Here are the prospects changing hands in last night’s deal between Seattle and Atlanta as evaluated by KATOH projection system. KATOH+ represents a player’s WAR projection over his first six years in the majors and includes said player’s Baseball America’s ranking as a variable.

*****

Alex Jackson, RF, Atlanta

Jackson has struggled to make contact ever since the Mariners popped him sixth overall back in 2014. He hit decently in his second crack at Low-A last year, but KATOH is alarmed by his 27% strikeout rate. The fact that he’s a right fielder who neither steals bases nor grades out well defensively also hurts his case. He’s hit for decent power, but the statistical negatives far outweigh the positives. Of course, Jackson was viewed as one of the best prospects in the country a mere two-and-a-half years ago, so it’s likely he still has some potential that isn’t showing up in his on-field performance. The traditional KATOH also projects him for 0.4 WAR.

KATOH+ Projection for first six years: 0.4 WAR

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In all-prospect trade Monday night, the Atlanta Braves acquired OF Alex Jackson from Seattle in exchange for pitchers Max Povse and Rob Whalen. Jackson, the sixth-overall pick in the 2014 draft, is the headliner here despite poor performance in pro ball because he was one of this decade’s most decorated high-school hitters.

In 2012, Jackson led all California high-school hitters in home runs with 17. He was a sophomore. Later that summer, Jackson went to Area Codes, where he had one of the event’s most impressive batting practices. His swing length was exposed in games during the event, but Jackson made an adjustment and shortened up the next spring and continued to rake. He hit well against elite prep arms in showcases during his entire high-school career. The track record for hitters who have consistent success at those events is very good.

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The Mariners, who are operating with a pretty short-term competitive window, added Jean Segura right before Thanksgiving. Segura has been driving the headlines, and it’s no mystery why. He finished last year with a 5.0 WAR, and, for the sake of reference, that tied him with Joey Votto. It put him in front of Xander Bogaerts. To go a little more traditional, Segura led the National League in hits by 10, ahead of Corey Seager. It was a breakthrough season for the 26-year-old, and his ability to play shortstop plugs what had been a glaring hole. There’s no question that Segura fits the profile of a headliner.

Many who’ve written about the Mariners’ side have written about Segura. Many of the quotes from Jerry Dipoto have been about Segura. But, at risk of sounding like Dave, I have to wonder — was Segura really the Mariners’ best get? Or will we eventually reflect on this as being the move that brought Seattle Mitch Haniger?

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Apparently Mike Hazen and Jerry Dipoto don’t have anything better to do on Thanksgiving eve than make a big trade that makes those of us with stuff to do have to apologize to our family and start working. Thanks, jerks. Have some pie and take a day off already.

Personal aspersions at the GMs aside, Arizona and Seattle have pulled off a pretty fascinating trade. The particulars.

Taijuan Walker, SP
Ketel Marte, SS

Jean Segura, SS
Mitch Haniger, OF
Zac Curtis, LHP

Mike Hazen’s first big trade as Arizona’s GM is to sell high on the best player acquired by previous GM Dave Stewart. The Diamondbacks hit the jackpot buying low on Segura last winter, as a player who had racked up +3.6 WAR during his career in Milwaukee put up a +5 WAR season in his one year in the desert. Rather than bet on him coming back and having another career year, Arizona turned Segura into another buy-low guy in Walker, who has long been hailed as a possible frontline starter but hasn’t lived up to the potential yet.

It’s pretty easy to see Hazen’s rationale here; he turns a 27-year-old and a 26-year-old into a 24-year-old and a 23-year-old, picking up extra team control years in the process, and in Walker, he lands a guy who could easily be worth more than Segura long-term, especially if you don’t buy into Segura’s power spike. The Diamondbacks get younger and pick up some extra long-term value, and in reality, they probably don’t make themselves much worse in 2017 either; Haniger didn’t have a role on their team at the moment, and Curtis is mostly a throw-in.

From Seattle’s perspective, this looks reasonable enough if you buy into two things.

1. The team’s long-term future depends mostly on them winning in the short-term, given the age of the guys anchoring the roster, so current wins are worth a lot more to Seattle than future wins.

2. Haniger is a potential above-average regular. While Segura is going to be the guy everyone focuses on, Haniger might just be the guy who makes this deal work for Seattle — if it works for Seattle — by giving them a quality OF they don’t really have at the moment. Eric Longenhagen’s write-up on him from the Arizona Prospect Report is particularly useful now.

