GM talks about two newest Mariners

We have the basics on the Mariners’ latest trade in the post below.

Here’s some of what general manager Jerry Dipoto had to say this afternoon about the deal that brings center fielder Leonys Martin and right-handed pitcher Anthony Bass from the Texas Rangers:

Overview: Dating back to the press conference when I joined the Mariners, this is something I talked about: being aggressive and improving our athleticism, particularly our outfield defense. With Leonys Martin, I think we get one of the premier defensive centerfielders in baseball. He’s been among the best in the league over these last three years. He’s coming off of a down year, and frankly, that’s when you acquire guys. There was a soft spot in the ability to acquire Leonys, and we took advantage of that.

Anthony Bass brings us a multi-inning reliever who’s also started in his career. Gives us some flexibility and depth on our pitching staff, and lends a right-hander to a group that was becoming decidedly left-handed. I’m very excited about his addition, as well.

More on Martin: This was another guy – like we’ve talked about in these last few weeks – we had targeted from the very get-go. His down year, some of it can be attributed to plain bad luck. He did not have a very high batting average on balls in play, which is typically an indicator that it will turn around. But he’s healthy, he’s ready to go. This is a guy who’s put up about nine and a half WAR over the last three years, which is not an insignificant number. We feel like it’s a legitimate starting center fielder, and we’re starting to see the semblance of an outfield. With Seth Smith and Gutti in left and Leonys in center, and Nelson Cruz in right, now we just have to continue to add the glue around them to fill in the blanks.

On Martin’s potential ceiling as hitter: Leonys is an aggressive hitter. It’s not your normal top of the lineup skillset, so he’s best served to hit in the latter third. He impacts the game on the bases and defensively. He’s got a little bit of power, where he can get out front and hook it to the right side. He’s got a good swing, and he’s got plus-plus bat speed. We fell like just getting into a ballpark that will allow him to accentuate his strengths – and that is the defensive prowess. He’s got a tremendous throwing arms – one of the best throwing arms on a centerfielder than you’ll see. And he runs the bases well. If he can bring that skillset to the table here at Safeco, it fits naturally with what we’re trying to do.We’re not looking for him to be a middle-of-the-order power bat, and we’re not really looking for him to be a top-of-the-order table-setter. We’re just going to bring his skillset on board and allow him to do the things that he does well and we’ll take advantage of those things and position him appropriately to take advantage of it.

On if the recent acquision of relieve Joaquin Benoid allowed the trade of Wilhelmsen: It did. Plan A when we picked up Joaquin was obviously to strength the back of our bullpen rather than use the other pieces in play. IN this case, obviously having Benoit and Carson Smith and Furbush, it did give us the ability to fill centerfield by putting Tom Wilhelmsen in play, which we were reluctant to do earlier because of the void it would create in the pen.

On Martin’s (high) strike out percentage: Leonys is about to be 28 years old. This is about the time you want to have players. The strikeout is always going to be part of his game. It is a quick bat. It’s in and out of the strike zone a little bit. But he does impact the game in other ways. You’re not always going to find perfect players, who answer every one of your questions or check every box. But he checks some pretty significant boxes for us. I do feel like Edgar Martinez is going to have a great influence on him. I do feel the idea of playing with Robbie Cano and learning some of the things that he’s done through the eyar will help him. I feel like this invironment will be a plus for Leonys, and I know he’s excited about coming to play here.

On Bass’ role as reliever: Not strictly. I talked to Anthony, he has some history as a starter. The big appeal is that he’s a righty who can go multiple innings, which is an advantage for us. We didn’t have that guy on our staff. That allows us to create both flexibility and depth in our bullpen. He can pitch in a swing role. He can compete for a fifth-starter spot. And quite frankly, nobody’s ever really tried to unleash Anthony Bass and see what it looks like in a short role. He will touch into the upper 90s – 96, 97 zone – with his best fastball. Sits more in the 92-93 zone. I don’t know what that would be in a short sprint, if we’d see more velocity, and as a result more bat-missing ability. He’s got a good breaking ball. He’s always had fastball velocity, he’s got Major League experience, and he’s both flexible and versatile. And that’s been a theme to our early offseason to this point.

On the bullpen: There is a group already in hand that we feel very strongly about, but we are going to continue to try to add to that group. … We’re probably not done with our outfield either.

This story was originally published November 16, 2015 at 4:58 PM with the headline "GM talks about two newest Mariners."