One deadline idea puts George Kirby at the center of a trade that would send the 28-year-old right-hander from the Mariners to the Giants before Aug. 3, with Landon Schmitt and Tyler Miller going back to Seattle.
The proposal stands out because Kirby is making just $6.55 million and remains controllable for 2 1/2 more years, a rare combination for a pitcher who could reshape a rotation without the kind of long-term gamble that usually defines the MLB Trade Deadline.
For the Mariners, the logic is baseball rather than sentiment. They have six major-league starters for five spots, they want a right-handed bat because they struggle against left-handed pitching, and they are also looking for another high-leverage reliever. Kade Anderson and Ryan Sloan are described as two of the top pitching prospects in baseball, which makes moving a starter more believable if the return helps the club in more than one place.
Kirby would give the Giants a pitcher to slot behind Logan Webb, and he would also give them a head start on replacing Robbie Ray, who is expected to be traded between now and the deadline. Schmitt, 27, is in the middle of a breakout season and brings the kind of split that matters in October and in midseason roster construction: he crushes left-handed pitching and holds his own against righties. Miller, 28, is a left-handed power arm out of the bullpen and has been a very effective reliever for San Francisco for the past three seasons.
There is, though, a catch that hangs over the idea. The deal is not one the teams are presently talking about, at least to the writer’s knowledge, and that matters because deadline proposals often look cleaner on paper than they do when the asking price turns into actual names and actual control years. Even so, the shape of the swap explains why it is being floated: Seattle would be turning one high-value starter into two pieces that address specific needs, while San Francisco would be paying for a controllable arm without having to start over at the front of the rotation.
The broader piece frames this as one of five trades before the Aug. 3 MLB Trade Deadline, and the other ideas show the same deadline pressure in different places, including a separate proposal that would send Hunter Goodman to the Red Sox. That is why the Kirby idea lands now: it is specific, it is dateable, and it asks the same question front offices always face in late July — whether one player’s control, salary and fit are worth more than the package that could come back for him. If the answer is yes, this is the kind of trade that would move quickly once the deadline clock starts to narrow.
