{"id":670108,"date":"2026-04-08T11:19:14","date_gmt":"2026-04-08T11:19:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/670108\/"},"modified":"2026-04-08T11:19:14","modified_gmt":"2026-04-08T11:19:14","slug":"mariners-3-team-trade-has-created-1-023-ops-outcome","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/670108\/","title":{"rendered":"Mariners’ 3-team trade has created 1.023 OPS outcome"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Seattle Mariners<\/a> headed into the offseason with a chance to retain Eugenio Suarez to play third base if they wanted.<\/p>\n

Instead, they went in a different direction, making a three-team trade with the St. Louis Cardinals<\/a> and Tampa Bay Rays<\/a> for their solution.<\/p>\n

So far, Brendan Donovan has been more than worth the cost (which included Seattle sending out switch-pitcher Jurrangelo Cijtnje and infielder Ben Williamson).<\/p>\n

Donovan has a 1.023 OPS so far while hitting leadoff for Seattle.<\/p>\n

“Donovan made a name for himself as one of the best utility players in the league, but his trademark versatility hasn\u2019t been on display during his first two weeks with the Mariners, who are using him as their starting third baseman after acquiring him this winter in a three-team trade with the Rays and Cardinals,” MLB.com’s Mark Feinsand wrote<\/a> in a new article on Wednesday. “Defense hasn\u2019t been an early-season strength for Donovan (-3 Outs Above Average), but he\u2019s more than made up for it with his bat. In his first nine games (37 plate appearances), the 29-year-old is slashing .323\/.432\/.581 (1.013 OPS) with two home runs, four RBIs and four runs scored.”<\/p>\n

MORE:\u00a0Yankees outfielder once battled ostrich in 11-plate spaghetti-eating contest<\/a><\/p>\n

The only problem for the Mariners so far is that the guys not named Donovan aren’t exactly lighting the world on fire yet.<\/p>\n

“Donovan has hit leadoff in six of those contests, setting the table for the Mariners\u2019 lineup,” Feinsand writes. “Unfortunately, Seattle\u2019s 2-3-4 hitters (primarily Cal Raleigh, Julio Rodr\u00edguez and Josh Naylor) started the year 17-for-130, slashing .131\/.226\/.169, but if Donovan continues to get on base, he\u2019ll score plenty of runs before all is said and done.”<\/p>\n

There’s a lot of baseball left to be played, of course. If Donovan keeps swinging it well atop the lineup, eventually that’ll benefit the Mariners when their stars hit their strides as the season goes along.<\/p>\n

More MLB news:<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Seattle Mariners headed into the offseason with a chance to retain Eugenio Suarez to play third base…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":670109,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[2392],"tags":[5,620,4,619,65,3235],"class_list":{"0":"post-670108","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-seattle-mariners","8":"tag-baseball","9":"tag-mariners","10":"tag-mlb","11":"tag-seattle","12":"tag-seattle-mariners","13":"tag-seattlemariners"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/116368819368923063","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/670108","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=670108"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/670108\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/670109"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=670108"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=670108"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=670108"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}