Brody Hopkins stands to rewrite Mariners trade history as playoff star for Rays

The story of the Randy Arozarena trade is diverging for the Seattle Mariners and Tampa Bay Rays. After two seasons and change, Arozarena's time with the Mariners is likely coming to an end. And thanks to Brody Hopkins, the payoff of that deal has only just begun to, well, pay off for the Rays.

It was only a couple weeks ago that we wrote about this possibility coming to fruition, and that was when nobody had yet seen Hopkins in the big leagues. Now he's here, and he's only needed four games to show that he can be a devastating weapon out of the Rays' bullpen as they eye a World Series pursuit.

Hopkins has shaken off a rough debut on September 13 to hurl three straight scoreless, hitless outings in which he's struck out five of the 11 batters he's faced. His fastball has sat at 100.1 mph, getting as high as 101.7 mph.

We couldn't help but notice an exchange on X between Lance Brozdowski of Marquee Spots Network and Rob "Pitching Ninja" Friedman, in which they geeked out over the shape of the 24-year-old righty's fastball. If you take into account Hopkins' release point, velocity, spin and other characteristics, one metric rates his heater even more highly than that of Jacob Misiorowski.

The Mariners didn't lose the Randy Arozarena trade, but still…

It is our goal here at SoDo Mojo to never intentionally put any stupid ideas in our readers' heads. Perhaps we don't bat 1.000 in this regard, so we'll go ahead and say it just to be safe: The Mariners did not lose the Arozarena trade.

He has had moments when he's shown his butt with a lack of hustle or a disproportionate reaction to a denied handshake, but the results are the results. In 364 games as a Mariner, the 2021 AL Rookie of the Year and three-time All-Star has a 131 OPS+, 58 home runs and 60 stolen bases. That's a really good player, plain and simple.

The only way the trade could have worked out better for the Mariners is if they had somehow kept Hopkins. He wasn't the main get for the Rays, after all. That was Aidan Smith, who was Seattle's No. 12 prospect at the time for MLB Pipeline. Hopkins ranked 10 spots lower. He was a project.

What makes the "Arozarena trade, minus Hopkins" hypothetical more intriguing is the notion that he might be coming out of Seattle's bullpen right now, not Tampa Bay's. Not that anyone needs a reminder, but the Mariners' bullpen has been capital-B, all-italics Baaaaaaaaad. The 4.47 ERA hurts. The 28 blown saves hurt more.

Oh well. Everyone loves a trade win, but it's hard to begrudge a trade that proves to be a win-win. For the Rays, that's now up to Hopkins. And if he makes the 2026 playoffs his 2002 Francisco Rodriguez moment, at least it'll be fun to watch.

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