Seattle Mariners acquire Omar Narváez from White Sox for Álex Colomé

The Mariners have officially made a trade, and no – it’s not the one you’re thinking about.

As we’re all awaiting official word on the heavily-speculated Robinson Canó/Edwin Díaz deal with the Mets, Jerry Dipoto and co. have swung a completely separate deal that benefits them both offensively and financially. In a trade with the Chicago White Sox, Seattle is sending reliever Álex Colomé in exchange for offense-first catcher Omar Narváez.

In 2018, Colomé was acquired in an excellent midseason trade with the Rays that also landed the Mariners Denard Span. Both players were key pieces in maintaining playoff contention throughout the season for Seattle, but both are now going their separate ways in 2019. There was some thought that Colomé was in line to take over closing duties if Díaz were to be traded, but that’s no longer a possibility.

Narváez, 26, comes to Seattle off a career year in which he slashed .275/.366/.429 with 9 homers in 97 games. After former Mariner Welington Castillo was suspended in May, Narváez was given an opportunity to play more often and made the most out of it, at least on the offensive side. Simply put, Narváez is basically the complete opposite of Mike Zunino – the newest Mariner has struggled to stay consistent behind the plate, but his bat has been good enough to keep him at the Major League level.

FanGraphs has been a bit more generous in their assessment of Narváez’s defense, giving him ratings of 5.4 and 4.7 in 2017 and 2018 respectively. Overall, Narváez finished with a 2.1 fWAR, which ranked eighth among catchers last season.

Narváez is in the final pre-arbitration year of his deal and is controlled through the 2022 season. This deal also knocks off the estimated $7 million Colomé was set to make in arbitration this year. It’s a win-win for the Mariners, and a solid deal for both parties, as the White Sox subtract from their excess at the catcher position and find themselves a solid high-leverage option for their bullpen as they look to compete in 2019.

This is likely not the final move of the day for the Mariners, as the aforementioned shipment of Canó and Díaz appears to be all but done. So keep your eye on SoDo Mojo and put on another pot of coffee, because this is going to be a looooong day.