Mariners Acquire Miles Mastrobuoni, Designate Nick Raposo

The Mariners introduced that they’ve acquired infielder/outfielder Miles Mastrobuoni from the Cubs. The latter membership had designated him for project final week and now receives money concerns for his departure. Seattle designated catcher Nick Raposo for project to open a roster spot.

Mastrobuoni, 29, has been a part-time huge leaguer over the previous few years. Over the previous three seasons, he has appeared in 119 video games and brought 272 plate appearances, largely with the Cubs but in addition with the Rays. He has a tepid .219/.279/.263 batting line in that point however has stolen 16 bases in 17 tries whereas offering defensive versatility. He has frolicked on the three infield positions to the left of first base in addition to the outfield corners.

As is commonly the case with a depth participant like this, the minor league efficiency has been higher. Over the previous three years, he’s had 982 Triple-A plate appearances with 22 house runs, an 18.1% strikeout fee, 12.8% stroll fee, .278/.371/.434 slash line and 114 wRC+.

The Mariners have been in search of infield upgrades this winter. They misplaced Justin Turner to free company, turned down an choice on Jorge Polanco and non-tendered Josh Rojas. That left them with J.P. Crawford at shortstop and no clear solutions for the opposite positions. They’ve varied doable options on the roster, together with Luke Raley, Dylan Moore, Ryan Bliss, Austin Shenton and others, although strengthening the group has clearly been a objective this winter. The membership signed Donovan Solano this week however shouldn’t be achieved.

Mastrobuoni gained’t repair all the things however he’s a strong addition to that cluster of potential contributors. He can bounce round to a number of positions and steal a couple of bases not less than. The offense within the majors hasn’t been good but however the minor league numbers have been higher, maybe suggesting there’s potential for extra there. He additionally has an choice remaining, which means he doesn’t should be given an energetic roster spot and will be shuttled between the minors and majors with relative ease.

Raposo, 27 in June, was simply claimed off waivers from the Blue Jays final month. He hasn’t but made his main league debut. He first obtained a 40-man roster spot from the Cardinals final summer time, when each Iván Herrera and Willson Contreras had been injured, however by no means obtained right into a sport. He went from the crimson birds to the blue birds in August when the Jays claimed him off waivers, although Toronto misplaced him to Seattle a couple of months later.

In his 4 years of minor league expertise, he has a .241/.321/.387 line and 85 wRC+ in 808 plate appearances. Baseball Prospectus has given him strong marks for his blocking and throwing within the minors. He nonetheless has a few choices and only a handful of days of service time.

The M’s will now have per week to determine what’s subsequent for Raposo. That might be a commerce or Raposo might be placed on waivers once more. The waiver course of takes 48 hours so any commerce talks would want to occur within the subsequent 5 days.