The Mariners won the Graveman Toro and beat Astros 4-0

The Mariners won the deal.

Full stop.

That’s it. End.

Hyperbolic and reactive? Perhaps. It is incredibly difficult to evaluate trades in general, and particularly challenging to do so during the period in which they were executed. Often there are heaps of money, long-term contracts, hopeful teenagers and other such butterfly flaps on the road to a quick assessment.

But tonight only 29 games (30 if you are Astros) remaining in the regular season, I feel good to call this Seattle.

Kendall Gravemans ’contract expires at the end of this year. Abraham Toro is not eligible until 2023, and he is not a free agent until 2026. Currently, they both have a fully mirrored season of fWAR.

I know fWAR doesn’t work that way, but personally I feel like Toro added a new full win to his 2021 score tonight as he literally won this game for his team. Meanwhile, with a win in the evening, the Mariners handed Graveman the first official defeat of the year, and they are now responsible for five of the nine well-earned runs that have been abandoned throughout the season.

Maybe Graveman will be a world beating for Astros with their inevitable post-season appearance. Maybe if the fates are particularly cruel and the NL West inexplicably weak, you can save the hell to seal World series profit. It injects Mariners fans, but then Graveman is a free agent. Meanwhile, Seattle has had years of quality such bats that it expects:

Yusei Kikuchis ’overwhelming start tonight had not disappeared in the Grand Salami repairs. Seven innings, four hits, no runs, two walks and four handicaps. Key? The first pitches (duh) and bullying from his annoying cutter for the sake of the other side of the ball.

This cutter made a few appearances tonight, but looked distinctly different from previous launches with an unexpected hand movement called by resident picking analyst Mikey Ajeto to identify [sic] the direction of rotation has just changed. Either way – and hopefully others more aware than I dig deeper into these changes – it makes Kikuchis the next uninitiated.

While at this point the team only has 3.5 games back from the Wild Card spot, right at the top of September, and due to the almost constant Chaos Ball threat, every Mariners game is a ruthless event. And it’s pretty cool.