Trade's Official

Two Fridays ago - ten days - we learned that the Mariners were going to send Michael Pineda and Jose Campos to the Yankees for Jesus Montero and Hector Noesi. There were some delays, and Montero couldn't get to Seattle for his physical until this past weekend. He underwent a battery of tests, and there was no sign of the hype virus, or Eric Duncan Syndrome as it's known in some circles. So Montero was cleared, and now, at last, the trade is official.

I don't have anything to add at the moment that I or Matthew haven't already said. Yay, Montero is neat. Yay, Noesi is neat. Boo, Pineda was good, and boo, Campos could be good. Of interest is Jack Zduriencik's statement, which is a sentence fragment I can't believe I typed. On Noesi:

It is also beneficial that we were able to acquire a Major League- ready pitcher with six years of control and who will compete for a spot in our rotation.

So the Mariners see Noesi as a starter, like we figured. Good, that's the right thing. On Montero:

With this trade we feel we have acquired a premium offensive talent that has the potential to hit in the middle of our lineup and grow with our other young players [...]

Through our evaluations, we've identified the strength of our organization to be pitching depth, and this helped in our decision to acquire what we consider a premium bat and a potential starting pitcher [...]

Zduriencik talks about Montero being a talented bat, as he should, but he doesn't say anything about Montero being a catcher. Zduriencik didn't say that much so maybe this doesn't mean anything - maybe he just felt like praising Montero's offense - but it got my attention. This is the first public word on the trade from the Mariners' end (I think), and it could be a sign that they don't see Montero as a backstop.

Or maybe they do. I don't know. We'll all know more very very shortly, after Zduriencik and Montero go on a media conference call.