Dipoto Trade Stress Disorder :) :) :)
From above you said: "As a .250 hitter in LF, I am not interested. This team doesn't need veteran leadership, we have it in spades. But the two young arms lost in this deal makes me sad. We can get .250 and his glove from Andreoli or Ian Miller."
Excpet... we can't... The concept of the freely available "Replacement Player", that every team has dozens of floating around in their systems, has been proven false time and time again, at least as far as the Mariners go. How many times do we have to watch rushed kid after rushed kid after hopeful comeback milb vet with a minute of AAA success come up and flounder on the Mariners to the tune of .120/.140/.200 lines before we start believing that being "Certified MLB TM" is a real, tangible valuable skill. You realize that Span immediately, even in his current no longer 28 state becomes our sixth best hitter right? Seager may be on the way up, but he is starting slow as usual and then after that we have garbage. Gordon is a good hitter, but Span has better stats. Anyway call him the 8th best hitter, and we have to have a catcher. So getting Span allows us to once again have a full lineup. Mark me as one who is sick and tired of the M's constantly lugging around a black hole or two in the lineup, so I am VERY glad to have Span a board.
And of course Span wasn't even the main target of the trade to begin with...
Yeah it hurts that we gave up Gohara... Is Karns even still in baseball??? No idea why you brought up his name. Of course if Smyly doesn't get hurt who knows what happens last year, maybe we go to the wild card... What do any past trades have to do with this one anyways?
I get it, you get attached to the farm boys and Dipoto loves to trade them out from under you. But, I for one am ready for the Mariners to break into the playoffs for the first time in a couple decades... And this trade helps get us there, regardless if it hurts my Beaver heart or not.
Good trade. GoMs.