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Five years ago, Ketel Marte was a rail-thin infielder with limited power for the Seattle Mariners. Facing his old club for the first time since turning himself into an offensive force, Marte’s physical transformation was the first thing Mariners manager Scott Servais mentioned when asked how much he had changed.
“He’s a totally different player,” Servais said Friday. “You could see he was going to fill out. I didn’t know he was going to get to the point where he’s at now. He’s a strong guy at the plate. His game shows it with his ability to impact the ball and drive the ball the way he can.”
In the first trade of General Manager Mike Hazen’s tenure, the Diamondbacks sent infielder Jean Segura and outfielder Mitch Haniger to the Mariners in exchange for right-hander Taijuan Walker and Marte in November 2016.
From the Diamondbacks’ perspective, the deal initially was seen as the Taijuan Walker trade. As time went on and Marte emerged as an impact bat, it turned into the Ketel Marte deal. In fact, both of the players that were viewed as the second pieces in the deal have turned into highly productive hitters; Haniger has been a valuable major leaguer, but he has struggled to stay healthy.
“We really liked the player; I loved Marte the year we had him,” Servais said. “It was just a situation where if you want to get good players you’ve got to trade good players. I think the trade worked out very well for both teams, looking back at it now.”
Marte last saw the Mariners during a three-game series at Chase Field in 2018. He broke out at the plate the following year, hitting .329 with 32 homers and finishing fourth in NL MVP balloting.
“Even from the get-go when he first got to the big leagues, he controlled the zone really well,” Servais said. “Typically, if you look back, the hitters that produce in this league year after year after year, that’s what they do. He’s got that ability.”
Injury updates
Diamondbacks right-hander Merrill Kelly, who has not pitched since mid-August following a bout with COVID, threw three innings and 51 pitches in a simulated game on Friday at Salt River Fields, manager Torey Lovullo said.
Assuming he bounces back well, Kelly is expected to start an Arizona Complex League game on Wednesday.
Right fielder Kole Calhoun, who continues to work his way back from another hamstring injury, took at-bats against Kelly, though he still isn’t running out of the batter’s box, Lovullo said.
Calhoun this week began to add “little arcs” in his running progression, Lovullo said.
Calhoun hasn’t played since suffering the injury on Aug. 11 in San Francisco.
Short hops
The Diamondbacks announced they had raised $1.5 million to launch the Nicole Hazen Fund For Hope, which will support research at Barrow Neurological Institute and Ivy Brain Tumor Center in Phoenix. The funds will be used to support a clinical trials program, which is designed to rapidly identify new therapies for brain cancer, the team said in a statement.
Nicole Hazen, whose husband, Mike, is the Diamondbacks’ GM, was diagnosed with glioblastoma in July 2020.
*The hearing for left-hander Caleb Smith’s appeal of his suspension was postponed on Thursday due to the flooding in New York, Lovullo said. It will be held Tuesday instead. Smith immediately appealed his 10-game suspension for having a foreign substance on his glove.
*Lovullo declined to name a starter for Saturday, saying he wanted to wait until after Friday night’s game.
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Reach Piecoro at (602) 444-8680 or [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter @nickpiecoro.
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