The Mariners have acquired right-handed reliever Sam Tuivailala from the Cardinals in exchange for minor league right-hander Seth Elledge, the teams announced Friday. Elledge has been assigned to Double-A Springfield.
“Sam is in the midst of his second consecutive solid big league season, and has pitched in parts of four Major League seasons but has barely two years of service time,” Mariners general manager Jerry Dipoto said in a press release announcing the move. “We view this as a move for our present and our future.”
It’s another somewhat creative and unexpected trade for a Mariners club that has made a habit of identifying atypical trade candidates in recent seasons in spite of a poor farm system. In Tuivailala, Seattle is adding a 25-year-old righty who is in the midst of a solid season and can be controlled through the 2022 campaign.
Tuivailala, who won’t be eligible for arbitration until after the 2019 season, has spent his entire career in the Cardials organization since being selected in the third round of the 2010 draft. Dating back to Opening Day 2017, he’s stepped up and established himself as a useful contributor at the MLB level, tossing 74 innings of 3.04 ERA ball with 7.3 K/9, 2.7 BB/9, 0.85 HR/9 and a 48.4 percent ground-ball rate. He’s averaged 95.3 mph on his fastball over the past two seasons and made positive gains in both swinging-strike rate (from 9.5 percent to 10.1 percent) and chase rate (from 27.9 percent to 29.2 percent) so far in 2018.
While much has been made of the Mariners’ pursuit of rotation help, they’ve also been linked to bullpen upgrades, and Dipoto and his staff have previously prioritized acquiring longer-term assets when trading their own young talent away (e.g. Ryon Healy, James Pazos, Ben Gamel, Mitch Haniger). Tuivailala adds to that trend and gives recently extended manager Scott Servais another option late in games to help bridge the gap from the rotation to All-Star closer Edwin Diaz.
For the Cardinals, the trade of Tuivailala comes as a surprise component to an otherwise highly anticipated shuffling of the team’s pitching staff. President of baseball ops John Mozeliak recently indicated that changes were coming to his roster, specifically as pertains to the ’pen, though given Tuivailala’s remaining club control and general success over the past two seasons, few could’ve reasonably expected him to be a part of the machinations.
That said, in prying Elledge away from the Mariners, the Cards will pick up an intriguing relief prospect who seemingly has more upside than Tuivailala carries. Seattle selected Elledge in the fourth round of last season’s draft, and he’s absolutely torn through Class-A Advanced with the Mariners, working to a 1.17 ERA with 12.7 K/9, 3.5 BB/9, 0.23 HR/9 and a 50 percent ground-ball rate.
Elledge has been virtually untouchable to Class-A Advanced batters, yielding just 18 hits in 38 1/3 innings of work. Jim Callis and Jonathan Mayo of MLB.com ranked Elledge 10th among Seattle farmhands on yesterday’s midseason update of each team’s Top 30 lists. The MLB.com duo writes that he sits 93-95 mph with a fastball that features “heavy sink” and is complemented by a slider and changeup — both of which have the potential to be average offerings.
Our season is over. This makes me not happy Tuivailala was one of our better relievers
You’ll love him Mariners fans good luck
Seth elledge is a beast too. Was excited for him to come up eventually but he’s probably a year away at least.
A sad sad tune is being played for you.
Dealin Dipoto joining the party finally
I don’t really get it. There’s so much clutter in the bullpen and he was one of the ones that actually wasn’t too bad. Wish him well in Seattle.
Elledge has closer potential. Glad we got something good for him for the present tho
Go M’s
Eh, it’s a mistake to view any of these trades in a vacuum until after the deadline has passed. There’s no guarantee Elledge is even their target, there more be more moves involved
Not much clutter now.
Cards front office needs to go. Mozeliak is a bum
It’s the karma, the cards have been bad, very bad.
I have an “unfounded” sneaky feeling that this might be “setting the table” for a bigger deal to take place closer to the actual deadline.
Time will tell.
Amen about Mozeliak!!! He is the main problem!! He Has been for years! Cards fired most of their coaches last year. Mid season this year, the 2 hitting instructors and Mathaney are fired. John Mozeliak, you don’t have many others to blame your sad sad evaluation of players. Can’t tell the superstar players from the Low Hanging Fruit. Beware Michael Girsch!!! You’re are the last one for Mozeliak to hide behind.
Reality check, please.
Holland DFA’d, Tuivaioualivaioa traded, looks like the Cards are throwing in the towel for 2018.
The DFA of Holland was for 2018, not just next year, the guy will help the team more by playing golf the rest of the season lol. Hopefully this will be part of a larger, more impactful trade.
Although I don’t think the cardinals have a chance this year, I wouldn’t say this is throwing in the towel…they really don’t have a towel to throw in…it’s a move for the future sure…but the bullpen wasn’t much this year and plus the cardinals have plenty of arms that are better in the minors…I’m wondering if Heisly gets brought up…Gomber replaces Lyons
I don’t understand why STL would trade him
Because he has been horribly inconsistent, for years. When he makes a mistake, and/or falls behind in the count he is very hittable.
