Inside Seattle’s War Chest: The 5 Trade Pieces That Could Fuel a Ketel Marte or Brendan Donovan Deal .MH
It should only be a matter of time before the Seattle Mariners make a move in response to losing Jorge Polanco to the New York Mets. And if you’re a betting person — seemingly everyone is these days — they seem more likely to do so via trade than via the free-agent market.
The Mariners remain in the mix for Ketel Marte and Brendan Donovan, according to Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic, and there are any number of speculative trade candidates you can link them to. It therefore seems instructive to consider: Which players are the Mariners’ top trade chips?
We can go ahead and strike Julio Rodríguez and Cal Raleigh from the list. And as the team’s best starter and reliever, respectively, it feels safe to assume that Bryan Woo and Andrés Muñoz are likewise untouchable. For anyone else, Jerry Dipoto can’t be in automatic “no” mode.
The Mariners’ 5 best trade chips with trade rumors swirling
5. 2B Cole Young
It isn’t easy to sugarcoat Young’s rookie season, in which he played 77 games and only managed a 78 OPS+ and 0.5 rWAR. His stint was bookended by icy offensive slumps, and his defense was a problem throughout.
And yet, he still checks all the boxes for a guy who could be a building block in the majors. He was a first-round pick in 2022 and is still just 22 years old. He was MLB Pipeline’s No. 43 overall prospect when he got the call to Seattle this year, at which time he had a .388 OBP to show for four minor league seasons. Any team that trades for him now will control his rights through 2031.
4. RF Lazaro Montes
Montes’ name has already popped up in rumors related to Donovan, and we’re of the mind that the Mariners could come to regret trading him. He has real swing-and-miss in his offensive game and he isn’t much of an athlete in right field, but the dude can hit.
Montes’ 65-grade power plays into his current rank as MLB Pipeline’s No. 29 overall prospect, and he’s fresh off displaying it like never before in a 32-homer season in the minors. Because he has good discipline to go with his excellent raw power, the oft-made comparison to Yordan Alvarez has at least two solid legs to stand on.
3. LHP Kade Anderson
Anderson has yet to throw a professional pitch since the Mariners drafted him at No. 3 overall in July. Yet he’s already ranked by MLB Pipeline as the No. 23 prospect in the game, and the No. 2 left-hander after Miami’s Thomas White.
The book on Anderson right now is that he has four above-average pitches and above-average control, to boot. These qualities show nicely in the 239-to-55 strikeout-to-walk ratio he racked up in two seasons with LSU, and he may yet find another gear after going through the strength and conditioning program the Mariners have laid out for him.
2. SS Colt Emerson
It is, of course, hard to imagine the Mariners actually trading Emerson. He’s their No. 1 prospect and a top-10 prospect for the entire league, and the team has positioned him to have a shot at its third base gig in spring training.
But if the Mariners aim to catch a really big fish on the trade market — such as Marte, whose surplus value could be as much as $100 million — then Emerson would simply have to be on the table. He’s only 20, yet he’s already made it to Triple-A amid a minor league career that has seen him post a .398 OBP while playing increasingly impressive defense.
1. RHP Logan Gilbert, RHP George Kirby, RHP Bryce Miller
Plot twist! This five-player list actually has seven players on it. It’s part cheap trick, part carefully calculated rationale that if the Mariners are going to trade from this trio, only one would actually go.
Miller has the most years of club control (four) and was the Mariners’ most valuable pitcher as recently as 2024. However, he’s also coming off a down year that was marred by a bone spur in his elbow.
Kirby has three years of club control left and Gilbert has two, but neither of them had a healthy, productive 2025 either. Kirby missed time with shoulder inflammation and Gilbert missed time with a flexor strain. Previously, both pitchers had been All-Stars who received Cy Young Award support in 2023 and 2024, respectively.
Baseball Trade Values has a pretty wide surplus value disparity between Kirby ($71.8 million), Gilbert ($44.4 million) and Miller ($30.9 million), but we’ll wager that different teams would have different preferences. Either way, the trick would be to break through Dipoto’s aversion to dealing any of his prized homegrown starters.
Honorable Mention: RHP Ryan Sloan
Sloan hasn’t quite ascended to elite prospect territory. It can take some time for that to happen, and he’s only a year removed from going to the Mariners in the second round of the 2024 draft.
There are reasons everyone is raving about him, though. He’s still only 19, and he’s coming off a minor league season in which he made 21 starts across Single-A and High-A and had 90 strikeouts against only 15 walks in 82.0 innings. Health permitting, he has No. 1 upside as a major leaguer.