While big-league pitchers were able to exploit Haniger’s vulnerability to pitches down and away during his late-season cup of coffee, he’s an above-average runner with plus raw power. Players with that tool combination aren’t exactly easy to come by. Haniger was demoted to High-A as a 24-year old in 2015 after slugging a paltry .379 for Double-A Mobile. It looked like bad news to those of us on the outside who thought the Diamondbacks were souring on him, but in reality Haniger proactively told the D-backs he’d accept a demotion if it meant he could play every day which, with prospects Evan Marzilli, Socrates Brito and Gabriel Guerrero also in Mobile by mid-year, wasn’t going to happen at Double-A. Haniger made a swing change (profiled here and here by excellent D-backs beat writer Nick Piecoro) and took off. You can see the old swing here.

Scouts are a little bit apprehensive about Haniger’s propensity to swing and miss and think there’s a good chance he either ends up as a platoon bat or power-first fourth outfielder who can play center field in a pinch. Given Haniger’s purported makeup and clear ability to make significant adjustments, I think there’s a non-zero chance he’s a late-blooming average regular but it’s more likely he falls just short of that. The Diamondbacks acquired Haniger along with Anthony Banda from Milwaukee in exchange for Gerardo Parra.

If Haniger turns into a fourth OF, I don’t know if Seattle will get the upgrade they were looking for in turning Walker’s upside and whatever Marte might be into Segura’s 2017 and 2018 seasons, but there are reasons to think that maybe Haniger has some remaining value left. Most notably, he played 182 of his 258 innings with Arizona in CF, and D’Backs beat writer Nick Piecoro texted me after the trade was announced to say that he thought Haniger’s defense in center was quite good, and definitely better than just a get-away-with-it glove.

If Haniger is a good enough defender to be a regular CF, then the offense could make him more valuable than Segura, especially if his 2016 improvement was more breakout than fluke. The projections aren’t sold, especially after he didn’t hit that well in the big leagues, but if you’re into speculative buys on late-bloomers, there are some reasons to think that maybe Haniger could be on the late-developing-star track. From a Piecoro story in August.

A year ago, he was getting inconsistent at-bats with Mobile when the organization demoted him to High-A Visalia. While there, he began incorporating a leg kick. Then in the offseason, he continued to tinker with his swing mechanics, adjusting where he holds his hands and altering his swing path.

For Haniger, the changes were borne from a question: Why was it that other hitters who weren’t as big or as strong as he was were able to drive the ball to the opposite field with more authority? He began studying swings of players like Josh Donaldson and A.J. Pollock and read up on the hitting philosophies of Bobby Tewksbary, a coach who helped both of those hitters develop into All-Stars.

“I feel like now I’m able to recognize pitches better,” Haniger said. “I can make up my mind whether to swing or not later than I have in the past because my swing is deeper in the zone. I’m able to stay off close pitches. It’s easier for me to use all fields and to see pitches better.”

Donaldson and Pollock certainly aren’t bad examples to follow, and they aren’t the only guys who have improved dramatically after working with Tewksbury; Eno Sarris wrote about Ryon Healy also making similar adjustments, and he was a revelation for the A’s this year after not really being considered much of a prospect.

There’s a lot of ifs here. If Haniger’s glove really is as good as Piecoro thought — which could make him a very good defensive corner OF in Seattle, since Leonys Martin is still around — and if some of these swing changes were the reason for his 2016 breakout, then he could be an average or better hitter with some real defensive value. And with six years of team control, that would make him the real get in this deal for the Mariners, likely offsetting a lot of the long-term value they may lose with Walker and Marte gone gone.

If Haniger is just an ordinary defensive OF without enough bat to carry him, then I think Arizona will be happy with this deal, getting younger and selling high on a guy whose value didn’t really have anywhere to go but down. But if Haniger turns into a 100 to 110 wRC+ guy with plus defense in a corner or enough glove to play center? Well, all of the sudden, that’s a pretty great piece too, and would fill a hole the Mariners definitely needed to fill.

So, yeah, this is a fascinating trade. I don’t know if I’m sold enough on Haniger, so I’d probably prefer Arizona’s side, but for a win-now Mariners team, you can see the potential for this to make the team a lot better in the near future. And given that Walker is, at this point, more upside than realized value, it’s not that hard to see why the Mariners preferred to push in now, before their old stars stop playing like stars.

