No, I'm not suggesting it's a *smart* play for the M's to acquire Manny Machado.  Just hear me out ;-)

Machado is easily one of the most productive players in baseball, albeit on the left side of the infield (where the Mariners currently have no openings).  He had a down year in 2017, but still produced 2.8 FanGraphs' war with 33 HR and a WRC+ of 102.  He's projected for 6+ wins in 2018, after which he'll be a FA.

Now this is even harder to fit together than Gordon was, but there's a sliver of hope for a fit.  Again, I'm not advocating this move, but hear me out.

Machado has made a lot of noise about wanting to go into FA riding a full season at SS (to boost his market value, no doubt), and most of the projections and conjecture I've seen suggest he'd be average or better at SS at this stage in his career.

Well, it turns out Segura played 2B in AZ--unfortunately, he didn't play it particularly well.  So by sliding him over to 2B, and Robbie to 1B, you'd create an opening on the IF for a killer bat.  It's actually a pretty weird idea (and one that I'd assume heralded several domino moves afterward, including packaging Healy for SP help) and not one that's likely to come to fruition for a variety of rasons.  But there *is* the possibility that this team could move to being one of the best offenses (if not THE best offense) in the AL by swapping our putrid 1B production from last year out for Manny Ma-freakin-chado.

Or you could go a little more radical, plug Machado in at 3B and trade Seager for a long-term rotation fixture.  It creates a hole on the IF in a year, yes, but it also plugs one in the rotation for hopefully the same amount of time.  Honestly, this doesn't look like a good fit to me (Gordon DID look like a good fit to me, albeit a different fit than the one Dipoto had in mind...) but if you're trying to add impact talent to the roster RIGHT NOW, how else do you go about it?  This is another one of those semi-interesting opportunities that deserves more than a cursory dismissal, in my humble opinion, but ultimately it *does* deserve to be dismissed as more trouble than it's worth.  Machado's going to get $300mil this offseason, so what you'd be getting is one year of an elite player, during his prime, and a top drawer draft pick after he leaves.  It would cost a lot, but if they want to compete THIS SEASON, and if they're adamant about not adding a TOR arm to the rotation, they're going to have to get creative to close the gap with the 'Stros and other powerhouses in the AL.

So if you wanted to add a MOTO bat for *not too much* in the way of talent or future liability, Machado presents an interesting (if badly flawed) possibility for the current M's roster.