{"id":476412,"date":"2026-02-15T11:40:09","date_gmt":"2026-02-15T11:40:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/476412\/"},"modified":"2026-02-15T11:40:09","modified_gmt":"2026-02-15T11:40:09","slug":"diamondbacks-sign-paul-sewald-mlb-trade-rumors","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/476412\/","title":{"rendered":"Diamondbacks Sign Paul Sewald – MLB Trade Rumors"},"content":{"rendered":"

TODAY: Arizona officially announced the Sewald signing, and Justin Martinez<\/a> was placed on the 60-day injured list in the corresponding 40-man roster move.<\/p>\n

FEBRUARY 12: The D-backs are bringing right-hander Paul Sewald<\/a> back to Arizona on a one-year, $1.5MM contract, Nick Piecoro of the Arizona Republic reports<\/a>. The agreement is pending a physical. Sewald is represented by ISE Baseball.<\/p>\n

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Sewald, who\u2019ll be 36 in May, spent the second half of the 2023 season and all of the 2024 season in Arizona after coming over in a deadline trade that shipped outfielder Dominic Canzone<\/a>, infielder Josh Rojas<\/a> and infielder Ryan Bliss<\/a> back to the Mariners. The veteran right-hander battled unusually shaky command but posted solid results down the stretch in \u201923 before seeing his overall production take a step back in a 2024 season that was truncated by oblique and neck injuries.<\/p>\n

After becoming a free agent following the 2024 campaign, Sewald signed a one-year, $7MM deal in Cleveland. He pitched only 15 1\/3 innings for the Guardians, this time due to a shoulder strain. The Tigers picked him up in a small deadline deal despite the fact that he was on the injured list, and he pitched 4 1\/3 innings for Detroit late in the year.<\/p>\n

Sewald was a tenth-round pick by the Mets back in 2012 and had an unremarkable four-year stint in Queens, pitching to a 5.50 ERA in 147 1\/3 innings. He was a minor league free agent gem for the Mariners, however, signing with Seattle ahead of the 2021 season and quickly emerging as a go-to reliever. In two-plus seasons as a Mariner, Sewald pitched 171 2\/3 innings with a 2.88 ERA, 52 saves, 24 holds, an enormous 35% strikeout rate and a solid 8.1% walk rate.<\/p>\n

We\u2019re now a few years removed from that peak. Sewald\u2019s average fastball sat at just 90.4 mph last season, down 2.1 mph from its peak, and he\u2019s posted a 4.40 ERA over his past 59 1\/3 MLB frames. That said, he\u2019s still fanned more than one quarter of his opponents while posting a strong 6.5% walk rate in that time. His slider still grades out as at least an average pitch, if not slightly better, and it\u2019s possible that improved health could add a bit more life back to his heater or bring some additional whiffs back on that breaking ball.<\/p>\n

For an Arizona club in dire need of bullpen help, it\u2019s hard to fault the addition of an experienced, generally successful reliever at less than two times the $780K league minimum. Sewald probably won\u2019t return to peak levels, but he doesn\u2019t need to in order to benefit this version of manager Torey Lovullo\u2019s bullpen. The Snakes are without Martinez, A.J. Puk<\/a>, and Andrew Saalfrank<\/a>, all of whom will open the season on the injured list. Saalfrank won\u2019t pitch at all this year. Puk is probably out until at least June. Martinez may not be back until late in the summer.<\/p>\n

At the moment, the Diamondbacks\u2019 bullpen includes Kevin Ginkel<\/a>, Ryan Thompson<\/a>, trade acquisition Kade Strowd<\/a> and another bargain pickup in righty Taylor Clarke<\/a>. There\u2019s no shortage of candidates to compete for the final few spots. Brandyn Garcia<\/a>, Drey Jameson<\/a>, Philip Abner<\/a>, Juan Morillo<\/a>, Andrew Hoffmann<\/a> and non-roster invitees Jonathan Loaisiga<\/a>, John Curtiss<\/a> and Shawn Dubin<\/a> are among the candidates. Sewald will add some low-cost stability \u2014 a veteran reliever who even as his numbers have taken a step back in recent seasons has at least remained serviceable. If things don\u2019t pan out, the Snakes can cut him and move on, but the Sewald reunion is a sensible one, given the team\u2019s lack of bullpen certainty and minimal capacity to further add to the payroll.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"TODAY: Arizona officially announced the Sewald signing, and Justin Martinez was placed on the 60-day injured list in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":476413,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[435],"tags":[49,48,174406,462,8923,82],"class_list":{"0":"post-476412","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-justin-martinez","11":"tag-mlb","12":"tag-paul-sewald","13":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/476412","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=476412"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/476412\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/476413"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=476412"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=476412"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=476412"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}