Mariners acquire first baseman/outfielder Danny Valencia from the A’s

In need of another right-handed hitter in the lineup, the Mariners acquired veteran first baseman/outfielder Danny Valencia in a trade with the A's. Seattle sent pitching prospect Paul Blackburn to Oakland to complete the deal.

Searching for lineup balance to complement a slew of left-handed hitters, the Mariners made a trade to address that need on Saturday afternoon. Seattle acquired right-handed hitting first baseman/outfielder Danny Valencia from the Oakland A’s in exchange for minor league pitching prospect Paul Blackburn.

Valencia, 32, hit .287 (135-for-471) with  a .792 on-base plus slugging percentage, 22 doubles, a triple, 17 home runs, 51 RBI and a .346 on-base percentage in 130 games with Oakland this season. He was particularly effective against left-handed pitching, hitting .318 (41-for-129) with seven doubles, seven homers, 19 RBI and a .924 OPS.

“Danny’s skill set is a good fit for our club,” said Mariners general manager Jerry Dipoto. “He’s been a very productive offensive player, especially against left-handed pitching. In addition, his ability to handle all four corner positions presents (manager) Scott (Servais) with a welcome level of flexibility when creating lineups.”

After his stint with the A’s, Valencia was excited for a new opportunity.

“Obviously, Oakland is going through a rebuild,” he said in a conference call. “But the Mariners are a team that’s on the verge of the playoffs.”

The chance to hit behind the trio of Robinson Cano, Nelson Cruz and Kyle Seager was also quite intriguing.

“That’s a great group of hitters and I feel like I can extend that a little more,” he said.

In conversations with Dipoto and Servais, Valencia was told that the bulk of his playing time will come at first base with some time in right field. But he can also play left field and third base. That versatility will allow him to be more than just a straight platoon player. With rookie Dan Vogelbach likely to see time at first base in his first big league season, Valencia also provides some every-day insurance if the young prospect struggles.

“What we see is primarily is shared time at first base with Vogey, give a day off or DH day at third base for Kyle, which is something we haven’t had the flexibility to do and (Valencia) can also go play either corner (outfield) spot,” Dipoto said. “He’s a flexible corner piece that we see as an every day or near every day player, using him at a variety of different positions.”

It will allow Valencia to get at-bats against right-handed pitching. He’s pushed hard in recent seasons not to be limited to a platoon role.

“He’s been more of a neutral splits guy the last couple of years,” Dipoto said. “It’s something he’s focused on. Last year, he had 500-plus plate appearances. We envision a similar type of workload.”

With the signing of Valencia, it means that the Mariners will not pursue another year with free agent first baseman Dae-Ho Lee.

“There’s very little likelihood that both could fit on a same roster,” he said.

There is some question about Valencia’s defense at first base. He’s started just 43 games there in the big leagues.

“He’s athletic enough,” Dipoto said. “In my mind his hands work well enough, we’ve seen him play third base. We’ve seen him in the outfield more. He knows first base is the position he will lay the bulk of the time. It will give him a chance to work in the offseason.”

Valencia, who said he played a season of first base at University of Miami when Ryan Braun played third, wasn’t concerned. He plans to work on first base this offseason in Florida with friends Eric Hosmer and Yonder Alonso — both excellent defensive first basemen.

“I have some experience there,” he said.

In seven big leagues seasons with six different teams, Valencia has hit .271 (613-f2258) with a .748 OPS. His career split against left-handers are impressive. He boasts a .321 (247-for-770) batting average with 52 doubles, four triples, 26 home runs, 124 RBI, with a .373 on-base percentage and an .873 OPS.

He credits his recent success with some swing changes he made in Toronto in 2015 while also feeding off of the examples set by Josh Donaldson and Jose Bautista.

“Being around them helped,” he said. “I incorporated a leg kick which allowed me to keep the bat in the zone longer. I’m able to hit with power not just to left field but also center and right.

Even more enticing for the Mariners is his cost. Valencia is third-year arbitration eligible and is projected to make around just over $5 million this season.

Blackburn was with the Mariners organization for a short time. He was acquired along with Vogelbach as part of the trade that sent Mike Montgomery to the Cubs. He made 25 starts and one relief appearance at the Class AA level with the Cubs and Mariners’ affiliates, posting a 9-5 record with a 3.27 ERA.

More games: friv

Robinson Cano: No More Home Run Derby For Me

It is hard to watch a former champion struggle at his craft. For Robinson Cano fans, watching the 2011 Home Run Derby champion fade away in the first round of this year's competition was frustrating. Cano, the No. 4 seed, was blasted 24-7 in his head-to-head matchup with eventual champion Giancarlo Stanton.

When Cano won in 2011, the Home Run Derby featured a three-round, ten outs-per-round format. Cano's 2016 campaign was his fourth Derby appearance (2011-2013, 2016), but first in the new timed format. Cano, known for his nonchalance, had the lowest total of any player in any round in the two years of the new rules.

