{"id":93916,"date":"2025-01-17T01:28:34","date_gmt":"2025-01-17T06:28:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/?p=93916"},"modified":"2025-01-17T01:29:03","modified_gmt":"2025-01-17T06:29:03","slug":"mariners-sign-donovan-solano-one-year","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/2025\/01\/17\/mariners-sign-donovan-solano-one-year\/","title":{"rendered":"Mariners Sign Veteran Donovan Solano to One-Year Deal"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The Seattle Mariners inked their first notable winter move, signing free agent <a href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/s\/solando01.shtml?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=lastwordonsports.com&amp;utm_campaign=2025-01-17_br\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Donovan Solano<\/a>. Solano signed a one-year, $3.5 million deal with Seattle on Monday. The move proves the Mariners have some sense of life and a minimal desire to improve.<\/p>\n<p>Seattle&#8217;s winter so far has been littered with inexpensive depth-piece moves. It&#8217;s the opposite of what you would expect from a team that missed playoffs by one game two years in a row. It&#8217;s the same team that also has a historically good rotation. Finally, while still clinging to their penny-pinching ways, they added to their starting lineup. Solano might not be the fans&#8217; first choice, but he does bring value to a team that struggles to, well, hit the ball.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\">\n<p dir=\"ltr\" lang=\"en\">Welcome to Seattle, Donovan \ud83d\ude4c<\/p>\n<p>We have signed INF Donovan Solano to a 1-year Major League contract. <a  href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/hashtag\/TridentsUp?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">#TridentsUp<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\ud83d\udd17 <a  href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/ekfmAm9dab\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">https:\/\/t.co\/ekfmAm9dab<\/a> <a  href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/rp7HR3wm7S\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">pic.twitter.com\/rp7HR3wm7S<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Seattle Mariners (@Mariners) <a  href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/Mariners\/status\/1878917630381469744?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">January 13, 2025<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<h2>Mariners Sign Donovan Solano<\/h2>\n<p>According to Mariners&#8217; President of Baseball Operations <a href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/d\/dipotje01.shtml?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=lastwordonsports.com&amp;utm_campaign=2025-01-17_br\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Jerry Dipoto<\/a>, Donovan Solano has been one of &#8220;the most underrated bats of the last six seasons.&#8221; Solano brings a consistent average to the Mariners&#8217; lineup. But at 37, it&#8217;s unclear how much time he will spend in the Mariners&#8217; infield. Glaring holes across the infield still exist, even after his acquisition.<\/p>\n<p>Many speculate Solano will fill the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/t\/turneju01.shtml?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=lastwordonsports.com&amp;utm_campaign=2025-01-17_br\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Justin Turner<\/a> role, one that greatly benefited Seattle down the stretch in 2024. Turner offered a wealth of experience and was a real figure at the time. With a limited budget, Turner is projected to sign for upwards of $10 million. That is something the Mariners unfortunately don&#8217;t have the freedom to do. Solano offers a lot of the same experience and bat presence at a fraction of the cost.<\/p>\n<p>Solano is a career .279 hitter, which is perfect to fill in at DH when needed. In his last six campaigns, he slashed .294\/.353\/.413, which is better than any current Mariner, barring <a href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/a\/arozara01.shtml?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=lastwordonsports.com&amp;utm_campaign=2025-01-17_br\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Randy Arozarena<\/a>. Fans are hoping that whatever power he does have will translate to Seattle weather. A lot of his career has been with <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/2025\/01\/16\/padres-sign-martin-maldonado-address-catching-depth\/\" target=\"_self\">California<\/a> teams, like the <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/2025\/01\/15\/giants-free-agency-randal-grichuk-pursuit\/\" target=\"_self\">San Francisco Giants<\/a> and San Diego Padres. The pure hitter can also fill in at first base, second base, and third base, all of which are other positions of need for the Mariners.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Photo Credit: \u00a9 Orlando Ramirez-Imagn Images<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Seattle Mariners inked their first notable winter move, signing free agent Donovan Solano. Solano signed a one-year, $3.5 million deal with Seattle on Monday. The move proves the Mariners have some sense of life and a minimal desire to improve. Seattle&#8217;s winter so far has been littered with inexpensive depth-piece moves. It&#8217;s the opposite [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5357,"featured_media":94027,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"no","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[17,1071,35],"tags":[4062,435,3286],"class_list":["post-93916","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-mariners","category-mlb","category-news","tag-donovan-solano","tag-justin-turner","tag-randy-arozarena"],"modified_by":"Lewis Masella, Site Editor","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/93916","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5357"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=93916"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/93916\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":94029,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/93916\/revisions\/94029"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/94027"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=93916"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=93916"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=93916"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}