Just when you thought the Seattle Mariners had done everything possible to give themselves the best shot at landing Shohei Ohtani, they go out and do more.
The Mariners on Thursday acquired Dee Gordon from the Miami Marlins. In exchange, Seattle sent Miami Robert Dugger, Nick Neidert, and Christopher Torres. One really interesting note from the trade is that the Mariners acquired $1 million in international pool money as part of the deal, per MLB.com’s Mark Feinsand.
Source: as part of the Gordon deal, the Marlins also send $1M in international pool money to the Mariners.
— Mark Feinsand (@Feinsand) December 7, 2017
On Wednesday night, the Mariners acquired $1 million in pool money through a trade with the Twins. In mid-November, they acquired $500,000 in pool money as well. All that money added up puts the Mariners just ahead of the Texas Rangers in terms of total money they can pay to Ohtani if he chooses them.
Addition of $1M in int’l slot money, as reported by @Feinsand, would bring #Mariners to $3.557M, putting them slightly above #Rangers in race for Ohtani.
— Ken Rosenthal (@Ken_Rosenthal) December 7, 2017
The Mariners, Rangers and Angels are the three AL teams who had meetings with Ohtani this week. The Dodgers, Giants, Cubs and Padres were the four NL teams to meet with him.
