11:51pm: The Rays receive outfielder Aidan Smith, right-hander Brody Hopkins and the player to be named later, reports Marc Topkin of the Tampa Bay Times (on X).
11:46pm: Tampa Bay is acquiring two prospects and a player to be named later, per Mark Feinsand of MLB.com (X link).
11:38pm: The Mariners are acquiring Randy Arozarena from the Rays, reports Francys Romero (X link). Seattle has desperately needed an impact bat and they’ll land one of the hottest hitters on the market.
Arozarena had an excellent four-plus year run in Tampa Bay. The Rays acquired him from the Cardinals over the 2019-20 offseason in a deal sending then top pitching prospect Matthew Liberatore to St. Louis. Arozarena had made a brief MLB debut with St. Louis the prior season, but the 2020 postseason represented his true emergence as a star. He mashed 10 home runs in 20 postseason games, snagging ALCS MVP honors and helping the Rays to a World Series.
Despite that breakout playoff performance, Arozarena retained rookie eligibility into 2021. He cruised to Rookie of the Year honors behind a .274/.356/.459 slash with 20 homers and stolen bases apiece. That was the first of three straight 20-20 campaigns for the Cuban outfielder. He swiped a career-high 32 bases in ’22 and reached 23 longballs in his first All-Star season last year.
Arozarena appeared in 445 games between 2021-23. He hit .264/.349/.443 with 63 homers in a little more than 1900 plate appearances. That production was 26 percentage points above league average, as measured by wRC+, putting him among the best left fielders in the game. Arozarena’s accolades and consistency led to quickly escalating arbitration salaries. That led to some chatter the low-payroll Rays could deal him last offseason.
Tampa Bay obviously rebuffed whatever trade offers they received over the winter. They certainly hoped Arozarena would anchor their lineup and help them to a sixth straight playoff berth. He and the team got off to a cold start, however, putting them in a hole from which they’ve never really recovered.
Arozarena hit .158/.257/.312 through the end of May. Some of that was the result of an unsustainably poor .186 average on balls in play, but his strikeout rate spiked to a near-29% clip. Arozarena has turned things around following that disastrous stretch. He’s raking at a .290/.402/.517 clip over the past two months. He has dramatically cut back on the swing-and-miss (down to 19.5%) and slightly increased his walk percentage. The results have been far more in line with his career track record as an impact hitter.
In aggregate, Arozarena’s season numbers are pedestrian. He’s hitting .211/.318/.394 with 15 homers through 409 plate appearances. That’s only marginally better than average production and would be the worst numbers of his career. Given his overall track record and more recent form, it seems fair to view his early-season struggles as more of an anomaly than a worrying trend. Getting anything close to Arozarena’s career production would be a major boost for a Seattle lineup that has hit .216/.298/.362 on the year. Only the White Sox have scored fewer runs than the Mariners this month, the biggest reason the M’s have watched their 10-game cushion in the AL West evaporate.
The M’s are only a half-game ahead of the Rays in the American League standings. It’s rare to see a team trade an impact player to another club that close to them in the playoff picture. Seattle is in better shape than Tampa Bay with regards to snagging a playoff berth, though. The Rays need to jump three teams and erase a four-game deficit in the Wild Card mix. Seattle has a much more realistic path to a division title, as they’re only one game behind the Astros and hold a 1.5 game edge on the third-place Rangers.
While Tampa Bay isn’t going to completely tear things down, they could dangle a number of veteran players in the next few days. The Rays had already moved Aaron Civale and Phil Maton. Dealing Arozarena seems to increase the likelihood of them moving the likes of Brandon Lowe, Yandy Díaz, Zach Eflin and Zack Littell. The Rays could also try to acquire upper minors or MLB-ready talent to aid a long shot playoff push this season and help them for a return to contention next year.
Seattle is in much more traditional buyer mode. Their offense was reeling even before losing Julio Rodríguez and J.P. Crawford to injury this week. Arozarena is one of what is likely to be multiple upgrades to their lineup as they try to capitalize on arguably MLB’s best starting rotation. The M’s have relied on another former Ray, Luke Raley, as their primary left fielder. Raley has been an average hitter on the season overall, but he has fanned 22 times with a .119/.224/.254 slash in 67 plate appearances this month.
More to come.