Dodgers-Yankees World Series represents past (and future) Mariners misses
Oh, what could have been and what could be.
Everyone knows that hindsight is 20/20, but with the current talent in this year’s World Series, it can be hard not to ruminate on what could have been. The matchup between two of the biggest spenders in the sport may not be perfectly translatable to a lowly small/mid-market team such as the Seattle Mariners, but that doesn’t mean the organization didn’t potentially miss out retaining some of the current top performers that used to be theirs.
There is no better example of this than Teoscar Hernández. In 2023, he was traded to Seattle in exchange for reliever Erik Swanson and top pitching prospect Adam Macko in an attempt to bolster a sagging outfield. On paper, the trade seemed like a good move, especially since Hernandez had averaged a 122 OPS+ over 2,400 plate appearances with the Blue Jays.
Unfortunately, like so many others that have arrived in the PNW, he left his big bat with his old team. He slashed an unremarkable .258/.305/.435, marking the lowest slugging percentage for any of the full seasons in his career and struck out 211 times, just three fewer than AL leader and teammate Eugenio Suárez.
This past offseason, he signed a lucrative one-year deal with the Dodgers for $23.5 million, a price tag that seemed high given his recent numbers but Los Angeles managed to bring his hitting back to life. His 137 OPS+ in 2024 is the highest for any full season in his career and his 33 home runs is also a single-season best. Over his 62 plate appearances in this year’s postseason, he has a .743 OPS with three home runs and 10 RBI.
