SEATTLE -- The Mariners made waves a week before the Trade Deadline when they added first baseman Josh Naylor. They made an even bigger splash late Wednesday night, bringing back Eugenio Suárez in a reunion that Seattle as a city still has not fully calmed down from.
But it was the club’s third Deadline move -- acquiring southpaw Caleb Ferguson from the Pirates for prospect Jeter Martinez -- that made one specific Seattle reliever happiest.
“My first little conversation with him, I put my arm around him and I was like, ‘Dude, I’m so happy you’re here,’” Gabe Speier ahead of Sunday’s game against the Rangers. “I’ve been the only lefty down here for awhile now, and it’s really good to have another one.”
Speier has been the one consistent left-hander on a Seattle staff that’s skewed more right-handed than anyone else in the league. Last year, the Mariners finished the year with just 82 1/3 innings covered by lefties -- not just the fewest in the league, but the fewest by any team since 2016. And they began this season even more lefty-light; when Ferguson came to Seattle last Wednesday, just 48 of their 986 2/3 innings pitched -- less than 5% -- had been handled by southpaws.
Much of that has to do with the fact that the Mariners have thrown a righty starter in every single game this year. But the bullpen has spent much of the season with Speier being the only option from the left side. Before Ferguson arrived, Seattle had gotten just 26 outs from other southpaws. They had gotten two inning-long outings from No. 13 prospect Brandyn Garcia the week leading up to the deadline -- only to have Garcia be part of the return to Arizona in the trade that netted Naylor.
So enter Ferguson, a seven year veteran, with a very obvious role to fill.
“It’s huge,” manager Dan Wilson said. “We’ve had to lean on Gabe pretty heavily here in the first part of the season, just because he was, for the most part, the only lefty we had. It gives you so much more flexibility in your bullpen; it gives you a second round of going after left-handed hitters.”
That’s how it broke down in Seattle’s 11-inning loss to the Rangers on Saturday, with Speier sending the lefty-heavy top of the Texas lineup down in order in the eighth inning, before Ferguson got the Mariners out of a jam with those same lefties coming up in the 11th.
“Not only is [he] another lefty, but he’s another high-leverage lefty, and I think that we can work as a tandem,” Speier said.
The early returns on Ferguson have been positive, between a scoreless inning in his debut in Sacramento last Thursday and the escape act with a runner on third Saturday.
The 29-year-old came to Seattle after posting a 3.74 ERA in 43 1/3 innings, though his xERA is a fair bit lower at 2.87. Despite having lower strikeout and whiff rates, his 25.2% hard-hit rate and average opposing exit velo of 83.7 mph are both the best in baseball this year, while his 3.1% barrel rate ranks in the 98th percentile.
“I think the message coming in has kind of been ‘Be yourself and go do what you do,’” Ferguson said. “I think that’s part of the reason they have success here: They identify what they’re really good at doing, and that’s what they ask you to do. When you come into a new place and they tell you to be yourself, it makes the transition a little seamless.”
It’s a transition that Ferguson has gotten used to. This is the second straight Deadline he’s been moved, after going from the Mets to the Astros last season. He went to Pittsburgh on a one-year, $3 million deal in the offseason, before coming west again.
“For me, I normally don’t put too much focus on it, because it’s not really a controllable for me,” he said. “The hardest part is trying to block out the noise -- all the stuff on Twitter and everything you can see on social media.”
Instead, he can look one locker over in the Mariners’ home clubhouse and find someone who’s real happy he’s there.
“The left-handed reliever position is a bit of a niche group, I guess,” Speier said. “I think there’s a bit of camaraderie there. Ferg, he’s only been here for a couple days and he’s settled right in. He’s been a really good teammate and obviously a great pitcher. He’s good to have around.”