Seattle Mariners: Injury updates on Austin Adams & Mitch Haniger

While we wait for the Seattle Mariners to start playing games again, we are also waiting on news regarding a few players who suffered major injuries in 2019. Yesterday, we got some updates.

In an interview with Greg Johns of MLB.com, Mariners GM Jerry Dipoto was able to report some news, both good and bad, on a few key contributors, reliever Austin Adams and right fielder Mitch Haniger.

Dipoto is quite upbeat about the recovery of Austin Adams, who tore his ACL in September of 2019. The rehab process has gone quite well and the Mariners now believe that Adams will be ready to go when (or if) the regular season kicks off.

Adams will be a welcome addition to a bullpen that features power arms like Carl Edwards Jr. and gives Seattle a legitimate, high-leverage, backend reliever who could compete for the closer’s role sometime in 2020.

Adams was terrific for the Mariners after being acquired by Dipoto from the Washington Nationals for LHP Nick Wells. He posted a 3.77 ERA, a 2.96 FIP, a 1.097 WHIP, and 14.8 K/9 with Seattle, thanks to one of the nastiest sliders in all of professional baseball.

Unfortunately, there isn’t as much optimism surrounding Mitch Haniger. He has still not been cleared for any baseball activity and is just walking and performing light workouts. Dipoto stressed that this wasn’t another setback, just that Haniger and the Mariners are being extremely careful in an attempt to avoid another setback.

We still don’t know when or if there will be baseball in 2020, but it doesn’t sound like Haniger will be ready if they do start in late May or early June as currently being pitched by MLB. We are still at least a month away from restarting spring training under the most optimistic of circumstances, so things can change quickly. But for now, the news on Adams is good and the news for Haniger is as expected.