Guardians insider lays out logic behind Stephen Vogt-Mariners move that can't be ignored

While this year’s offseason is always guaranteed to be a weird one due to the impending lockout, the steady drumbeat around Stephen Vogt’s future means it’s going to be even weider than usual. 

After Vogt’s name was initially linked to the Mariners at the end of September after Seattle fired manager Dan Wilson, it gained a bit more legs this week after the Guardians were eliminated and more people were able to take the time to process that potential connection. 

We got another example of that earlier this week when MLB.com’s Anthony Castrovince went on 92.3 and talked about Vogt’s future with the club and how that relates to the Mariners. 

As Castrovince noted, Vogt’s family lives in Olympia, Washington (about an hour away from Seattle), while adding that it’s (understandably) been tough for Vogt to be away from his family for so much of the season. A move to Seattle would fix that. 

The biggest part of this, however, is that Vogt is still under contract with the Guardians for the foreseeable future. Even if the length of his contract isn’t known, ESPN insider JJeff Passan reported last year that Vogt signed a multi-year contract after the 2024 season. 

If the Mariners do want Vogt, they’d need to be willing to empty their coffers just to have the Guardians consider dealing Vogt. But just because it’s a far cry doesn’t mean that the conversation around Vogt going to Seattle isn’t going anywhere any time soon. 

The Mariners' pursuit of Stephen Vogt could hit a fever pitch soon

It’s worth noting that MLB trades involving managers are extremely rare. In fact, it’s only happened five times in MLB history. 

1960: The Guardians swapped managers when they dealt Joe Gordon to the Tigers for Jimmy Dykes.
1977: The Athletics traded manager Chuck Tanner to the Pirates for catcher Manny Sanguillen
2002: The Mariners traded Lou Piniella to the Devil Rays in exchange for outfielder Randy Winn.
2011: The White Sox traded manager Ozzie Guillén and pitcher Ricardo Andres to the Marlins for pitcher Jhan Marinez and infielder Ozzie Martinez.
2012: The Blue Jays traded manager John Farrell to the Boston Red Sox in exchange for infielder Mike Aviles and pitcher David Carpenter. 

Any potential deal with Vogt would require more assets than any of those deals since he’s had a ton of success with the Guardians, is still young (41) and under contract. 

But any potential movement involving him and the Mariners would need to move quickly given every day gets us closer and closer to the impending Dec. 1 lockout. Seattle’s already moved to interview former Astros manager Joe Espada, and it’s hard to imagine they’ll want the process to go much longer. 

Here’s hoping that happens soon so we can all stop having to worry about it.

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