The Mariners announced that they have activated outfielder Domingo Santana from the 10-day injured list. He has missed about a month owing to an elbow injury.
While the M’s are obviously out of contention, they’ll be glad to allow Santana a chance to see some more MLB pitching before the season wraps up. The club surely hoped he’d be joined by Mitch Haniger, but that’s not to be.
Both outfielders had promising campaigns hijacked by injuries. In Santana’s case, he posted a strong .286/.354/.496 batting line over his first 399 trips to the plate this year. But he was bothered by elbow soreness out of the All-Star break and slashed just .131/.240/.250 thereafter before going on the shelf.
The Mariners will bring Santana along slowly upon his return. The hope seems to be that he’ll carry some positive momentum headed into the offseason. Santana will be due a raise on his $1.95MM arbitration salary, with one more arb-eligible campaign still to come in 2021. It’s possible the M’s will discuss Santana in trade talks, though he may hold greater value to the Seattle organization as an affordable part of the outfield rotation and potential 2020 deadline trade piece.
I wonder what the Mariners lineup looks like next season.
I was actually surprised Dipoto was so quiet at the TD this year.
I don’t know that he was that quiet. He traded Encarnacion, Leake, Elias and Strickland. He couldn’t trade Haniger because he was hurt. It’s going to be hard to trade Seager because of his contract. Felix was on the injured list then too, and probably wouldn’t have been traceable then. I guess he could’ve traded Gordon and Narvaez—not sure what happened there.