The Mariners, currently the American League’s second wild-card team, are trying to make the postseason for the first time since 2001. Castillo will have to bolster a rotation — both this season and next — that already includes the winner of Cy Young Award Robbie Ray and quality youngsters Logan Gilbert and George Kirby. Adding him comes at a big cost to the Mariners, but it shows how serious shortstop Jerry Dipoto is about shedding the sport’s longest playoff drought. For Cincinnati, Castillo’s departure is the latest (though not the last) part of an ongoing rebuild that dates back to last winter. The Reds are in full-on talent-stacking mode at this point, and it’s fair to say they scored a nice return for their ace and a season and a half of remaining team control. We here at CBS Sports are nothing short of judgmental, and that means we offer near-instant analysis on big trades this time of year. Below, you’ll find “grades” for both the Mariners and Reds, along with explanations for those ratings. With that out of the way, let’s start by recapping the deal: Sailors receive Reds receive
SS Noelvi Marte SS Edwin Arroyo RHP Levi Stoudt RHP Andrew Moore
Sailors’ rank: A
That’s the kind of trade you make when you haven’t made the playoffs in over two decades. Seriously, though, this is a welcome sight in a few ways, starting with how it rewards a passionate (and tortured) Seattle fan base and extending to how the counterculture operates in the league as a whole. Teams are too happy these days to take a postseason spot for granted. Their executives will make a marginal upgrade or two on the sidelines. If the chips fall as long as it’s enough to make the playoffs, great. Otherwise, why risk losing some sweet, sweet upside for anything less than a division title? The Mariners are not going to win the AL West. They will enter Saturday as behind the Houston Astros as the San Diego Padres are the Los Angeles Dodgers. Adding Castillo boosts his postseason chances and, more importantly, makes him a more dangerous October opponent. Note that the new playoff format does away with the one-and-done Wild Card game. The top two seeds in each league will get a bye, while the rest will play a best-of-three series on the field of the best team. The Mariners now have a better chance to host this series and can field a three-game rotation that includes Castillo, the Cy Young Award winner, and Logan Gilbert, one of the most promising young starters in the sport. This is a tough set of games for the Toronto Blue Jays or any other team looking to keep going. Assuming the outgoing package, as good as it is, wouldn’t be enough to land Juan Soto or Shohei Ohtani, then Castillo was the most impressive player the Mariners could have gotten back. For example, the 29-year-old Castillo may well get the Game 1 assignment. After missing the season opener with shoulder problems, he has recovered to post a 2.86 ERA (160 ERA+) and a 3.21 strikeout-to- walk in 14 starts. Since the start of the Pandemic Era, he ranks seventh in Wins Above Replacement among starters. He’s under team control through the end of next season, too, and despite the aforementioned shoulder problem, has pitched a full schedule every year dating back to 2018. The Mariners should feel optimistic that Castillo can deliver many quality starts between now and winter 2023. Castillo’s signature pitch is his changeup. It is one of, if not the best of its kind and he often used it as his main offering throughout his career. However, Castillo’s cambio has not caught the eye so far this season. Instead, that honor goes to his four-seam fastball, which has averaged 97 mph and produced a .125 batting average and 38.7 percent slugging percentage, the highest among pitchers with at least 300 homers to date. Castillo also sinks his fastball and throws a slider, but for our money, it’s the quad and changeup that make him good. Most would have agreed going into Friday morning that it would be great to see the Mariners make a splash and that Castillo was the best pitcher on the market. Now that the cost is known, there is likely to be some disagreement now about whether or not this trade was worth whatever comes next. It was a lot to give up, no doubt, and this trade will limit Seattle’s ability to make further moves, this summer and moving forward. The addition of Castillo could end up being the difference between the Mariners winning a playoff run (or more) and not. We’re giving the Mariners an A because we think teams — particularly those that aren’t the usual suspects — prioritizing the potential for deep playoff runs is healthier for the sport, and because we really like Castillo as a pitcher. We’d understand anyone giving them a worse grade because of the sheer amount of talent they gave up for a relatively short-term fix. Check the opt-in box to confirm you want to join.
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Grade of reds: A
It has become fashionable for contending teams to hit the reset button by trading away any player who is either approaching free agency or has seven figures. There is no easier way for a general manager to create additional job security than to invoke a five-year rebuilding plan. In this way, the owner saves a lot of money and the manager does not have to produce results. Just trust the process, man. Skepticism bordering on cynicism is warranted whenever a team follows this path. The worst, most desirable of these situations — those where the clear goal is to save the owner money at the expense of the team — look a lot like what the Reds did during the offseason. They quickly shed catcher Tucker Barnhart for a non-prospect and dealt lefty Wade Miley off waivers to the Chicago Cubs. Both moves were inexplicable, even at the time, and suggested the Reds would take the long, hard, cheap road back to relevance. (It didn’t help that the owner’s son, a replacement-level suit, was addressing fans early in the season.) This trade, on the other hand, is rebuilding properly. The Reds scooped up the two best prospects from a good Seattle farm system in exchange for a year and a half of Castillo in a deal that shapes the market that looks ripped from the past. Teams these days generally don’t recoup that much prospect capital for pitchers this close to free agency. Factor in Cam Collier being selected from Cincinnati in the draft, easily the best value in the first round, and the Reds have added three high-quality pitching prospects to their farm system in a matter of weeks. Granted, it’s never easy to trade a pitcher of Castillo’s caliber, especially when he stands out as one of the franchise’s biggest recent scouting and development wins. (The Reds acquired Castillo from the Miami Marlins in 2017 for Dan Straily. Castillo made 137 starts for the Reds thereafter, compared to Straily’s 56 with the Fish.) This now, and for this return, is a defensible baseball decision on multiple levels. Castillo, though largely durable throughout his career, missed the season opener with shoulder issues. His looming free agency means the Reds had to make a call, either extending or trading him. The former felt like a questionable decision given the Reds’ placement on the win curve and the risks involved in giving a veteran starter – even a very good one – a long-term contract worth his market value. Marte, 20, entered the spring ranked by CBS Sports as the sport’s 11th-best prospect. He spent the year in High-A, where he faced competition that averaged nearly three years his senior. That didn’t stop him from hitting .275/.363/.462 or tallying 34 extra-base hits (including 15 home runs) and 13 stolen bases in 85 games. The Marte combines great raw power with touch and zone feel. He has never singled in more than 22 percent of his plate appearances over the course of an entire season, yet he has drawn reliable walks in at least nine percent of his trips to the plate. If there is any point of concern with his offensive game, it has to do with his tendency to wear down left field. His 55% pull rate would rank as the third-highest in the majors, behind only Daulton Varsho and Byron Buxton. The Reds may work with Marte to use the entire field so he can be tougher on defense, or they may conclude there is no defense to clear the wall. Either way, he’s got enough tools working in his favor — and performance-wise — that he figures to develop into an above-average player. The biggest drawback with Marte is his defense. He committed 30 errors in 99 games last season and already has 24 errors in 81 games this year. The Reds will likely assign their trainers to work with him on his internal clock…
