Good morning, I’m Dan Gartland. I hope the Josh Naylor trade is the start of an active MLB trade deadline.
In today’s SI:AM:
Mariners make a move
The MLB trade deadline is less than a week away, and the action is finally beginning to heat up.
The Mariners and Diamondbacks pulled off the first noteworthy trade of the deadline period on Thursday, with Arizona sending first baseman Josh Naylor to Seattle in exchange for two pitching prospects (21-year-old righty Ashton Izzi and 25-year-old lefty Brandyn Garcia).
Naylor will join a 55–48 Seattle team that is five games behind the Astros in the AL West and holding onto the second of three wild-card spots. (They are a half-game ahead of the Red Sox.)
The move addresses the Mariners’ serious need for an upgrade at first base. They currently rank 21st in the majors in first base WAR, according to Fangraphs, which is the one glaring weakness in an otherwise strong lineup. Rowdy Tellez got the bulk of the starts at first in the beginning of the season, but he was released in late June after his mediocre performance at the plate failed to make up for his horrendous defense. Lately, the Mariners have turned to veterans Donovan Solano and Luke Raley at first, but neither player has hit very well.
Naylor has been a consistently productive hitter over the past several years, first with the Guardians and then this year in Arizona. He has a .292/.360/.447 slash line this season, with 11 homers and 59 RBIs. Last year, he was tied for 10th in the American League with 31 homers.
The trade could be the first of many for the Diamondbacks, who are falling out of contention and have multiple coveted players who other teams are said to be interested in. The most high-profile of them is third baseman Eugenio Suárez, who is the best position player believed to be on the market before Thursday’s deadline. Suárez ranks fourth in the majors this season with 36 home runs and is set to become a free agent after the season, which makes him an appealing target for almost any contending team. Radio host John Gambadoro of Arizona Sports 98.7 FM reported Thursday that 12 teams had asked the D-Backs about trading for Suárez and that Arizona would prefer to receive pitching help in return.
The Diamondbacks also have a pair of pending free agent starting pitchers who are expected to garner plenty of attention on the trade market: Merrill Kelly and Zac Gallen. Pitching was supposed to be Arizona’s strong point this season, but injuries to Corbin Burnes and Jordan Montgomery (both of whom underwent Tommy John surgery) chipped away at that depth and contributed to the team’s struggles this season. But the D-Backs still have a strong core with Corbin Carroll, Geraldo Perdomo and Ketel Marte, and bailing on a lost season to get something in return for a few of those pending free agents could be the best way back to contention.
The best of Sports Illustrated
- Hulk Hogan, who died Thursday at age 71, was many things. He was an all-time pro wrestling great and an American pop culture phenomenon, as well as an admitted racist and a union buster. He was also a frequent subject of Sports Illustrated’s unparalleled photography. Here is a gallery of our best shots of the man born Terry Bollea.
- SI’s College Football Preseason Top 25 continues with a Mountain West powerhouse poised for another title run despite losing its star playmaker. Can this program still crash the College Football Playoff?
- Gilberto Manzano empties his notebook from a day of training camp with the Chargers and spotlights the emergence of rookie running back Omarion Hampton.
- For our Quarter-Century Week, the MMQB writers and editors share their favorite plays of the past 25 years.
- How has the job of being an NFL head coach changed over the past 25 years? Conor Orr says no job in sports has gotten more complex.
- ACC media days on Thursday were dominated by one man: new North Carolina coach Bill Belichick. Bryan Fischer was there in Charlotte to take in the whole scene.
- Meanwhile, across the country in Las Vegas at Big Ten media days, the focus was on new UCLA quarterback Nico Iamaleava. Pat Forde writes that the former Tennessee quarterback is ready to leave his messy exit from Knoxville behind him and eager to get back on the field.
- Newcastle star Alexander Isak dropped a huge bombshell by reportedly making known his desire to leave the Premier League squad. We outline the six most likely destinations should he succeed in moving on.
- Is the format of MLS about to change? MLS commissioner Don Garber certainly suggested as much.
- With Marcus Rashford trading Manchester United for Barcelona, we look at what went wrong for the pacy forward at Old Trafford.
The top five…
… things I saw yesterday:
5. The Savannah Bananas player who did a faceplant while trying to backflip live on CNN.
4. Tigers catcher Jake Rogers’s knuckleball while pitching in mop-up duty.
3. Yankees prospect Spencer Jones’s three-homer game in Triple A. (If the Yankees are going to make a big trade at the deadline, Jones could be the centerpiece of a deal.)
2. Iván Herrera’s home run for the Cardinals that left the park in a hurry.
1. Ezi Magbegor’s vicious block on a three-point attempt.
This article was originally published on www.si.com as SI:AM | Mariners Kickstart MLB Trade Deadline Season With Josh Naylor Deal.
