Who Would Have Thought He'd Lead MLB in HR
Okay, back on December 2nd, 2015 1B/OF/DH Mark Trumbo was traded from the Seattle Mariners to the Baltimore Orioles. At the way Trumbo has played this season, you would have thought a player AT LEAST the caliber of OF Norichika Aoki would have been traded for him. At least. But nope, it was C Steve Clevenger, who recently got suspended for racially insensitive tweets, who also lost his starting job to Chris Iannetta, who then lost his starting job to Mike Zunino, and became the backup. Clevenger is essentially only a third catcher for the Mariners now, which is what he was for the Orioles. The thing is, Mark Trumbo was traded WITH RHP CJ Riefenhauser to Baltimore for Clevenger. Riefenhauser hasn't done much in Camden Yards, but still, a 2-for-1 including Trumbo with the way he has played this season better include a superstar.
Nobody saw this coming, not even Orioles' GM Dan Duquette. But, Mark Trumbo had a track record of a decent power hitter, a guy who can be plugged in the 6-9 spots in the order and give you 20 home runs at minimum, kind of like 1B Mitch Moreland of Texas. The Mariners have had numerous front office changes last year, but c'mon, this is the biggest highway robbery of a trade since the Carlos Gomez to Houston deal (Carlos Gomez netted the Brewers four top prospects and eventually got cut by Houston this year, only to play well for AL West Rival Texas later). Mark Trumbo is four home runs ahead of Brian Dozier of Minnesota and Edwin Encarnacion of Toronto for 46 HR, and six ahead of Nolan Arenado who leads the National League. Now, Trumbo is just as likely to hit 50 home runs as somebody is to pass him on this list, but still. What were the Mariners thinking?
If you are looking for even more irony in this trade, how about the Orioles have the second wild card spot, two games ahead of Seattle? What if Seattle had Trumbo still and Baltimore didn't? Baltimore would be worse, and Seattle might not be much better, but Baltimore wouldn't be in the wild card at this point. Even more ironic, Seattle is now the team who has the longest postseason drought in MLB history. To put this a relatively unrelated step further, Ichiro was a rookie on Seattle's last postseason team, and he recorded his 3000th hit this season. I can also throw in that Ken Griffey Jr was the first Mariner to make the Hall of Fame this year. Ever.
Look, the last two things don't have anything to do with Seattle not making the playoffs and the Mark Trumbo trade, but it's just weird how one small move could have put the Mariners in the postseason this year. In other words, next time your team makes a trade of somebody who you think is washed up, realize that not all trades are as they seem. Another example of this is the Jonathan Villar for Cy Sneed trade, Villar almost put together an All-Star year, and nobody knows who Sneed is. My point exactly. It's why we play the game, because nobody would have thought it would be Mark Trumbo at the top of the home run leaderboard in 2016.
