I think the Mariners made a huge mistake by not trading Castillo.
The Mariners seem to operate on the defeatist premise that “it doesn’t matter who we bring in, everyone gets worse hitting in our park”.
They also seem to believe that their rotation’s success is based solely on raw talent combined with expert development.
These ideas don’t mesh. I believe they could have traded Castillo and gotten similar production from several other pitchers at half the cost or less. Their stadium that wrecks hitters, also makes pitchers look better than they are. They should be actively exploiting this. Every year they should bring in a collection of reclamation projects to fill the last spot in their rotation. They should also trade that player at the deadline to a team desperate for starting pitching. The A’s employed this strategy successfully for several years. I’m surprised “Trader Jerry” never tried it.
