllable talent in order to supplement the pieces of the roster that remain into 2019 and beyond. Mariners get lefty Gonzales in trade with Cards ... dealing highly regarded outfield prospect Tyler O'Neill to the Cardinals for 25-year-old left-hander Marco Gonzales. While it’s only a minor difference, the Mariners are effectively promising as much as an additional $700-800K with this deal.Gonzales, 27 in February, emerged in 2018 as a quality rotation piece for a Seattle team that was in desperate need of arms. The Mariners’ GM spoke the day before the trade about only being willing to deal from his premium prospects if it meant acquiring a long-term rotation piece, and days after the swap he The initial results did little to assuage the concerns of Seattle fans. It’s a shame there aren’t more of these kinds of deals. The power has been good but not elite, and O’Neill’s contact struggles have indeed been magnified against MLB pitching; he’s punched out 110 times in those 293 plate appearances (37.5 percent).To be fair to O’Neill, he hasn’t exactly been given a real opportunity to win an everyday job. The Mariners are planning to begin the season with a six-man rotation in place, general manager Jerry Dipoto told reporters yesterday (Beyond that pair of lefties, Seattle will get longer looks at southpaw The Mariners also rolled the dice on a pair of low-cost free agents this winter, nabbing former division rival As one would expect from a rebuilding club, the Mariners have plenty of other young options to dream on, though the organization’s very best pitching prospects are likely a bit too far down the pipeline to factor into the 2020 season. Given Dipoto’s history of dealmaking, it wouldn’t be surprising to see quite a few moves to re-shape the roster in the coming months.Presumably, then, there’s some type of club option associated with the deal that will give the Seattle organization the right to control at least one of Gonzales’ arbitration seasons at a predetermined rate.