The Mariners have placed Ketel Marte on the 15-day disabled list (retroactive to July 20) after the shortstop was diagnosed with mononucleosis yesterday, the club announced. Left-handed David Rollins was called up in a corresponding move. Luis Sardinas was already called up yesterday to provide infield depth, taking the roster spot left by the traded Mike Montgomery.
[Related: updated Mariners depth chart at Roster Resource]
Marte has been sidelined for much of the week with the illness, leaving utilityman Shawn O’Malley making regular starts at short, and he’ll split time with Sardinas until Marte is healthy. A return date, however, is unknown given the unpredictable status of the illness. Manager Scott Servais told reporters (including Gavin Day of the Seattle Times) that Marte had already lost six or seven pounds, so clearly once Marte is recovered, he’ll still need time to get his strength back.
The sickness is the latest setback within a tough season for the 22-year-old Marte, who entered the year as the Mariners’ starting shortstop and looking to build on a strong 2015 rookie year. Instead, Marte has already had one DL stint due to a sprained thumb and he has hit just .273/.299/.358 over 300 PA with subpar defensive metrics. As per Fangraphs’ WAR calculation, Marte has been worth exactly 0.0 wins, making him nothing more than a replacement-level player.
These struggles made the Mariners one of the few teams who could be looking for shortstop help at the deadline, even before Marte came down with mono. Zack Cozart, Eduardo Nunez or Jed Lowrie are a few of the everyday options the M’s could pursue, though I’d argue that Lowrie is an unlikely target due to his recent lack of shortstop action and his big price tag. Seattle entered today’s action with a 49-47 record, 5.5 games behind Texas in the AL West and 4.5 games behind Toronto for the last wild card slot.
The Braves will give the M’s Aybar….Please take him you don’t even have to give us anything, just take him!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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We don’t have any money to spend. And even if we did we wouldn’t want to use it on a trash backup middle infielder. We have plenty of those
I got an idea, why don’t you guys from MLB Trade Rumours all sit down and watch Marte play a game or two and not just read some stat lines on him. D SABR is not nearly as good as O SABR and Marte is not as bad as you guys make him out to be. He doesn’t walk much yes, because he bunts a lot. He is young and in his first full season. He is also taking longer like all young guys do to adjust to what pitchers have adjusted to him. He also will never hit for power unless he takes PEDs but that is OK because as he learns the game and gets a higher OBP he will steal more bases and be in scoring position and make pitchers uncomfortable because he is fast. On D he has decent range he is not the greatest but not the worst either. Again he is learning what he can and can’t do and he had a pretty good mentor at 2nd base helping him along. Hopefully he gets healthy soon because you will probably tear poor Sardinias apart.
The biggest problem I have with you guys keep wanting to replace him is he is by far not the biggest hole we have in the line up. We need a decent guy to passion with Lee at 1st and a better option in the OF. One of those guys also needs to be able to DH when Cruz is on the OF. Lind has been awful most of the year but is hitting OK right now but who knows when that stops. Smith just looks unathletic and slow in the OF. He will see a lot of pitches and hit a HR occasionally but I think he has more value off the bench off an NL team. Anyway when Marte is back healthy watch a game he might surprise you.