The Mariners announced that they have acquired right-hander Alex Hoppe from the Red Sox in exchange for minor league catcher Luke Heyman. Hoppe has been selected to the 40-man roster to protect him from the Rule 5 draft. Left-hander Tayler Saucedo has been designated for assignment in a corresponding move. Chris Cotillo of MassLive first reported that Hoppe was heading to the Mariners. Tim Healey of The Boston Globe first reported that Heyman was heading to the Sox.
Hoppe, 27 in December, was a sixth-round pick of the Sox in 2022. Since then, he has been working as a pure reliever in the minors, with good amounts of strikeouts and ground balls but also some wildness.
Dating back to the start of 2024, Hoppe has thrown 127 2/3 innings between Double-A and Triple-A, allowing 5.01 earned runs per nine. His 12% walk rate in that time is quite high but he also punched out 23.6% of batters faced and got opponents to hit the ball into the dirt more than half the time.
Perhaps the Sox didn’t have much faith about Hoppe reining in his control going forward, or perhaps he was just the casualty of a roster squeeze. The Sox have been busy today, shuffling guys around to make space on Rule 5 deadline day. In addition to this deal, they also sent lefties Brennan Bernardino and Chris Murphy to the Rockies and White Sox respectively. Giving Hoppe a roster spot would have required opening another 40-man spot.
Instead, they have flipped him to the Mariners, getting back a non-roster prospect in exchange. Heyman, 22, was taken by the Mariners in the 14th round of the draft just a few months ago. He showed big power in his college career but hasn’t yet made his professional debut. He gives the Sox a long-term lottery ticket behind the plate while the M’s get more immediate pitching depth.
To make room for Hoppe, the Mariners have nudged off Saucedo. The 32-year-old lefty has some decent big league work on his track record but he spent most of 2025 on optional assignment, only making ten big league appearances. He exhausted his final option season in the process. Saucedo qualified for arbitration a year ago and made $937,500 in 2025. MLBTR contributor Matt Swartz projected him for a small bump to $1.1MM next year. It seems the M’s weren’t planning to tender him a contract.
They will have some time to explore trade interest. Over the 2023 and 2024 seasons, the lefty posted a 3.54 ERA over 86 1/3 big league innings, with most of his success due to a strong 55% ground ball rate. With those numbers and three years of club control, he could entice some teams. However, given his out-of-options status, he’d be hard to roster. It’s possible he ends up non-tendered on Friday, which would send him to free agency.
Photo courtesy of Nathan Ray Seebeck, Imagn Images
Jerry is cooking with fish grease
Second catcher picked up by the BoSox today.
Desperately needed depth too, they don’t have a single Catcher in their top 30 prospects!
Wong was brutal in 2025 and hopefully they move on, while Carlos Narvaez fell off hard after May (and even harder after June), with a slight uptick back above .200 in September.
Hopefully they can acquire an equal or better Catcher to pair with Narvaez going into next season!
Jon Heyman’s son?
Nope..father name is Kurt
Heyman was just drafted in the 14th round this past summer.
And now there’s HOPpE!
He’s a 100 mph fastball pitcher but kinda wild- rein that in and the M’s have struck gold
The Mariners aren’t playing
Yep, they’re Hoppeing mad!..))
Seattle has lacked reliever depth, so it’s encouraging to see them attack that need early. Heyman is an interesting prospect, though. He raked for Florida.
It’s funny that he’s the second promising, yet previously injured with no pro experience, prospect Seattle has coughed up for a reliever this offseason.
Saucedo being a local kid, I was rooting for him, but the 10 appearances he made during the 2025 season was horrendous. Hoppe he will have a good off-season for another chance.
The Sauce do not.
Another right-handed reliever to add to the Mountain of Maybes grouping at the end of the bullpen. Not a terrible thing, but this seems to have had more to do with Rule 5 protection than anything else. Interesting to see Michael Morales and Taylor Dollard on the unprotected list. I remember when Dollard was the Next Big Thing until his arm fell off. And they spent a lot of money on Morales for him not to work out. Tyler Cleveland’s on the list as well. Maybe none of them get picked (I certainly wouldn’t give a 26-man slot to any of them.).
Hard to get worked up over who should be the 40th guy.
If you look at Hoppe’s game logs he just had a few games where he simply didn’t have it and got rocked. There were other times he would look nearly unhittable. He does walk a lot of people especially when he’s off but his stuff is premium reliever stuff. He would have been taken in the rule 5 draft which is why Breslow is moving him and the fact is the Red Sox are loaded with pitching in AAA and AA really the entire minor leagues. Normally you find room for a guy like this with premium stuff. The Red Sox are loaded with minor league pitching but catching they are very thin. This probably helps both teams.
I was thinking the same thing about prioritizing building the catching depth. More surprised about Murphy and Bernardino because they have had success on the big league club, but I know you can’t keep everyone. I will be curious to see if they do anything else before the winter meetings that will impact the 40 man roster and who goes if they pick anyone up in the rule 5 draft.
Alex Hoppe has a 100mph fastball and the best Slider in the Red Sox farm and we traded him for Seattle 3rd string catcher. Forget his era, he has a pair of Elite pitches, that alone makes the Mariners easy winners here.
But, i thought the same when we trade Rodriquez Cruz to the Yanks and we did ok then so, maybe this will turn out ok for both teams?
I’m just curious where you get your information about Hoppe having the best slider on the farm? I have watched him pitch a lot he’s not even close to the best slider. BA has Sandlin with the best slider in the farm system but the best slider all year was the slider Clarke throws its almost un-hittable. Still Hoppe has a big arm and should help the Mariners don’t know a thing about the guy Breslow traded for other than it’s a position of need for Boston.
In 2024, it was the best slider in our farm it was like an 89mph pitch like a Fastball, not sure what happened in 2025, but you need to check YOUR info.
2024 isn’t 2025 and I can promise you there are a lot better sliders in the Red Sox system now. Sox prospects who rates his fastball as an above average offering says his slider is a fringe average offering. That bodes well with the eye test as well he does have a power fastball though. His slider isn’t even in the same league as Clarke’s.