Mariners Make Moves

By Patrick

Welcome back, friends

Unless you live under a rock, you know by now that Ichiro has been traded to the Yankees in return for pitching prospects. What you may have missed is the other move yesterday, which happened after the game. Everyone's favorite Mendoza Line hitting first baseman, Justin Smoak, was optioned to AAA Tacoma after vastly underachieving so far in 2012.

In order to replace Ichiro and Justin at the major league level, Jack Z had to move two players back up from AAA. He chose to replace Smoak at first by re-activating Mike Carp from the DL. Carp, who has been hurt twice this season, will play a ton more first base than he has previously this season, when he featured more commonly in left field. That move apparently is in efforts to keep his arm healthy. Good call. He's hitting seventh tonight against Freddy Garcia and the Yankees.

To replace Ichiro, the Mariners predictably called up their best remaining AAA outfielder, Trayvon Robinson. Every Mariner fan who cared enough to watch in August last year will remember Trayvon for the sparks that he caused in his first week, robbing a homer against the Angels and hitting a few himself. Any Mariner fan who cared enough to watch in late August and through September will remember Trayvon for his horrid .211 batting average and 40% strikeout rate. Hopefully, he worked on that a lot in Tacoma and came up with a new approach at the plate. Something interesting about his new approach is that he stole 9 bases all of last season in AAA and in the bigs but this year has stolen 19 already. He's learning to use his speed, which will make him even more valuable than if he just fixed his strikeout problem.

Overall, I'm excited to see the Starfish and Trayvon back, but more excited to see how the M's will move on from Ichiro. They have a renewed sense of flexibility in their lineup, since they don't have to worry about a diva veteran that has to hit in the top three of the order at all times regardless of numbers. The post-Ichiro era has begun, and boy, am I excited. Go M's.