Throughout the winter, the Mariners fielded multiple trade offers for veteran right-hander Luis Castillo that Jerry Dipoto said were worthy of consideration.
“We had more than a few deals that made you scratch your head and say, ‘Hey, what do you think, guys?’” Dipoto, the club’s president of baseball operations, said in a conference call Monday afternoon.
The Mariners, ultimately, never pulled the trigger on any significant trades this offseason and they will begin spring training later this month with a major-league roster almost entirely the same as it was at the end of the 2024 season.
The starting rotation, most notably, remains untouched, despite persistent trade rumors that swirled around Castillo in particular.
The 32-year-old Castillo is entering the third year of a five-year, $108-million contract he signed with the Mariners late in the 2022 season. He has a full no-trade clause through the 2025 season, plus a vesting option for $25 million for 2028.
Dipoto said the Mariners’ front office kept Castillo and his agent, Rafa Nieves, informed of trade discussions as they played out.
“He was a pro about the whole thing,” Dipoto said of Castillo.
Since the start of the offseason, Dipoto had said he would trade away a pitcher from the best rotation in franchise history only as a last resort. That “Plan Z” decision never materialized.
Around the MLB Winter Meetings in December, a major-league source with direct knowledge of the talks said the Mariners and Red Sox had discussed a trade that would have sent Castillo to Boston, with young first baseman Triston Casas and outfielder/designated hitter Masataka Yoshida coming to Seattle.
The Mariners, however, were unwilling to take on the $56 million remaining on Yoshida’s contract through 2027, and the talks stalled out from there.
In November, the Mariners had also rejected an offer from the Red Sox for either one of their youngest starting pitchers — Bryce Miller or Bryan Woo — for Casas.
“Not shockingly, we had inquiries on all five of our starting pitchers and dozens of prospects along the way,” Dipoto said Monday. “But obviously we opted not to go that route.”
The end result is the quietest offseason of Dipoto’s decadelong tenure as the head of baseball operations, which he himself acknowledged is “much to the dismay of a few” fans and critics who had been holding out hope for a major offensive upgrade this winter.
Dipoto didn’t completely rule out a roster move before the start of the season — “We’re still open if the opportunity to add exists out there,” he said — but he also spent the bulk of his 20-minute session with local media members expressing confidence in the pieces in place on the roster, which features the return of Castillo to help anchor the starting rotation.
“I think that’s reflective of a team that didn’t have a whole lot of holes to fill,” Dipoto said.
Bullpen injury updates
Some good news and some bad news out of the Mariners bullpen.
Matt Brash, the Mariners’ talented right-handed reliever, remains on track to return in late April, Dipoto said.
One of MLB’s most valuable relievers in 2023, Brash had elbow reconstruction surgery last May and missed all of the 2024 season.
“Our current expectation is that he’s ready to go when we start rolling in spring training, and our present timeline is that we should get him back somewhere around the third week of April, which is pretty exciting,” Dipoto said. “And, obviously, that’s tentative. It could change. And it wouldn’t be at all shocking if he did experience some setback as he starts to ramp up into game mode, but we haven’t seen that yet, and I think Matt’s very encouraged with how he feels.”
Gregory Santos, another right-hander whose 2024 season was ruined by injuries, has been given a clean bill of health and is already throwing at the Mariners’ spring training complex in Peoria, Ariz.
The discouraging news for the bullpen: Young right-hander Troy Taylor has been diagnosed with a lat strain in his pitching arm and it’s not yet clear if he will recover in time to make the opening-day roster.
Taylor, 23, made his MLB debut last August and made 21 appearances over the final seven weeks of the season, posting a 3.72 ERA with a 25-to-7 strikeout-to-walk ratio in 19.1 innings.
The Mariners see Taylor as a potential closer in the future.
“We are going to be without Troy Taylor for a little bit at the start of spring training,” Dipoto said. “He’s had a bit of a lat strain in his offseason workouts that popped up about a week ago, and we’re going to take it easy on him with the throwing when we get started. So he’s more TBD.”
Closer Andrés Muñoz, who dealt with a back strain early last season, has had a healthy offseason and has already touched 100 mph in his winter bullpen sessions, Dipoto said.