Did Dodgers pull a minor league heist?

♦ March 1, 2017 ♦ Leave a comment

The Dodgers just announced they have traded Chase De Jong to the Mariners for Drew Jackson and an aneurysm to be thrown in later.

LOS ANGELES – The Los Angeles Dodgers today acquired minor league shortstop Drew Jackson and minor league right-handed pitcher Aneurys Zabala from the Seattle Mariners in exchange for right-handed pitcher Chase De Jong.

On the surface,  this looks like a heist for the Dodgers.

Jackson, 23, has a career .288 batting average with 63 stolen bases, eight home runs and 73 RBI along with a .363 on-base percentage in 183 games over two professional seasons with the Mariners organization. The Berkeley, CA, native was named by Baseball America as a Short-Season Single-A All-Star in 2015, along with being named Northwest League Player of the Year and selected by the league as mid- and post-season All-Star, after leading the league in batting average (.358), on-base percentage (.432), runs (64) and stolen bases (47) in 59 games. Jackson was originally drafted by the Mariners in the fifth round of the 2015 First-Year Player Draft out of Stanford University.

Jackson might give the Dodgers the best infield speed since the minor league days of Dee Gordon. As a shortstop, the Dodgers now have AAA depth in Culberson/Taylor, AA depth in Drew Jackson, and Single-A depth in 2016 number one pick Lux.

MLB had Drew Jackson ranked as the Mariners third top prospect in 2016.

More on this later but now I’m headed for the Clipper / Rockets showdown at Staples. Can Blake Griffin keep playing the best basketball of his career now that Chris Paul is back?

Yikes, that Clipper game was horrible

Updates on March 2nd, 2017:

Looking for some insight on the trade you may not need to go any further than what TBLA commentator Nolij had to say today:

This trade tells me a couple of things.

The Dodgers wanted to (or at least were willing to) clear a roster spot. It could be for an imminent trade or signing, or it could be in anticipation of adding Morrow (or maybe Culberson) later. If the latter is true, I like the proactiveness, because a deal like this may not be available closer to April, and you’d hate to have to just DFA a guy for a spot when you could have gotten value in a guy you like.

The fact that the Mariners have been trying to get DeJong since July means that it is highly likely the Dodgers were trying to get someone from Seattle at last year’s trade deadline as well. Since Chase was a Mariners target means that he A) has value to other teams and B) was viewed as valuable enough to the Dodgers to (potentially) hold up a deal for another desired piece. Putting that all together, the Dodgers probably really like one or both of they guys they acquired.

Posted by Nolij on Mar 2, 2017 | 9:46 AM reply rec (1) flag

 

One thing we do know is that Drew Jackson is now the fastest player in the Dodger organization and probably has the best arm. He was ranked 3rd in the Mariner organization after the 2015 season because of his nice debut. His value dropped quite a bit in 2016 when he failed to build on that rookie season in the hit friendly California League.

Keep him in mind when the team might need his speed as an October pinch runner ala Kansas City’s Terrance Gore.

The aneurysm (Aneurys Zabala) might turn into something useful. He has the arm strength so who knows what could happen if he gets the right pitching coach to coax some command out of his gun.

Chase was pretty far down the Dodger depth chart, but this trade will give him an opportunity to make the majors sooner than later. Zach Lee was given the same chance last year but wasn’t able to capitalize on it and was eventually released.

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