Former Seattle Mariners Veteran Infielder Signs with Athletics

This morning, MLB.com's Martín Gallegos reported that veteran infielder, Luis Urías, had a locker in the A’s Spring Training facility in Mesa, Arizona. It was later announced by the team that Urias would be receiving a major league contract.

As a corresponding move to make space on the 40-man roster, the club placed right-hander Luis Medina on the 60-day Injured List. Medina is expected to miss most, if not all of the 2025 campaign after undergoing "Tommy John" surgery last August.

The 27-year-old infielder has played parts of seven years in Major League Baseball. He made his MLB debut as a 21-year-old with the San Diego Padres in 2018. After two mediocre seasons in San Diego, he'd take his talents to Milwaukee, where he'd play the majority of his career. He was part of the trade package that sent Grisham from the Brewers to the Padres.

His second year with the Brewers would be the best season of his career. In that 2021 campaign, he'd have a .789 OPS with 23 home runs, racking up 3.3 bWAR and hitting .249 with a .345 OBP.

In 2022, he'd also have a solid season with the Brew Crew, and then was shipped off to the Red Sox the following year after a bad first half.

Urias finished his 2023 campaign in Boston, where he continued to struggle, which caused the Red Sox to trade him that off-season to the Seattle Mariners.

Luis Urías on the surface looked like he had a rough 2024 season in Seattle, but he shined away from T-Mobile Park. In away games last season, Urias had an OPS of .881, as opposed to a .488 OPS at home. Urias struggled in T-Mobile Park but showed that he can be a good hitter in the league, just like he showed in 2021.

The one big caveat here is that those road numbers were accrued over 56 plate appearances, where he hit .240 with a .321 on-base and a 147 wRC+ (100 is league average).

Now Luis Urias joins an A's infield that contains Gio Urshela, Jacob Wilson, Zack Gelof, Tyler Soderstrom, and utility-man Max Schuemann. With Urshela struggling against left-handed pitching, Urias could see some time at third base, as well as some time filling in for Gelof and Wilson.

The A's also have Max Schuemann who can fill in the infield, so it'll be interesting to see how manager Mark Kotsay manages his roster heading into the 2025 season.