{"id":21250,"date":"2025-07-24T19:32:08","date_gmt":"2025-07-24T19:32:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/21250\/"},"modified":"2025-07-24T19:32:08","modified_gmt":"2025-07-24T19:32:08","slug":"lourdes-gurriel-jr-drawing-trade-interest","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/21250\/","title":{"rendered":"Lourdes Gurriel Jr. Drawing Trade Interest"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Diamondbacks have been inching more and more towards the sell side of the buy-sell bubble since the All-Star break, and John Gambadoro of 98.7 Arizona Sports<\/a> suggests that the club has \u201csolidified\u201d as a seller for this summer\u2019s trade deadline after being swept by the Astros earlier this week. Now that the club appears to be more firmly planning to sell in at least some capacity this summer, Gambadoro adds that they\u2019ve received interest from \u201ca few teams\u201d\u00a0on outfielder Lourdes Gurriel Jr.<\/a><\/p>\n

Gurriel, 31, is in the second-year of his three-year, $42MM contract with the Diamondbacks signed following the club\u2019s run to the World Series in 2023. That sets him apart from the majority of potential trade chips on Arizona\u2019s roster, as pieces like Zac Gallen<\/a>, Eugenio Suarez<\/a>, and Josh Naylor<\/a> are all poised to hit free agency this winter. Gurriel is due $13MM in 2026, and his contract also comes with a $14MM club option for 2027. That option has a $5MM buyout, meaning that Gurriel is guaranteed $18MM in addition to what\u2019s left of his $14MM salary for 2025. That\u2019s not exactly an onerous contract, but it\u2019s still a fairly hefty price to pay for a player who has slashed just .245\/.295\/.406 with a wRC+ of 93 this year.<\/p>\n

Gurriel is also largely confined to left field defensively at this point in his career with pedestrian defensive metrics at the position. Below average offense and defense from a position like left field isn\u2019t exactly an exciting package, but Gurriel has suffered from a career-low .254 BABIP this season and is sporting a career-best strikeout rate of just 13.5%. He\u2019s also posting stronger numbers against southpaws, with a .278\/.331\/.398 slash line against opposite-handed pitchers this year. Perhaps there are teams in need of outfield help who are intrigued by Gurriel\u2019s contact-oriented bat and see taking on the veteran\u2019s contract as a way to avoid parting with significant prospect capital in a deal for another available outfield option like Harrison Bader<\/a> or Ramon Laureano<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Specific suitors for Gurriel aren\u2019t known but, speculatively speaking, a team like the Phillies or Royals with a significant need in the outfield could make sense. While Gurriel\u2019s production is rather pedestrian, he would still be a substantial upgrade for Max Kepler<\/a> (85 wRC+) in Philadelphia or John Rave<\/a> (74 wRC+) in Kansas City. The possibility of acquiring Gurriel without needing to expend significant capital beyond cash could also be attractive to a Phillies club that needs substantial help in the bullpen or a Royals club that finds themselves on the buy-sell bubble this summer.<\/p>\n

Even if a return of note beyond salary relief cannot be had for Gurriel, there\u2019s at least some reason for the Diamondbacks to consider making a deal. Getting Gurriel\u2019s salary off the books could help the club in its efforts to either re-sign or replace players from their large crop of pending free agents, and the controllable trio of Corbin Carroll<\/a>, Alek Thomas<\/a>, and Jake McCarthy<\/a> could make it easier for the Diamondbacks to part with an outfield option. Of course, that doesn\u2019t mean a deal is necessarily close or especially likely. While Gambadoro writes that multiple teams have reached out regarding Gurriel, it\u2019s not clear how serious their interest is in the outfielder\u2019s services.<\/p>\n

Perhaps interested teams are only willing to deal for Gurriel if the Diamondbacks retain some of his contract, at which point it\u2019s not hard to imagine the Snakes feeling they\u2019re better served holding onto him and hoping that he bounces back enough to either help the team out in 2026 or raise his value on the trade market for the future. One potential compromise could be for Gurriel to be traded as part of a package involving one of Arizona\u2019s other trade pieces, but it\u2019s hard to say if the Diamondbacks would have much appetite for potentially watering down the trade return they could receive for a more valuable asset like Suarez by pairing him with Gurriel.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Diamondbacks have been inching more and more towards the sell side of the buy-sell bubble since the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":21251,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[49,48,17785,82],"class_list":["post-21250","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-lourdes-gurriel-jr","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21250","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21250"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21250\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/21251"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21250"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21250"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21250"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}