Eight additional Mariners players who had verbally agreed to contracts for the 2014 season signed their deals Monday. The signings of four pitchers, one infielder and three outfielders bring to 29 the number of contract players on the club’s 40-man roster.
The signees include RHPs Blake Beavan, Danny Farquhar, Yoervis Medina and Tom Wilhelmsen; infielder Ji-Man Choi and outfielders Abraham Almonte, Xavier Avery and James Jones.
Beavan spent part of the 2013 season in Seattle’s rotation, but spent most of the season with AAA Tacoma. In 12 appearances with the Mariners, he went 0-2 with two starts. Farquhar, who became Seattle’s closer after Wilhelmsen struggled, saved 16 games. Almonte spent most of the season in Tacoma, but in 25 games with Seattle hit .264 with two home runs.
The following players still need to be renewed or signed by March 11:
Pitchers (7): Bobby LaFromboise, Lucas Luetge, Brandon Maurer, Hector Noesi, Stephen Pryor, Erasmo Ramirez, Taijuan Walker.
Catchers (1): Jesus Sucre.
Infielders (3): Brad Miller, Jesus Montero, Carlos Triunfel.
3 Comments
Holy cow, that’s a lot of important players to NOT have signed by Spring Training. I’m sure it’s a matter of time, but still…
It’ll be interesting to see what Walker signs for or if Montero signs in time for the organization to trade him away (and SOMEONE will be interested in him as a reclamation project because it wasn’t that long ago he was a highly-regarded prospect and he’s still only 24). A change would help both the team and Montero move forward.
Otherwise, I’d hold off on trading any players who might help now or later until Spring Training is over and other teams have made their finals cuts. And if you don’t think useful players can’t be picked up off the scrap heap, you haven’t been paying attention to how the Seahawks put their team together (unfortunately, Jack Zduriencik is no John Schneider).
For a baseball equivalent the A’s seem to always get players off the scrap heap that help them win 90+ games.
No real surprises here. This might set the stage for a deal later in the season.