Mariners, journeyman lefty Wade LeBlanc agree to contract extension. Is he their next Jamie Moyer?

Wade LeBlanc was jobless entering the final week of spring training. The New York Yankees cut him from a minor league contract.

Now?

He’s stabilized the Seattle Mariners’ rotation in many ways – for the second time in three seasons – and for his breakout 2018 the 33-year-old left-hander agreed with the Mariners on a one-year contract extension on Tuesday with club options through 2022.

ESPN's Jerry Crasnick reported the deal will pay LeBlanc a base salary of $2.75 million in 2019 and the payout increases to $4.75 million with performance bonuses based on how many innings he pitches. The deal could max out at $32 million with performance bonuses.

LeBlanc is 3-0 with a 3.38 ERA in 11 starts this season after pitching the first month as a long reliever out of the Mariners’ bullpen.

“You come here and you perform and we’ll take care of you,” Mariners general manager Jerry Dipoto said. “I think it’s a nice reward for Wade, but he earned it. This is what he earned, and the ability to know where he’s going to be next year is something Wade hasn’t had a lot of opportunity to know in his career.”

LeBlanc has often received comparisons throughout the organization to another former Mariners lefty, Jamie Moyer.

Similarly, Moyer was a journeyman pitcher, having played for his seventh team when he landed with the Mariners in 1996 as a 33-year-old. He stayed for 11 seasons, winning 145 games.

LeBlanc has played for seven different clubs and he's 33 years old.

Freaky.

But LeBlanc first revitalized his career when the Mariners acquired him for part of the 2016 season from the Blue Jays and now again this year after pitching solely out of the bullpen in 2017 with the Pirates.

“This is tongue-in-cheek, but to a degree it’s a reason why we did this deal like this,” Dipoto said. “Jokingly to (LeBlanc’s agent) Joe Rosen and I said something to Wade about it, but we referenced it as the Jamie Moyer contingency clause.

“What Wade’s doing now, I don’t want to say in perpetuity because eventually everybody times out, but I don’t think his fastball is going to get harder or substantially slower. Who he is as a pitcher is very sustainable for a guy in his age range.”

LeBlanc was the Mariners’ scheduled starter for their Tuesday night game against the Los Angeles Angels.

So what does this mean for the trade deadline?

That July 31 date is fast approaching and the Mariners have been linked around the major leagues to various starting pitchers, including most recently left-hander Cole Hamels from the Rangers, Tigers left-hander and Eastside Catholic of Sammamish product Matthew Boyd and Blue Jays right-hander J.A. Happ.

Dipoto said LeBlanc’s does not change the Mariners’ approach entering the non-waiver trade deadline.

It just might not necessarily be a starting pitcher the Mariners look for. They’re also looking at bullpen options, even though they already added right-hander Alex Colome in a deal from the Tampa Bay Rays.

“If there’s an opportunity for us to expand or augment our pitching group, wherever that is, we are going to be attentive to that,” Dipoto said. “If there’s the ability to go out and find a guy we think takes some of the innings stress off of our starters in the second half or can give us that late punch in the back-end of the bullpen, then we’ll go that route. And if that opportunity doesn’t present itself, we probably won’t chase it.”

But back to LeBlanc.

He hasn’t spent too many of his 10 years in the major leagues amid much stability. Is he a starter? A reliever? Is he living in San Diego, Miami, Houston, Los Angeles, New York, Seattle, Japan or Pittsburgh?

Here’s how he put his career prognosis after that 2015 season overseas with the Saitama Seibu Lions in Japan’s professional league, when he went 2-5 with a 4.23 ERA in 44 2/3 innings.

“Man, to be honest, I thought my career was over after Japan,” LeBlanc said.

“I was always kind of a nobody, but there you’re really a nobody because you kind of fall off the map. I was hanging on to the map by a thread and then I kind of fell off coming back from Japan.

“But you keep your nose down, you keep grinding and the Lord smiled on me and good things happened from there.”

Rosen was able to get him a minor league contract with the Toronto Blue Jays with an invitation to spring training. He was assigned to their minor league camp and was later traded to the starter-depleted Mariners that 2016 season in exchange for cash and a player to be named later (which Dipoto later revealed could have been LeBlanc, meaning the Mariners could have traded for Wade LeBlanc in exchange for … Wade LeBlanc).

Now the lefty from Lake Charles, Louisiana, and the former second-round pick out of the University of Alabama has a home in Seattle.

He then went and pitched seven innings later Tuesday night against the Angels, allowed three hits, one run, retired the final 11 batters he faced and improved to 4-0.

“You think the shoe is going to drop,” Mariners manager Scott Servais said. “He’s so much better now than he was the last time we saw him.

“The best part about these days is when a guy like that has bounced around a little bit – he’s earned it. And that’s really what makes you feel good and allows you to sleep at night. It’s been earned over a period of time. It hasn’t been easy for him and I know we’ve been the beneficiary of what he’s done here because he’s been awesome.”

One could argue this has been the most feel-good individual story of the Mariners season.

“Each time I go out there I’m much more comfortable with who I am as a pitcher,” LeBlanc said. “I’ve always known who I am as a person, but to understand the stuff I have is good enough to pitch at this level if I execute and use it correctly and understand proper sequencing and what guys are trying to do against me, I understand and I’m more confident with who I am as a pitcher.

“This is life-changing money, obviously, but for me I’ve never been the kind of guy to be able to know where my family and I are going to be the next year this early … it’s huge for me and my family.”

TJ Cotterill: 253-597-8677

Twitter: @TJCotterill

This story was originally published July 3, 2018 at 6:04 PM.