"Later" Arrives as Player is Named and Laffey Departs

The player to be named later has been named and it is indeed Chance Ruffin. He will quickly join the Mariners and replace the just now DFA'd Aaron Laffey.

For a while, the offseason Aaron Laffey trade was hilariously one-sided as Matthew Lawson, whom the Mariners traded for Laffey, up and retired unexpectedly earlier this year. Meanwhile, Laffey was an unspectacular, but decent reliever for Seattle. There were even some interesting trends to indicate that he might be sustainably better. Then Laffey got bad. Which is to say, then Aaron Laffey started giving up home runs. Though I will take a deeper look into it later, assuming he clears waivers and heads to Tacoma, here's a quick summary.

Aaron Laffey, 2011 Mariners
First 14 appearances: 12% K, 7% BB, 62% strikes, 5% swinging, 0 home runs, .294 RBBIP
Next 22 appearances: 12% K, 7% BB, 65% strikes, 6% swinging, 7 home runs, .367 RBBIP

and so

First 14 appearances: 1.27 ERA
Next 22 appearances: 6.75 ERA

So that's the primary deal with Aaron Laffey. And here comes Chance Ruffin who throws a fast fastball and a slider and Jeff will talk about with more and probably different words shortly.