{"id":409318,"date":"2026-01-14T19:55:07","date_gmt":"2026-01-14T19:55:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/409318\/"},"modified":"2026-01-14T19:55:07","modified_gmt":"2026-01-14T19:55:07","slug":"hoerner-donovan-romero-among-mariners-trade-targets","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/409318\/","title":{"rendered":"Hoerner, Donovan, Romero Among Mariners’ Trade Targets"},"content":{"rendered":"

This week\u2019s trade sending Nolan Arenado<\/a> from St. Louis to Arizona<\/a> and the Cubs\u2019 weekend signing<\/a> of Alex Bregman<\/a> figure to accelerate the market surrounding various trade and free agent scenarios. One club that could directly be impacted is the Mariners, who\u2019ve spent the bulk of the winter trying to add another infielder after re-signing Josh Naylor<\/a> on a five-year contract early in the offseason.<\/p>\n

Seattle\u2019s interest in Cardinals second baseman Brendan Donovan<\/a> is no secret. They were linked to him last offseason and have been reported to be one of his most prominent suitors this winter. Jeff Jones of the Belleville News-Democrat reports<\/a> that in addition to Donovan, the Mariners have had \u201congoing\u201d discussions with the Cardinals about left-handed reliever JoJo Romero<\/a> throughout the winter. Seattle already added one southpaw arm for the bullpen, acquiring Jose A. Ferrer<\/a> from the Nationals in December<\/a>, and they have a second outstanding option in Gabe Speier<\/a>, who enjoyed a breakout year in 2025 (and was just added to the Team USA roster for the upcoming World Baseball Classic).<\/p>\n

Adam Jude of the Seattle Times reports<\/a> that Donovan is the Mariners\u2019 top target on the trade market but adds that the M\u2019s also have interest in Cubs second baseman Nico Hoerner<\/a>. The veteran Hoerner\u2019s name has come up in trade speculation since the Bregman signing, though it seems unlikely a deal will actually come together. Chicago appears willing to listen as a matter of due diligence but would presumably need to be overwhelmed and receive substantial big league talent to trade Hoerner coming off a .297\/.345\/.394 season that saw him swipe 29 bases, win his second Gold Glove and finish sixth in the National League with 6.2 wins above replacement, per Baseball-Reference (or 15th with 4.8 fWAR, for those who prefer FanGraphs\u2019 version of the statistic).<\/p>\n

[Related: Giants Aggressively Pursuing Second Base Upgrade<\/a>]<\/p>\n

At this point, the fit between Donovan and the Mariners has been explored at length. He\u2019s an affordable ($5.8MM in 2026) high-contact bat with good on-base and defensive skills who can handle either of the two currently unsettled positions in the Seattle infield: second base or third base. The M\u2019s have plenty of highly touted prospects who could emerge at those positions \u2014 Colt Emerson<\/a>, Cole Young<\/a>, Michael Arroyo<\/a> among them \u2014 but Donovan could also move to an outfield corner if those promising young players force the issue. He\u2019s under control through the 2027 season via arbitration.<\/p>\n

Romero was previously linked to the Mariners, but that was before the team acquired Ferrer. It\u2019s notable that Jones implies there have been talks even after that swap. The 29-year-old lefty has been a mainstay in the Cardinals\u2019 bullpen for three-plus seasons now and has steadily shown year-over-year improvement. In 2025, he tossed a career-high 61 innings with a career-best 2.07 earned run average. Romero saved eight games, tallied 24 holds and blew only one opportunity. He fanned a slightly below-average 21.6% of his opponents against a bloated 11.4% walk rate that stands as a major outlier relative to the career 7.7% walk rate he carried into the \u201925 season. The lefty also kept a hefty 54.5% of batted balls on the ground.<\/p>\n

The Cardinals signed Romero to a $4.26MM contract for the upcoming season \u2014 his final year of club control. While last year\u2019s hiccup in terms of command is of at least some concern, the broader track record is quite strong. Since joining the Cardinals, Romero boasts a flat 3.00 ERA (3.61 SIERA) with a 23.4% strikeout rate, 9.1% walk rate, 53.7% ground-ball rate, 57 holds and 12 saves. The Orioles<\/a> and Yankees<\/a> are among the others to show interest in Romero, though it\u2019s a veritable certainty that the field of interested clubs is much larger than just these three.<\/p>\n

Echoing previous reporting from The Athletic\u2019s Katie Woo, Jude suggests that at least a pair of top-100 prospects \u2014 switch-pitcher Jurrangelo Cijntje<\/a> and outfielder Lazaro Montes<\/a> \u2014 have been discussed in talks with the Cardinals. The exact permutations of those talks remains murky. There\u2019s no firm indication that St. Louis has sought both in the same package for Donovan, just as there\u2019s no certainty that Seattle has offered both. It\u2019s certainly possible that Romero\u2019s name has come up as part of a package talk involving one or both those ballyhooed young players. Whatever shape those negotiations have taken, they (obviously) have yet to culminate in a deal.<\/p>\n

Hoerner, much like Donovan, is a straightforward fit for the Mariners. The previously mentioned Cole Young<\/a> is currently in line to open the season at second base for the M\u2019s. He\u2019s a former first-round pick and top-50 prospect, but Young hit just .211\/.302\/.305 in his first 77 MLB games last year. He won\u2019t even turn 23 until late July, so there\u2019s plenty of time for him to develop into a quality regular, but the Mariners are built to win right now. Hoerner, a free agent next winter who\u2019s signed for $12MM in 2026, would give the Mariners an immediate upgrade while affording them the luxury of additional development time for Young. As a bonus, Seattle could extend a qualifying offer to Hoerner next November, netting them a compensatory draft pick in the event that he signs elsewhere.<\/p>\n

Again, the Cubs are not outright shopping Hoerner but are willing to hear other clubs out. They\u2019re almost certainly not going to trade him for prospects who are years from MLB readiness; doing so would offset most or even all of the wins gained by bringing Bregman into the fold. It\u2019s hard to come up with a direct exchange that would benefit both parties equally, but the Mariners are nothing if not aggressive and creative on the trade front.<\/p>\n

At present, RosterResource projects<\/a> the Mariners for just under $157MM in 2026 payroll. That\u2019s a bit shy of the franchise-record $158MM Opening Day payroll and a ways south of the roughly $167MM figure at which they ended the 2025 campaign. Given the win-now push in Seattle and the extra revenue from a deep playoff run that saw the Mariners advance to Game 7 of the American League Championship Series, it stands to reason that ownership is willing to push payroll beyond those marks.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"This week\u2019s trade sending Nolan Arenado from St. Louis to Arizona and the Cubs\u2019 weekend signing of Alex…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":409319,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[435],"tags":[21168,49,48,38652,139713,18420,162359,172322,462,96802,82],"class_list":{"0":"post-409318","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mlb","8":"tag-brendan-donovan","9":"tag-ca","10":"tag-canada","11":"tag-cole-young","12":"tag-colt-emerson","13":"tag-jojo-romero","14":"tag-jurrangelo-cijntje","15":"tag-lazaro-montes","16":"tag-mlb","17":"tag-nico-hoerner","18":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/409318","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=409318"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/409318\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/409319"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=409318"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=409318"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=409318"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}