And for Arizona, while I might have short-changed them in words here, this is an easy deal to like from their end. If Walker turns into this year’s Segura, and they hit on another buy-low talent, Mike Hazen will be plenty happy with his first deal as the Diamondbacks GM.

Baseball is a “What have you done for me lately?” sort of affair. The most notable and most discussed exploits tend to be those which differ most greatly from the status quo. A player who produces an unexpectedly excellent season is likely to receive more attention than one who’s quietly great. We don’t notice the everyday effectiveness of a player unless that effectiveness occurs in incredible volume, as in the case of someone like Mike Trout. Trout makes the historic an everyday, mundane occurrence, and it’s because of that stupefying feat that he’s finished either first or second in the MVP voting every full season he’s spent in the big leagues.

Kyle Seager has never finished first or second in MVP voting. He received one MVP vote in 2014. He came in 12th this year. He’s not an historic talent like Trout, and he may not even be the best player on his team, given the fact that he shares an infield with future first-ballot Hall of Famer Robinson Cano. He may not even be the best player in his own family. Perhaps you’ve heard of his brother, Corey. He just won the Rookie of the Year award in the National League and finished third in MVP voting. He hasn’t had the slow buildup in production that Kyle has. Corey appeared, looked around, planted his feat, and started mashing. Because of that, it’s easy to forget that there have only been six more valuable position players in the AL than Kyle Seager since 2012.

The first six names are a who’s-who of MVP candidates and possible future figurative residents of Cooperstown, New York. The next three names on the list are also almost uniformly lauded: Dustin Pedroia, Ian Kinsler and Evan Longoria. It’s probably fair to say that Seager isn’t customarily evoked among these other players, yet there he is.

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On Friday, news broke that the Blue Jays signed Kendrys Morales for three years and $33 million. Morales is clearly a quality hitter, but he can’t really do anything else, so Dave thought it was a bit of an overpay. Okay! Keep that in mind.

On Saturday, the Mariners traded for Danny Valencia. Kendrys Morales is 33. Danny Valencia is 32. Valencia is projected for a salary of $5.3 million in his last year of arbitration. This past year, Valencia was a better hitter than Morales was. Over the past two years, Valencia has been the better hitter. Over the past three years, Valencia has been the better hitter. Over the past four years, Valencia has been the better hitter. The evidence would suggest that Valencia is at least as good as Morales at the plate, and Valencia isn’t limited to being a DH. He’s also a slightly better runner. It would seem to make him the better player, even though he’s going to cost so much less.

From the Blue Jays’ perspective, there’s some value in having Morales locked in for a while. They have a DH for the foreseeable future. And there’s another aspect to this — Valencia, in the past, has been somewhat polarizing. It’s not that all of his teammates have hated him, but some of his teammates have hated him, and Morales is an easier fit into a clubhouse. It’s not a coincidence that Valencia is so well-traveled. But the Mariners are betting on production, figuring that any other issues can be dealt with later, and as a part of betting on production, they’re betting on Valencia’s recent transformation. It used to be, Valencia was a platoon guy, who brutalized southpaws. A couple years ago, it looks like he figured things out.

Valencia has looked like an everyday player, and he’s going to be treated like an everyday player. Over the past two seasons, he’s been as good a hitter as Buster Posey, Kyle Seager, and Christian Yelich. The drawbacks are that Valencia won’t be a defensive plus at first base or in the corner outfield, but he certainly fits a hole on the roster, and his 2017 will be affordable.

It hasn’t been hard to see that the A’s were going to move Valencia somewhere. Because of his surplus value, he wasn’t acquired for free. For giving up Valencia, the A’s are receiving Paul Blackburn, a 22-year-old righty who’s not regarded as a top prospect. What Blackburn doesn’t do is miss a ton of bats. What he does do is keep the ball on the ground, and he’s kept his walk rates low. He feels a lot like another Kendall Graveman, a guy who could become an established major leaguer in a hurry. Graveman made just 11 combined starts between Double-A and Triple-A. Blackburn just spent a whole season in Double-A, but he gave up just eight homers. He could be depth as soon as next season, and the A’s are no strangers to needing extra starting pitching. Blackburn could help them in the future more than Valencia ever would.

