Mariners Claim Willie MacIver

The Mariners announced that they have claimed catcher Willie MacIver off waivers from the Blue Jays and sent him to Triple-A Tacoma. Toronto had designated him for assignment a few days ago. Seattle has open 40-man spots and therefore didn’t need to make a corresponding move.

MacIver, 29, has a limited big league track record. He got into 33 games with the Athletics last year and made 111 plate appearances, producing a .186/.252/.324 line in those. He has generally performed well in the minors, however, and clearly has appeal as a depth option. The A’s put him on waivers in November and MacIver was claimed by the Rangers. In April, the Rangers designated him for assignment and the Jays sent cash to Texas in order to grab him before he hit the wire again. He got squeezed off the Toronto roster this week, which led to this waiver claim.

The interest is presumably based on his strong minor league numbers. MacIver has 1,146 plate appearances at the Triple-A level with a .286/.376/.470 line. That includes a .253/.342/.424 line and 101 wRC+ this year. That’s barely above league average but not too shabby for a club’s third- or fourth-best catcher. MacIver is in his second of three option years and can therefore be kept in the minors for the rest of this campaign and one more season as well.

For the Mariners, they have been operating for most of this season with a catching duo of Cal Raleigh and Mitch Garver at the big league level, with Jhonny Pereda in Triple-A as depth. Last week, they decided to make a change. They released Garver and called up Pereda to join Raleigh in the big leagues. For the past week-ish, those two were the only two catchers on the 40-man. With this claim, they now have a third backstop on the roster who can be stashed at Tacoma until needed.