Mariners land LHP Ferrer from Nats for prospects

The Washington Nationals traded left-hander Jose Ferrer to the Seattle Mariners for top catching prospect Harry Ford and minor league pitcher Isaac Lyon, the teams announced Saturday.

The move gives the Mariners, fresh off falling a win short of reaching their first World Series, a second left-handed reliever along with veteran Gabe Speier. Ferrer, 25, is a hard thrower with a fastball that averaged 97.7 mph, a walk rate that ranked in the 95th percentile and a 64.3% groundball rate that ranked in the 99th percentile last season. He finished with a 4.83 ERA in 72 appearances, but his 3.03 FIP suggests he was unlucky. He was projected to become the Nationals' closer next season.

The price to land Ferrer was high. Ford, a first-round pick in 2021, was 65th in the August top-100 prospect rankings from ESPN's Kiley McDaniel and fifth in the Mariners' loaded farm system. He batted .283 with 16 home runs and an .868 OPS in 97 Triple-A games last season. He made his major league debut in September and appeared in eight games, including one start behind the plate, and went 1-for-6 in eight plate appearances.

The 22-year-old Ford's late promotion and limited action illustrated his reality: Despite his prospect status, Cal Raleigh, the American League MVP runner-up, is the Mariners' catcher for the foreseeable future, which made Ford an obvious trade candidate.

Talent evaluators question whether Ford has the skill set to remain a catcher at the big league level, but recently hired Nationals president of baseball operations Paul Toboni made bolstering the catcher position one of his top priorities entering the offseason. Nationals catchers ranked 30th in the majors in fWAR, 29th in wRC+ and 29th in OPS last season.

The Mariners drafted the 21-year-old Lyon, a right-hander, in the 10th round in June. The Grand Canyon University product recorded a 7.30 ERA in 12 ⅓ innings across four starts in Low A.