Mariners are said to be interested in Cease and the White Sox want the headliner to be Miller or Woo. That still leaves a lot of value to fill out the rest of the trade and it may be difficult for the Mariners and White Sox to agree to terms with the White Sox said to be asking for the moon. Enter the Rays who have a top 50ish prospect they might be interested in moving (Mead) and who is MLB ready like Miller and Woo. Would that return (Miller and Mead) interest the White Sox? I don’t know, but it makes sense on paper. White Sox don’t need Ford, with Quero in their system, but the Rays do, and the Mariners arguably don’t need Ford with Raleigh already holding down the fort. Santos is also a win-now piece, who moves over to Seattle to even out the trade value, although Seattle might have to overpay to get Cease in the real world. The sweetners in this deal are the undervalued Ramirez and Kopech, both of whom could pay huge dividends for their new teams.

I’m surprised the Mariner fans hate this trade so much. It’s a win-now trade that costs two fully valued pieces, as opposed to Woo/Miller plus guys like Montes AND Celesten who have huge upside. Plus, swapping Miller for Cease is sort of a wash in the big picture and losing Ford isn’t much of a sacrifice with Raleigh. With the Polanco trade yesterday, adding Santos via this trade is even more a cherry on top. Well, to each their own. I’m not a Mariners fan and don’t know what drives them.