{"id":273433,"date":"2025-11-10T03:55:11","date_gmt":"2025-11-10T03:55:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/273433\/"},"modified":"2025-11-10T03:55:11","modified_gmt":"2025-11-10T03:55:11","slug":"mariners-lose-27-year-old-power-hitter-to-free-agency","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/273433\/","title":{"rendered":"Mariners Lose 27-Year-Old Power Hitter To Free Agency"},"content":{"rendered":"

Every Major League Baseball front office loves a good reclamation project, and the Seattle Mariners<\/a> thought they might have one on their hands in Austin Shenton.<\/p>\n

Shenton, a 27-year-old first baseman and former Mariners fifth-round pick, was designated for assignment by the Tampa Bay Rays last December. But he had a brief stint of major league experience under his belt as a Ray, and he’d shown enough power during his time in the minors that the Mariners thought there was a shot he could produce for them.<\/p>\n

Thought it wasn’t exactly a massive disappointment, given that Seattle wound up eventually trading for Josh Naylor. to play first, Shenton was just mediocre in Triple-A Tacoma. And earlier this week, his time in a Mariners uniform may have come to an end. <\/p>\n

\"Austin<\/p>\n

Feb 20, 2025; Peoria, AZ, USA; Seattle Mariners infielder Austin Shenton poses for a portrait during media day at Peoria Sports Complex. Mandatory Credit: Mark J. Rebilas-Imagn Images \/ Mark J. Rebilas-Imagn Images<\/p>\n

On Thursday, Shenton elected free agency, according to the transactions log<\/a> on his official roster page. He was DFA’d by the Mariners in May, making him eligible to hit the open market for the first time in his professional career.<\/p>\n

Shenton was traded to the Rays in 2021 for reliever Diego Castillo, so the M’s may have thought they were getting a steal by bringing him back for cash. But unless he re-signs on a minor-league deal, it doesn’t appear that move will have a large return on investment.<\/p>\n

Shenton has some huge minor-league seasons under his belt, including 2023, when he hit 29 home runs and put up a 1.007 OPS in 134 games. He also had a very respectable .745 OPS in 19 games for the Rays last year. <\/p>\n

However, at an offense-first position like first base, you’ve got to hit a ton to prove you deserve a long-term starting role. And Shenton didn’t help his case by having a .731 OPS and 14 home runs for Tacoma this year in 83 games, as the Pacific Coast League is known for offense. <\/p>\n

There are times when it appears Shenton has 30-homer potential in the big leagues. But most teams think they have a first baseman in their farm system who has that capability, so sometime soon, he’s going to have to luck into an opportunity before teams will just automatically hand the gig to someone younger.<\/p>\n

More MLB: Mariners Lose Former Rookie Of The Year, All-Star Pitcher To Free Agency<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Every Major League Baseball front office loves a good reclamation project, and the Seattle Mariners thought they might…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":273434,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[435],"tags":[49,48,462,82],"class_list":{"0":"post-273433","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mlb","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-mlb","11":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/273433","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=273433"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/273433\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/273434"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=273433"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=273433"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=273433"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}