So it’s a neat little exchange. Depending on how you interpret Valencia’s clubhouse concerns, he might be a genuinely underrated player. Blackburn, also, might be differently underrated, but the Mariners don’t have a lot of shiny prospects to sell. The Blue Jays, I’m sure, are happy to have Morales. Maybe they very much didn’t want Valencia back. It’s enough to make you wonder, though.

I wouldn’t say the Cameron Maybin trade exactly opened the floodgates or anything, but now we do have another trade to talk about. In this one, Carlos Ruiz is going from the Dodgers to the Mariners, and Vidal Nuno is headed in the other direction. You’re not impressed. No one’s impressed. This is a low-profile move, and maybe the most interesting player involved in the whole thought process is Austin Barnes, who’s now going to get a roster spot in Los Angeles. The Mariners are getting a backup catcher, and the Dodgers are getting a relatively soft-tossing reliever. It’s one of the first of many “whatever” moves we’re going to see over the next handful of months.

There’s still something here, though. The way I figure, it’s on the Dodgers’ side. To tackle the Mariners’ side first — they get a year of Ruiz, for $4.5 million. That’s not a bad rate for a reliable backup, and even though Ruiz is almost 38, he just managed a .365 OBP, and he projects to be a half-decent hitter. Pitchers seemingly like working with Ruiz, despite the fact that he rates as a below-average framer. He’s said to have those leadership qualities, he’s a better backup than Jesus Sucre, and he’s reasonable insurance for the unpredictable Mike Zunino. Ruiz makes sense here. You see why the Mariners jumped.

And I think you can see why the Dodgers jumped. In part, this is about clearing space for Barnes. But beyond that — I was asked recently about the market. We all know the market is light on starting pitching, and I was asked if there are more guys out there like Mike Montgomery, relievers you could target and think about putting in the rotation. Nuno might actually fit here. Here’s a plot of 2016 starting pitchers, and I’ve also included a red dot to represent Nuno, overall in the major leagues:

If there’s one thing Nuno has proven, it’s that he’s a strike-thrower. He’s thrown strikes as both a starter and as a reliever, and while he’s never been a swing-and-miss type, his contact rates haven’t been terrible. On top of that, when Nuno moved to the bullpen, his stuff didn’t really play up. It’s easier, then, to imagine him as a starter again, throwing the same pitches around the same speeds. Don’t be too turned off by his home-run rates — he just allowed the same average exit velocity as Justin Verlander and Johnny Cueto. I don’t think it’s a stretch to look at Nuno and think he has some shot of being another Wei-Yin Chen. The core abilities there are pretty similar. Chen signed an $80-million contract.

Nuno is already 29. If he’s going to be Chen, he’d better hurry up. And the Dodgers aren’t hurting for starters, and starting candidates. Nuno isn’t going straight into the rotation, and maybe we’ll just never hear from him again. But Ruiz is an old catcher with one year of control left. Nuno is a younger strike-thrower with three years of arbitration eligibility. You can see why the Mariners wouldn’t mind this move. And you can see why the Dodgers would go for it. The Dodgers’ front office hasn’t forgotten its small-market roots, and they’re always trying to win the surplus-value game. Nuno could be something more than he looks like. The boring moves are seldom quite as boring as they seem.

Over the coming weeks, Eric Longenhagen will publish brief, informal notes from his looks at the prospects of the Arizona Fall League and, until mid-October, Fall Instructional League.

Athletics OF Lazaro “Lazarito” Armenteros continues to take better at-bats than I anticipated and has an advanced feel for his strike zone. The power is as advertised, too, though he’s extremely vulnerable against breaking balls and is often so far out on his front foot against them that he can’t do anything but foul them off and live to see another pitch. He has a 40 arm, is a 50 runner and a left fielder for me going forward.

Also of note for Oakland yesterday in a Fall Instructional game against the Angels was RHP Abdiel Mendoza, who just turned 18 in September. Mendoza is extremely skinny but loose and quick-armed. His fastball sat in the upper 80s but I think there’s a good bit more coming and I like Mendoza’s athleticism. He’s purely a teenage lottery ticket but one I think who’s worth following.

