Mariners utility player Abraham Toro off to hot start in spring games

Revue de presse

Ryan Divish, The Seattle Times, March 22, 2022

PEORIA, Ariz. — With each offseason acquisition — before and after the 99-day lockout — Abraham Toro could see his path to an everyday starting job blocked by a new, more proven player.

The starting second base job that he held for the final two months of the season, proving to be a capable player in that role, was filled when the Mariners traded for All-Star second baseman Adam Frazier in mid-November.

For the length the lockout, when transactions were frozen, Toro was projected to be the starting third baseman, though it seemed obvious that Jerry Dipoto, the Mariners president of baseball operations, would try to place an impact bat with some power potential there instead.

Photo ci-dessus : Abraham Toro y allant d'un coup sûr bon pour un point lors du match des Mariners contre les Diamondbacks de l'Arizona le 21 mars dernier (Photo : Dean Rutz / The Seattle Times)

That happened two days into the delayed spring training when the team acquired outfielder Jesse Winker and third baseman Eugenio Suárez.

With that trade, Toro’s role returned to being a part-time player — similar to his time with the Astros before being sent to Seattle, along with reliever Joe Smith, in that controversial trade that sent beloved closer Kendall Graveman and reliever Rafael Montero to Houston a few days before the 2021 deadline.

Toro, who turned 25 in December, wasn’t surprised about the Suárez acquisition. He expected Dipoto to add a player at the position either through trade or free agency based on prior conversations.

“Jerry called me in the offseason to talk about my role,” he said. “And it was pretty good to know that this organization cares about me.”

That role will be a utility player who can fill in at second or third base, play some first base if needed and even some left field.

“I like it playing everywhere,” he said. “That means that they want to find a spot for me in the lineup so I can play as much as possible. I feel it gives a good value to the team to give us maybe some guys some off days.”

But really it’s not Toro’s defense that makes him ideal for this role. It’s being a switch-hitter with a solid approach, high contact and low swing-and-miss rates. Seattle saw it the first few weeks after the trade when Toro got off to a torrid start, reaching base safely in his first 18 games for the Mariners, posting a .344/.440/.563 slash line with five doubles, three homers and eight RBI. That included 16 hits in his first 10 games for a .432 batting average.

But he couldn’t sustain those numbers and faded in the final month of the season. After hitting a memorable grand slam Aug. 31 off Graveman, Toro posted a .183/.259/.250 slash line with five doubles, a homer, 10 RBI, 10 walks and 18 strikeouts in his final 28 games.

‘It’s just a long season, and you’ll go through your up and downs,” he said. “You’ve got to stay mentally sharp because you’re gonna have those up and downs and you’ve got to keep the same routine and same attitude to in order to stay as consistent as possible.”

Toro is off to solid start this spring. He had two more hits in Tuesday’s Cactus League game, giving him five hits in nine at-bats over four games.

“It’s great,” manager Scott Servais said. “He’s very comfortable. He knows the guys. He looks great at the plate. We’re going to continue to move him all over the field. But he’s swinging the bat as well as anybody in camp right now.”

He loves the idea of having a switch-hitter with Toro’s approach to use when needed.

“It is awesome,” Servais said. “If we have a hiccup somewhere and somebody gets a little banged up, you can kind of slide him in where it allows us to slide players around. And when you put that switch-hit bat in the lineup, it’s a nice weapon to have.”

Revue de presse publiée par Jacques Lanciault