The Mariners announced that they’ve placed second baseman Robinson Cano on the 10-day disabled list due to a fractured fifth metacarpal in his right hand and selected the contract of infielder Gordon Beckham from Triple-A Tacoma.
There’s still no word on precisely how long the Mariners expect Cano to miss, as he’s slated to meet with a hand specialist in Philadelphia tomorrow. Once that evaluation takes place, the Mariners will likely have another update, though it seems reasonable to expect that Cano will miss at least several weeks as his throwing hand mends after he was hit by a pitch in yesterday’s game against the Tigers.
[Related: Updated Seattle Mariners depth chart]
The loss of Cano, obviously, is a significant blow for a Mariners club that is right in the thick of both the AL West race (2.5 games behind the Astros) and the American League Wild Card picture (1.5 games back of a Wild Card spot). While Cano’s performance in Seattle hasn’t drawn the national fanfare that it did during his New York days, he’s been every bit as productive a player as he was with the Yankees. In nine seasons with the Yanks, Cano hit .309/.355/.504 (126 OPS+), and he’s roughly matched that with a .294/.353/.471 slash (128 OPS+) in a considerably more pitcher-friendly setting at Safeco Field.
Certainly, the veteran Beckham won’t be expected to replicate that level of production or anything close to it. But he’s off to a .300/.412/.500 start to the season through 114 plate appearances with Triple-A Tacoma and will be asked to assume some of the playing time for Cano along with utilitymen Andrew Romine and Taylor Motter. Manager Scott Servais told reporters yesterday that it wasn’t likely that Dee Gordon would be moved out of center field back to second base (Twitter link via Ryan Divish of the Seattle Times).
I never expected to see Beckham back in the big leagues. I’m not a Mariners fan, but hopefully he can finally harness some of that potential he had. It’s rare, but there have been instances of players not really reaching their potential until their 30s.
he had an awesome spring, and hitting well in triple-a, so maybe he will produce in the bigs
OPS is park adjusted.
It’s not like the mariners have a great option to take over center field if they move Gordon back to 2B temporarily.
Maybe not anything amazing but Moving Guillermo to CF and playing Gamel or calling up Andreoli or Miller is an upgrade defensively and probably at least equal to Beckham offensively.
A crazier configuration would move Kyle Seager to second base (where he was drafted), Ryon Healy to third base (where he has played 106 of his 167 MLB games) and hand first base over the Dan Vogelbach, who has struggled at the MLB level despite posting a .293/.407/.500/.907 line in 1,183 Triple A plate appearances, including a .328/.457/.781/1.238 line in 81 plate appearances this year.
Probably too many moving parts. 😉
Won’t happen but would be interesting. Seager is too good at 3rd to move him anyways.
If we don’t see Vogelbach up here again it will be fine. He hasn’t hit his D is OK nothing to brag about. No reason to make 2 spots maybe 3 worse. Seager would be rusty at 2nd and Healy at 3rd. This seems to be the best move. Just hope Cano heals fast and gets back to his old self quick. He is a huge part of the team but we will have him down the stretch. The guys can keep it up without him for a month or so.
Gordon Beckham is hitting well in Triple-A with a batting line of .300/.412/.500/.912. Might as well give him a chance, especially when he’s a veteran who once held his own at 2B.
I thought this is why the Mariners have Andrew Romine. I thought that some team might reach out for Brandon Phillips yet, Gordon Beckham it is.
They said they wanted to keep Romines versatility in use instead of locking him into 1 position for that long.