Mariners get immediate upgrade in trade for shortstop Jean Segura
There was certainly an era in Major League Baseball history when two teams could agree on a trade late on the eve of Thanksgiving and sit on it for a couple of days so everyone involved could enjoy turkey in peace. This is not that era, so the Mariners and Diamondbacks pulled the trigger late Wednesday night on a deal to send a package built around shortstop Jean Segura to Seattle for pitcher Taijuan Walker and infielder Ketel Marte. No sense holding off on the announcement until Friday, as word would inevitably leak out anyway. You might as well let Tai Walker celebrate Thanksgiving knowing his fate instead of refreshing MLB Trade Rumors all day.
As trades go, it's a fairly interesting one. For the Mariners, it continued an active early offseason that has already seen GM Jerry DiPoto acquire Danny Valencia and Carlos Ruiz, among others. By parting with Walker and Marte - two still-promising young players - Seattle signifies some urgency to win in 2017, which makes sense. With Robinson Cano and Nelson Cruz still effective in their mid-30s and Kyle Seager in the thick of his prime, the Mariners should clearly try to capitalize on that talent before a handful of longterm deals become burdensome.
Segura, if he can come close to match his 2016 production, offers an obvious upgrade over Marte, who struggled on both sides of the ball in the Majors last season. Segura endured back-to-back awful offensive seasons before his breakout year last year, so he's hardly a safe bet to maintain an .867 OPS again in 2017. But it's worth noting, tragically, that some of Segura's struggles in Milwaukee could have been related to the death of his infant son in the middle of the 2014 season, and some believe the change of scenery in 2016 helped Segura return to the form that made him an All-Star in 2013.
Adding Segura to a group that already includes Cano, Cruz and Seager makes the Mariners' offense appear ripe for contention in 2017. Last season's Seattle club finished only three games shy of a postseason berth despite a shaky starting rotation and a handful of fairly large holes in the lineup. If Segura can get on base anywhere near the .368 clip he maintained in 2016, he'll help the Mariners score a lot more runs.
The Mariners also got a couple of intriguing depth pieces from Arizona in pitcher Zac Curtis and outfielder Mitch Haniger. Neither has ever been considered a big-time prospect, but good players slip past prospect experts with some frequency (forecasting baseball success is extremely hard), and both join Seattle with promising minor league resumes. Haniger, 25, graduated to the Majors last season after posting a studly .321/.419/.581 line across Class AA and AAA, numbers bolstered by but not entirely attributable to a stint in the hitter-friendly Pacific Coast League. With experience in all three outfield positions, Haniger looks at the very least like a serviceable fourth outfielder.
Curtis, a lefty, threw 13 1/3 scattered and largely ineffective innings in the Majors last season despite no Class AAA experience. He's small and he's not a hard-thrower by Major League standards, but his outrageous minor-league strikeout rate suggests he can baffle opposing hitters. The 24-year-old has to date struck out 169 batters in 111 minor league innings across Class A and AA. It's worth noting that Curtis has featured a reverse platoon split in all three of his professional seasons, meaning he doesn't profile as a lefty specialist without some sort of adjustment in arsenal or approach.
The move represents the biggest move yet made by new Diamondbacks GM Mike Hazen, tasked with rebuilding a club that went all-in just last offseason. Both Marte and Walker are still young, so both maintain some of their prospect luster. Walker, 24, has stayed healthy over the past two seasons and owns a strong 3.25 career strikeout-to-walk ratio, but has been enormously prone to the home run - allowing 52 of them across 304 combined innings in 2015 and 2016 despite pitching his home games at spacious Safeco Field. Marte, 23, is a switch-hitter who showed good contact skills throughout the minors and in his 2015 debut but looked overmatched at times by big-league pitching in 2016.
Walker will remain under team control through arbitration through at least the 2020 season and Marte for a year beyond that (assuming both remain in the Majors), where Segura is currently slated for free agency after the 2018 season.