Agreed…tulo has a lot of potential but he wasn’t all that great and it sounds like they got a decent prospect in return
Because they are done this year, and Elledge projects as a very dependable closer. It’s a good, smart move.
Welcome to the Cardinals
Its really too bad the M’s will still miss the playoffs. Keep dealin’ Dipito we’ll see if it EVER works.
This has to be an indication that another bull pen arm has to be in the office, even if they use some combo of Gant/Gomber/Mayers for multiple innings they still need help. Cecil and Gregerson can’t be far behind on the DFA list, and Hicks and Norris can’t pitch every day.
Cards fans- you like this RP? What’s the skinny? We sent you our AA closer who’s had so much success he’s made the biggest jump in our farm system from #28 to our 10th best prospect
Sorry, our Single A (Modesto Nuts) closer!
He’s a solid bullpen piece. He throws in the upper 90s with a good to great breaking ball. He loses the strike zone at times and gets hittable when he’s behind in the count. When he’s on he’s lights out. Unfortunately he hasn’t found any consistency.
Most pitchers are hittable when they fall behind in counts… I’d hardly call that a scouting report
But some pitchers aren’t
I’ll take it. Tuivailala is too inconsostent. Never liked him but alot of fans did, have no idea why. He’s nothing special, but maybe he comes to Seattle and finds what everyone here thought he had. Everytime I’ve seen him be brought in he gives up a dinger or some runs
Didn’t see that coming.
Nicely played by Dipoto
Tuivailala was out of options and Mo didn’t like not being able to include him in the Memphis shuffle.
I liked Tui, Elledge seems to have potential but trading a ML reliever for 1 A+ pitcher seems like a light return.
This whole Cardinals roster needs blown up though, so hopefully this is just a start.
Tui throws mid 90’s but can’t strike anybody out. Was never any good in tough situations. Getting a top 10 prospect from the Mariners is a great return for him.
Good get Jerry. Under the radar move.
Thanks for the input Cardinals fans! We’ll see how he fits into our pen, hopefully he doesn’t try too hard to impress his peers and our coaches- so many new pitchers do. 2 Xbh and 1 BB over last 79 RH batters? I’ll take it. If this trade is half as good as the Marco Gonzales trade I’d be very happy. 🙂 Good luck this yr
This bullpen needed blown up. It has been horrific to watch. It won’t be complete until they get Cecil out the door and eat that contract. He is the 2nd biggest disaster after Holland. Going young is a much better plan. Let’s see what these guys have!
Someone Dipoto searched for, a situational reliever who gets righties out. Tuivailala fits that description, and he got lefties out last year, too, but struggled against them this year. Unfortunately had to give up Elledge, but, the years of control Sam has makes him attractive. Still searching for a lefty as well.
He is a big bodied strong kid, looks like he can be durable for a long ML career. It’s a nice get for the Mariners regardless.
Probably a good pick up for the M’s and useful for the future,too. Still that bottom level farm is looking even worse today. Still a necessary trade but ouch.
Are the Cardinals waving the white flag? This is very unlike their style. Usually they are adding big names heading down the stretch.
Its almost August and they’re at .500, meanwhile the Cubs are 18 games over .500 and the Brewers have 59 wins. The Wildcard isn’t looking much better. They are toast.
I bet you were one of the people counting us out when we were pretty much ten games down in August a few years back to the brewers. Look what happened.
This year’s Cubs aren’t that seasons Brewers choke artists (Brewers in general really) so you bringing that season up means little.
Wasn’t it the Braves who choked anyways, not the Brewers
So the bullpen is the weakest part of the Cardinals, and they trade one of the only guys who’s been solid even though he’s just about to enter arbitration years. He never got a fair shot in St. Louis.
It’s about time, I don’t understand what any of you see is Sam T. The guy is garbage.
Hopefully the first of many trades.
Initially I was surprised by this, but my guess is Mo believes Tui is at or near his ceiling.
He’s a serviceable reliever, but at this point it’s hard to see him become a dominant closer type, despite the fact he throws in the upper 90s and occasionally touched 100mph. He blew away guys at AAA with that heat, but it’s more to contact in the majors. His offspeed/breaking stuff has never really evolved to an MLB high end either. Maybe it will. It’d be shocking if he became anything more than he is now — a serviceable MLB reliever.
Really like the piece the Cardinals added in this trade, seems like he could be a really good bullpen piece for this team if all goes well
Sam was unreliable in my view. Was he one of the better relievers this year, sort of. Too many walks and I never trusted him with the game on the line. I think he was never going to get better. Why get someone with a higher ceiling. Besides he was one of the few pitchers with any trade value