Toro already making an impact for M’s

Revue de presse

Mike Axisa, CBS Sports, August 11, 2021

Aside from Marte, the best position player pickup at the trade deadline thus far has been Abraham Toro, who went from the Astros to the Mariners in the unpopular Kendall Graveman trade. Unpopular in Seattle’s own clubhouse, that is. “It never changes. They don’t care about winning. How do you trade him and say you care about winning?” an unnamed Mariners player said after the deal.

Toro is making the front office look smart, however. Graveman is certainly missed in the bullpen — Seattle is 3-7 since the deadline and they blew a lead in the sixth inning or later in five of the seven losses — though Toro is doing his part at the plate. The 24-year-old switch-hitter is 17 for 48 (.354) with three home runs in 13 games with the Mariners.

Beyond the surface stats, two things really stand out about Toro’s time with the Mariners. First, he’s not striking out. Only five strikeouts in 55 plate appearances, or a 9.1 percent rate that is well below the 23.5 percent league average. Toro has swung and missed only 5.4 percent of the time as well. That’s less than half the 11.3 percent league average. The man is getting the bat on the ball a ton.

Toro has never been a high strikeout hitter. He struck out in 17.4 percent of his career plate appearances in Double-A and Triple-A, and in 20.5 percent of his plate appearances with the Astros. That’s a good, solid number, especially for a young player. With Seattle, Toro has taken the contact up a notch. It’s a small sample, sure, but five strikeouts in only 55 plate appearances is impressive no matter what. That’s an extreme contact rate in this era.

And second, Toro is playing second base with the Mariners, a position he played exactly once in 93 games with Houston and only a handful of times in the minors. It’s essentially a new position for the natural third baseman, and 12 games into the experiment, Toro seems to be handling it well. At the very least, he hasn’t given the Mariners a reason to believe he can’t do it.

“He centers the ball really well,” Mariners infield coach Perry Hill recently told reporters, including Ryan Divish of the Seattle Times. “His footwork is crisp. But he hasn’t played there in a long time. When you play on the left side of the infield, the ball is coming at you and everything is going one way. But when you are on other side of the infield it’s different. The angles are different. When you are turning double plays, you are going one way and having to throw back the other way. He’s got to learn how to manipulate and turn his body. That’s going to take a little bit of time.”

Seattle acquired Toro for his bat, first and foremost. He’s a switch-hitter who gets the bat on the ball and those guys are hard to find. No, Toro won’t continue to hit at a .358 clip because basically no one does that, but there are indications he can be an above-average hitter with contact and power. And if he becomes that, Toro won’t have to do much defensively to be worth a lineup spot. Anything he gives them at second base is gravy.

Trading Graveman in the middle of a postseason race was a tough pill to swallow for the players in the clubhouse, I get that, but GM Jerry Dipoto effectively replaced Graveman with Diego Castillo, and Toro has quickly made an impact for Seattle. He’s settling in at a new position and providing a lift offensively. The Mariners are fading in the standings and Graveman is missed by his former teammates, but they are a better team overall with Toro.

Revue de presse publiée par Jacques Lanciault.