With a tweak, Seattle Mariners' Jose Ferrer could be special

When Seattle Mariners president of baseball operations Jerry Dipoto joined MLB Network from the winter meetings in Orlando on Tuesday, he declared the Mariners’ newest addition, Jose Ferrer, as “the No. 1 target for the Mariners in terms of of bullpen.”

Drayer: What the Jose Ferrer trade means for Mariners

Later that afternoon, Nationals beat reporter Andrew Golden of The Washington Post gave an up close and personal look at the lefty who should pitch in big spots for the Mariners in ’26 following his trade from the Nats.

“I think they’re getting a really hard-throwing reliever who has a lot of upside,” Golden told Seattle Sports’ Wyman and Bob. “I think it’s really easy to look at the (4.48) ERA and be like, what in the world are we getting here? But I think he has an elite ground ball rate. He can throw extremely hard.”

Ferrer comes to the Mariners with the look of a young reliever who is a tweak or two away from being special. His 4.48 ERA and 8.37 strikeouts per nine innings in 2025 do not seem to line up with the stuff and command he displays.

In looking at Ferrer’s pitch usage, one wonders why he doesn’t throw his best swing and miss pitch, the slider, more. Golden shed some light on why, using the example of a pitcher the Mariners saw four times in the American League Division Series: Kyle Finnegan, a one-time All-Star who was sent from Washington to the Detroit Tigers at the MLB trade deadline in July.

“When you look at the Nationals and how their pitching development was, I think a lot of their repetition was pound the strike zone with fastballs over and over again,” Golden said. “I think an example that’s interesting is Kyle Finnegan. When he got traded to the Tigers at the trade deadline, he changed his pitch mix completely, had a ton of success with that. I can see Ferrer having a similar thing where hitters aren’t sitting on his fastball as much as he’s adding the slider.”

Before the trade, Finnegan was throwing a fastball/splitter/slider mix, leaning heavy on the fastball by throwing it 65.7% of the time and the splitter being his No. 2 pitch at 29.6%. With Detroit, Finnegan led with the splitter, throwing it at a rate of 54.8% with the fastball falling to 40.9%.

In that time, Finnegan’s ERA dropped from 4.38 in 40 appearances with the Nationals to a 1.50 in his 16 appearances with the Tigers. His strikeout rate soared from 7.38 to 11.50 K/9. It was a dramatic jump in just 16 innings, but the Tigers appear to be believers, re-signing Finnegan to a two-year, $19 million deal this week.

The Mariners are banking on seeing further development with the 25-year-old Ferrer, who Golden believes took big steps forward last season after a rocky start.

“He just struggled with being that guy, that high-leverage guy early on in the season,” he said. “I think you saw him gain more confidence as the year went on. He picked the brain of Edwin Díaz. He picked the brain of Devin Williams and got advice from some of the best closers in the game about how they closed. And I think he gained a lot of confidence at the end of the year.”

With the Mariners, Ferrer will have plenty of brains to pick – perhaps none more important than two-time All-Star Andrés Muñoz, who would be able to share his experience as a young closer who changed his pitch mix, leaning less on the upper 90s and triple digits and more on the slider. Muñoz too is someone who has sought out the best in baseball to learn more about his craft, and he embraces the role of being the helper, always noting he can learn from those who come to him as well.

The Mariners and Mariners fans will have time to get to know Ferrer, who has four years of club control remaining. Golden believes he will be a good fit in Seattle.

“He’s like a bubbly personality,” Golden said. “Actually probably one of my favorite guys to talk to in the clubhouse. He’s really great with the media for the most part, really descriptive and is a great talker. I think Seattle’s going to be very happy with the guy that they’re getting. I think he’s a really good personality. … I’m sad that he’s no longer in the (Nationals) clubhouse, but I think he’ll be a great addition to wherever he goes.”

Hear the full Wyman and Bob conversation with Andrew Golden of The Washington Post in the middle segment of the podcast at this link or in the audio player near the top of this post. Catch Wyman and Bob from 2-7 p.m. weekdays on Seattle Sports.

With a tweak, Seattle Mariners’ Jose Ferrer could be special

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