"It is more difficult," he says. "You got a time now. You got to swing. You've got to hit the most you can because you know the guy behind you, the guy in front of you, are going to get the same amount of minutes."

Cano is 33 and still among the best players in the game. His .304 average, 22 home runs, 23 doubles and 66 runs all rank in the top 11 in the American League.

But his Home Run Derby prime may be exhausted. And Cano wants to put that side of his career to bed.

"No, I'm not going back again," Cano says when asked about how he will improve for future years. "I just [did] this year because of my son. I'm not doing it again."

Cano's son, also named Robinson, lives in the Dominican Republic, but he was in the United States for this year's All-Star Game, accompanying Robinson and Robinson's father, Jose, a former MLB player known for his pitching to Cano and other players in the Home Run Derby.

"That's one of the reasons I want to do it, too," Cano told The Seattle Times on July 7. "It will be my dad, myself and my son. So us three there is something that’s going to be pretty special."

During that interview, the Mariner also said of the Home Run Derby, "I want to go back." A few weeks later, his opinion has reversed.

Cano spoke to ThePostGame at the Roc Nation Summer Classic Charity Basketball Tournament. His RC22 Foundation was a beneficiary of the event, along with CC Sabathia's PitCCh In Foundation, Miguel Cotto's Fundacion El Angel and Nick Jonas' Beyond Type 1.

Mariners' Robinson Cano: Hits first home run since opening weekend

Robinson Cano went 1-for-4 with his fifth home run of the season in Wednesday's extra-inning win over the Rangers.

Cano was the first Seattle Mariners player to even homer in the team's first three games to begin a season. He had four home runs, seven RBI and scored four runs through the team's opening series. Entering Wednesday's game, he hadn't homered, logged an RBI or scored a run since that historic start. Cano likely won't have to wait that long to get his next home run, as he has a date with the short porch at Yankee Stadium this weekend.

Robinson Cano's decline or lack thereof

The star second baseman has seen his numbers fall the last couple of seasons, but there have been reasons every time. So what does it mean?

Practical application is important. So I'm starting my look at Robinson Cano, 2016 edition, with where I took him in our slow (slooooooow) 15-team mock, currently ongoing on the site

Cano was my pick (woo!) in the fourth round, No. 53 overall. Among second basemen,Jose Altuve and Dee Gordon went earlier, with guys that qualify at the position in at least some leagues like Matt Carpenter, Brian Dozier, Anthony Rendon and Rougned Odor all going by the end of the fifth. More or less, that aligns with our consensus rankings, with Cano coming in third and the aforementioned guys following him in short order.

It's been a steady fall for Cano the last few years. Last year, he was our consensus No. 2 second baseman, and he, Rendon and Altuve formed their own three-player tier. In 2014, he was almost unanimously No. 1, with seven of eight rankers having him first.

It paints a picture of a Cano that has been on a steady decline (his OPS+, games played, doubles and select other stats have all fallen for four years running) that might or might not be fair.

We remember Cano joining Seattle for 2014, and his numbers suffering as a result. Only, as I noted at the start of last year, those suffering numbers were almost entirely power, and at that, almost entirely tied to his first half. Second-half-of-2014 Robinson Cano was exactly what we had traditionally expected for him, leading to some reason for optimism for 2015.

Which made it all the more frustrating when Cano started 2015 like he had won a "Be a big leaguer for a month" contest and had no place there. In the first half of last season, Cano hit .251/.290/.370, had six home runs, basically looked lost. If the season had ended at the All-Star break, these rankings would have Cano as a borderline top-10 second baseman at best, and even that would only have been on reputation.

Of course, Cano had his second half. In that second half, he hit .331/.387/.540. He had 15 home runs. His season-long BABIP of .316 tied his career-low for a year, but considering it was at .290 for that first half, things only went up the rest of the way.

There are reasons for the slump and subsequent improvement, of course. Or, at least, there are theoretical, correlation-without-causation reasons that could explain Cano's struggles. Cano dealt with some serious acid reflux during the first half of the season that supposedly kept him in check. At the end of the season, he had surgery to repair a sports hernia. Almost certainly, one or both of these ailments had an effect on how he played in the games.

In two seasons in Seattle, four half-seasons, Robinson Cano has disappointed twice and blown us away twice. All told, 2015 was the second-worst season of his career, with an OPS+ of 118 breaking up a five-year trend of huge numbers. Even then, his second half was Cano-esque, if not better than that.

Cano is now a 33-year-old second baseman. His numbers have held steady or gotten first for four straight years in several categories. There was a Robinson Cano who finished in the top six of the MVP voting for five straight years, from 2010 to 2014. That guy's gone.

But I got him in the fourth round of a deep mock. I picked him as the third second baseman off the board. I took him with the 53rd pick, and felt like I had won a prize. He's not the superstar he used to be. But he's among the elite second basemen still, and needs to be taken as such.