The Mariners are finalizing a deal to acquire St. Louis Cardinals infielder\/outfielder Brendan Donovan in a three-team deal involving the Tampa Bay Rays, sources with knowledge of the deal have told The Seattle Times.<\/p>\n
The framework of the deal has been finalized, but the teams are still in the process of reviewing medical information and notifying players, sources said.<\/p>\n
Donovan, entering his age-29 season in 2026, was a first-time All-Star in 2025, and he won a utility player Gold Glove as a rookie in 2022.<\/p>\n
In four seasons in St. Louis, Donovan has had a career slash line of .282\/.361\/.411 (. 772 OPS) with a 117 OPS+ (17% better than league average), 40 homers, 97 doubles and a 11.1 bWAR.<\/p>\n
Donovan, who is in his second year of arbitration eligibility, agreed to a $5.8 million contract for 2026 with the Cardinals. The Mariners will have two total seasons of club control with Donovan becoming a free agent after the 2027 season.<\/p>\n
He has a career on-base percentage of .361, making him a leading candidate to bat at the top of the Mariners lineup.<\/p>\n
The top five hitters in the Mariners lineup \u2014 Donovan, Julio Rodr\u00edguez, Cal Raleigh, Josh Naylor and Randy Arozarena \u2014 have been All-Star selections in the past two seasons.<\/p>\n
Donovan\u2019s 13% strikeout rate in 2025 was among the lowest in MLB, and his 119 wRC+ ranked fifth among regular MLB second basemen.<\/p>\n
Per FanGraphs\u2019 metrics, Donovan had a higher fWAR (2.9) in 2025 than Jorge Polanco (2.6), the middle-of-the-order slugger the Mariners just lost to the New York Mets in free agency.<\/p>\n
This story will be updated.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Mariners are finalizing a deal to acquire St. Louis Cardinals infielder\/outfielder Brendan Donovan in a three-team deal…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":555356,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[2403],"tags":[5,160,620,4,185,673,67,4311,4310],"class_list":{"0":"post-555355","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-st-louis-cardinals","8":"tag-baseball","9":"tag-cardinals","10":"tag-mariners","11":"tag-mlb","12":"tag-sports","13":"tag-st-louis","14":"tag-st-louis-cardinals","15":"tag-stlouis","16":"tag-stlouiscardinals"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/116015742864660089","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/555355","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=555355"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/555355\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/555356"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=555355"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=555355"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=555355"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}