Former Dback 2nd Round Pick Drew Interest From the Mariners
Over the weekend the Arizona Diamondbacks placed Reno Aces third baseman Drew Ellis on waivers. The Seattle Mariners then claimed him and sent him to their AAA club in Tacoma Washington.
Ellis, a former 2nd-round pick has had 5 minor league seasons with the Diamondbacks. In those 5 seasons, he has a career slash line of .248/.352/.455. He was called up to the majors for short stints in each of the last 2 seasons with the Diamondbacks. Both of his call-ups resulted in a total of 34 games where Ellis managed a slash line of .134/.268/.207. This season when he was not with the Dbacks he was in Reno with the Aces. His slash line there in 179 plate appearances was .217/.369/.399. None of the above statistics were impressive in the least, although as pointed out by MLBTradeRumors, he did walk in 18.4% of those plate appearances, that is a good number.
To make room for Drew on the Seattle 40-man roster, the Mariners transferred outfielder Mitch Haniger from the 10-day injured list to the 60-day injured list. Haniger has been out of action since the Mariners placed him on the IL on April 30th for a right high ankle sprain. The Mariners will then soon have to make a roster move when Haniger is eligible to come off the IL on June 30th. But it does look like Haniger's return will be a little longer than the 60-day return date according to what Haniger himself said to Ryan Divish of The Seattle Times about the injury.
“As far as getting back in games, I think like a rough estimate would be from date of injury is 10 to 12 weeks,” Haniger says. “But at the same time, I’ve heard it can go on the earlier end and I’ve also heard on the longer end.”
That 10–12-week timeline would mean a return to action somewhere in the window of July 10-24, with a rehab stint likely pushing his return to the big leagues back a couple of additional weeks.
Lastly, something our readers may find interesting as I did, Ellis is in his second minor league option year. That means the Mariners can bounce him between Seattle and Tacoma through the end of next season if they keep him on the 40-man roster. I understand that Ellis is no top prospect, and we now have both Rojas and Kennedy at the major league level. But, looking at the top 30 prospects as ranked by MLB.com the Diamondbacks only have 2 players who play third base in those rankings, and they both are in A ball. One of them is only 18 years old in Deyvison De Los Santos and the other, A.J. Vukovich was taken in the 4th round of the 2020 draft..........as an outfielder and has since transitioned to third base.
Arizona could have kept Ellis as a stopgap for the next 2 years knowing their third base prospects are in the low minors, but they choose not to. All of us at Venom Strikes hope he is not a stopgap in his new organization, and we wish him the best!