For the Angels, INF Julio Garcia took the field at shortstop, which is notable because I hadn’t seen him play there for over a year. Garcia, a switch-hitter, came over from the DSL late last summer and looked tremendous at SS, but has spent this year playing a lot of 2B and 3B in deference to, in my opinion, inferior prospects — and also lost a significant amount of playing time to a facial injury. Scouts like the glove, body and bat speed but want to see a more measured approach to hitting, especially from the left side. The Angels’ middle infield is crowded at the lower levels, a group that includes 2016 draftee Nonie Williams, who posted an above-average run time for me yesterday.

Also of note for the Angels yesterday was the cage work of 2016 2nd rounder, OF Brandon Marsh. Marsh has not played in games since signing (neither in the AZL nor during instructional league) but showed above average raw power during a side session yesterday. The body should grow into even more pop. Mid-way through his session Marsh paused to take instruction from a coach behind the cage and immediately made an adjustment on his subsequent swings.

In last night’s Arizona Fall League game between Peoria and Salt River, Mariners OF Tyler O’Neill posted a plus run time for me yesterday and showed off his plus bat speed on several occasions but I thought his at-bats were a little overaggressive. Seattle LHP Luiz Gohara sat 95-97, touched 98 and flashed a plus slider in the mid-80s but struggled with command and, at age 20, is already carrying what looks like 240-plus pounds.

Padres utility prospect Josh VanMeter squared velocity several times and had three hits. Orioles LHP Tanner Scott was touching 99 but not getting as many swings and misses as you might expect from a 95-plus mph heater and his low-90s cutter/slider wasn’t all that effective, either.

Seattle Mariners’ backup catcher Steve Clevenger is not particularly sympathetic to the Black Lives Matter movement. Rather than keep his feelings on the matter to himself, however, he decided to share them with the world on Thursday afternoon in the following tweets:

Not surprisingly, the public response to Clevenger’s comments was swift and unforgiving. Within hours, the Mariners released an official statement distancing the team from the remarks. And although Clevenger later apologized for the tweets, the Mariners nevertheless announced on Friday that the team was suspending him without pay for the remainder of the season.

On the one hand, the impact of the suspension on Clevenger will be relatively modest, as he was already on the 60-day disabled list with a broken hand, and thus was unlikely to play again for the Mariners this season. On the other hand, however, by being suspended without pay, Clevenger will forfeit the roughly $32,000 he would have earned over the season’s final 10 games.

It does not appear as though Clevenger will challenge his punishment, according to a report by Maury Brown. If Clevenger were to change his mind and file an appeal, however, then it is possible that he could get his suspension reduced by an arbitrator. Specifically, although Major League Baseball and its teams generally have the legal right to punish players in this manner, Clevenger could argue that a suspension of this length is at odds with those handed down in similar, prior cases.

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According to our playoff odds, there are currently 13 teams which feature playoff odds below 2%. As that number grows throughout the month, an increasingly large percentage of baseball fans will be bidding farewell to the hopes that this is the year for their preferred teams and looking to adopt other rooting interests. There’s no full replacement for the satisfaction of your team winning in October, but playoff baseball is still worth enjoying as much as you can. So, for whom do you root this month?

In recent years, Jay Jaffe of Sports Illustrated has popularized Team Entropy — spending your September rooting for the chaos generated by ties testing the limits of baseball’s tie-breaker system. With a range of 5.5 games separating the seven teams atop the AL Wild Card standings, Team Entropy is as in play as ever. The theoretical implications of a three- or four- or five-way tie for a Wild Card spot are delightful to imagine. It would be a blast to watch and, as someone with no skin in the game this year, I’d enjoy the hell out of it. That said, my strongest loyalties lie with another team — I’m not Team Entropy, I’m Team Cinderella.

For me, there’s no more exciting storyline than a September longshot bucking the odds and finding its way into the postseason. Two years ago, the Pirates had roughly a 20% chance to make the postseason on September 3rd according to The Baseball Gauge and then proceeded to secure themselves a spot in the Wild Card game. But I’d argue an even more exciting September Cinderella storyline unfolded a year before that when the 2013 Indians finished off the season by winning 15 of 17 and beating out the Rangers for a Wild Card Spot despite possessing 15% playoff odds at the start of that final 17-game run. Now that’s my idea of brilliant September baseball.

It’s been a few years and, though it may be a virtue, patience is certainly no fun. It’s time for a new September Cinderella team, so let’s go searching for one. For this exercise, I’m considering the cases of the five teams with playoff odds currently in the 3%-20% range.

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