Yes, that MF’er. Yes, those MF’ing Mariners
Randy Arozarena is a Seattle Mariner.
If you are the GM of a baseball team seeking to win baseball games now, now, NOW this is the exact type of move you should make. It’s a gamble of future potential for present glory, and they sure as hell don’t hang banners for top-ranked farm systems.
Full trade, per ESPN sources:
— Jeff Passan (@JeffPassan) July 26, 2024
Seattle Mariners receive: outfielder Randy Arozarena
Tampa Bay Rays receive: outfielder Aidan Smith, right-hander Brody Hopkins and a player to be named last.
Smith was a fourth round pick in the 2023 draft, while Hopkins was that year’s sixth rounder. For those keeping score at home, that’s the Mariners’ #12 and #22 prospects for an All-Star outfielder who will be arb eligible in 2025 and won’t be a free agent until 2027.
The Rays have floundered this season, recently falling out of a Wild Card spot, and while that isn’t insurmountable at this point in the year it seems clear that even if they were rumored to be both buyers and sellers at the deadline they would be buying for the future. Arozarena himself struggled to start the season, but since May has put up a 143 wRC+ with a .835 OPS and a 22.8% K-rate, which doesn’t sound great until you look and see that his strikeout percentage is lower than any starting Mariner save for Josh Rojas (21.3%).
As with any move, there’s plenty of potential for this to look awful for the Mariners. It also has the potential to look awful for the Rays. It will probably look both ways, for both teams, many times over, because that’s just how this silly game works. But coming out of what genuinely felt like a rock bottom stretch of Mariners baseball (relatively speaking), this is a galvanizing move and one that has me looking up ticket prices for this weekend.
