When you read descriptions of Nori Aoki, you’ll often read about how he’s entertaining before you read about how he’s talented. Even his numbers are entertaining, if you’re into that sort of thing — in four years, he’s batted .285, .286, .287, and .288. He’s an unusual player to watch, which makes him an interesting player to watch, and though he’s not the greatest player to watch, you could say he puts smiles on faces. Ultimately that’s the real purpose of all of this.

Aoki was having a solid year with the Giants before he wound up with a leg fracture and, later, a concussion. Aoki’s agent says he’s fine now, which is a very agent-y thing to say, but the Giants still declined Aoki’s very much affordable 2016 option. So into free agency he went, and out of free agency he’s going, to Seattle, for a one-year contract with an option. I don’t yet know what it’s worth, but I assume the money is modest, by free-agency standards. Aoki didn’t sign for much a year ago, and it’s not like his 2015 did anything to change the profile.

Offensively, he’s clearly consistent. He’s not a power threat, but he’s a contact and on-base threat, with a career 107 wRC+. He’ll make some puzzling decisions on the bases, but he can move around just fine. His defensive reputation is for routes like this one:

…and those aren’t uncharacteristic. Aoki isn’t fluid out there, and he doesn’t score very well according to the Fan Scouting Report as a consequence, but as a corner guy, Aoki has rated just fine by DRS and UZR. He doesn’t seem to be a defensive liability, in other words. He’s not prime Ichiro or anything, but he can handle the outfield better than incumbent Nelson Cruz. As for any aging concerns, that’s the neat thing about one-year contracts.

For his career, Aoki’s averaged almost exactly 2 WAR per 600 plate appearances. It stands to reason he should be almost that good in the season ahead, if he’s really healthy. A little worse, probably, but fine enough as a stopgap. One of the things to know is that Aoki’s one of the very most difficult players in the majors to strike out. He’s also a lefty who, to this point, has owned a reverse platoon split at the plate. He’s a contact-oriented slap hitter, which allows him to be consistent, no matter who he’s facing. Righty, lefty, power, finesse, fly ball, groundball. Aoki doesn’t change.

Something I want to share: grounders. Aoki hits a bunch of them. And he sprays them around, more than almost any other player. Since 2002, 553 players have hit at least 500 groundballs. Here are the five lowest rates of pulled grounders over that span:

• Joey Gathright, 23% pulled grounders
• Jean Segura, 33%
• Nori Aoki, 35%
• Ben Revere, 36%
• Luis Castillo, 36%

Gathright wins by a giant margin, but Aoki’s third-lowest, slapping grounders up the middle and the other way, toward the shortstop. Sticking with that, Aoki gets a quick start out of the box, and he runs a very high soft-hit rate on his grounders. So what follows shouldn’t be too surprising — here are the big-league leaders in infield hits, according to our leaderboard, since Aoki debuted in 2012:

• Nori Aoki, 122 infield hits
• Jose Altuve, 114
• Ben Revere, 105
• Ichiro Suzuki, 100
• Mike Trout, 96
• Jean Segura, 96

Aoki’s also bunted a bunch. There is a power swing in there, a pull swing with lift, but so much of his game is soft contact, and it worked again last year before the injuries. It should work similarly going forward.

The one troubling thing is what the Giants did. Aoki seems like a modest bargain, here. Same thing looked to be the case last offseason. But the Giants had the chance to keep Aoki for next year for $5.5 million, and instead they paid a $0.7-million buyout, meaning they didn’t think Aoki was worth $4.8 million. This is the same team that liked him a year ago. Maybe it’s just a money thing; maybe they’d prefer to stay cheaper in the outfield, and put the most money possible toward rotation improvements. But alternatively, the Giants might not have a great opinion of what’s to come. And they’re the ones who’ve seen Aoki most recently, not the Mariners. It’s a consideration.

But Aoki says he’s okay, and I guess we believe him until we have reason not to. For the Mariners, maybe this is the end of any Marcell Ozuna pursuit, but they could still futz around with left field if they wanted. The more important thing to them was accumulating enough options to keep Cruz out of the outfield as much as possible. In that regard, this is a step forward, and it presumably came at a quite affordable price. Sometimes a bargain can just be a bargain.