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This link from the Mariners' official site is a read worth reading, if you are a Mariners fan and you read.  If not you are unlikely to be offended by SSI's presumption upon your prefences.  Dipoto again Diploys visuals that are highly to Dr. D's liking:

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"I don't think you'll see us add on the position players side, but we are going to go through the course of the next few weeks and see if there is a way that we can add to our pitching staff," Dipoto said. "Whether that is in the bullpen or rotation is TBD, but we know somewhere on that 12- or 13-man staff, we have to find a way somewhere between now and Opening Day 2018 to create more depth and impact with the group."

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PRACTICALLY IRRELEVANT BIRDWALK, Dept.  We don't say that Dipoto's prep team thumbed through a Webster's to select the perfect word to convey his intentions.  But if you like body language, Master Persuasion and subliminals, it's actually better if he didn't.  The words used then "accidentally" telegraph the information you seek.  

Yet another life lesson of SSI.  Very often once the two parties are conscious of the things taking place on a subconscious level, the cover is blown.  For example, you now know that an inkblot test looks like nothing; it serves only to tell the shrink what's on your mind.  So what would you do?  "Boy, that inkblot looks to me like a solution to the North Korean missile crisis.  That, or starving children in Rwanda getting a hot meal."  Um, okay, Jim.  Guess you're healthy as a horse, id-and-superego wise.

Once the madding crowd -realizes- you're tweeting hyperbole as a shiny object to fix the news cycle for three days, it doesn't work any more.  There, that example for SURE made my point.

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PINK FLOYD GET ON WITH IT, Dept.

Oh well whatever nevermind.  Let us proceed to the dictionary definition of "impact."  It means either "come into forcible contact with something," like this post blowing your mind for instance.  Or.  It means "Have a strong effect on someone or something."  This second meaning is what we'll assume JeDi had in mind.

Emilio Pagan doesn't have a strong effect on anyone or anything, except perhaps his close relatives.  Dr. D infers we're not trading for him or anyone like him.  We could go down the list of pitchers who could have a strong effect on Mariner things, such as

 √ Sonny Gray (who would cost a "lofty" price they say)

√ Sean Manaea 

√ Yu Darvish (this is a tongue-in-cheek piece for the 30% of you who are humor-blind, according to Scott Adams)

√ Cole Hamels (who is available, signed for 2018 and an option, but whose K's are down - haven't looked)

√ David Robertson

√ That sidearm reliever, oh yeah, Neshek

√ Gerrit Cole

√ Zach Britton is a question mark for the market, but a fancy Tigers-style Old English question mark

√ LHP Brad Hand has been linked to the M's this week

√ You tell us

In the same article, Dipoto rules out a rental.  This is apparently the main thing he means when he says "help for now and the future."  It makes Yu Darvish that much more fanciful, though perhaps not with Cole Hamels.

P.S. This SSI article in the Woody Woodward years might well have been wishful thinking.  In the years with a crazed GM who trades 43 times a year, now it's less so.  Let the trade spex continue.  I favor the scenario in which we pay a pretty penny to get a Drew Smyly replacement.  Anybody know what Andrew Moore would cost us?

Enjoy,

Dr D