Mariners acquire All Star outfielder Teoscar Hernández from Toronto
The Mariners added impact into their lineup today in a big way. Meet Teoscar Hernández.
A normal Wednesday morning turned to chaos as Jeff Passan dropped a bomb on the baseball world. The Mariners have pulled the trigger on a trade with the Toronto Blue Jays for All Star outfielder Teoscar Hernández.
Hernández will be joining the Mariners with right handed reliever Erik Swanson and farmhand Adam Macko going to the Blue Jays. This deal comes after Seattle ended Toronto’s season just over a month ago.
In that series the outfielder hit two massive home runs off of Robbie Ray before Seattle completed the epic comeback.
Hernández will join an outfield already harboring Rookie of the Year Julio Rodríguez, but the rest is pretty uncertain. The left fielder is coming off a season in which he posted a 129 WRC+ and put together a .267/.316/.491 slashline.
This move adds immediate thump in the middle of the Seattle order, adding one of the best power bats in the American League. Coming off respective 32 and 25 home run seasons, Hernández hits the ball as hard as anyone.
The Dominican outfielder spent most of his season in right field but also saw action in left and at DH. This fits perfectly with the Dipoto’s desire to have a rotating DH with four good outfield bats.
Defensively he leaves a lot to be desired but is not the worst you could do. He ranked in the 14th percentile of outs above average according to Baseball Savant (bad), but has a very strong arm and was in the 47th percentile of outfield jump. In other words he is basically Mitch Haniger in right field (we will cover that in a following article).
Hernández is entering the final year of his contract in 2023, setting the stage to enter free agency next season. Seattle could certainly be in the mix for an extension to keep him in Seattle for 5-6 more seasons. He will be age 31 when he hits free agency, so an extension could be a good way to get some security long term.
While Swanson was very good last season relievers are relatively easy to move on from especially with that being a strength for Dipoto and the front office. Swanson would have likely entered next season as their fourth bullpen arm, so moving on from him certainly doesn’t kill them.
The Mariners got much better today, addressing their lineup in a real and impactful way. While Swanson is difficult to part with the front office will have a way to replace him.
Seattle fired off the opening salvo of the offseason and it puts the league on notice. The Mariners aren’t satisfied, they are here to do damage.
Tell the Marine layer to bring it, the Mariners are coming.
