The Mariners have agreed to a minor league deal with utilityman Alen Hanson, per an announcement from their player development department. Hanson, a client of Daniel Szew’s L.A. Sports Management, will report to Triple-A Tacoma.
Hanson, 28, signed a similar deal with the Mariners prior to the 2020 season, though that arrangement was impacted by the lack of a minor league season in 2020. He’ll now return to the Mariners and give them some depth both around the infield and in the outfield.
The last big league appearance for Hanson came with the 2019 Blue Jays, for whom he posted a .163/.229/.163 slash in a small sample of 48 plate appearances. That marked Hanson’s fourth season with some big league time, as he’s also had stints with the Pirates, White Sox and Giants.
At one point, Hanson was considered one of the top prospects in the game. Baseball America rated him as a Top 75 prospect in 2013-14, while MLB.com had him ranked among the game’s 100 best farmhands each year from 2013-15. Unfortunately for Hanson and for the Pirates, who signed and developed him, the results have never been there at the MLB level.
Hanson did rack up 30 extra-base hits in a career-high 310 plate appearances for the 2018 Giants, but his overall .232/.266/.368 line in 625 plate appearances as a Major Leaguer has been lacking. He’s had better results in the upper minors and has logged at least 180 innings at every position on the field other than first base, catcher and pitcher, so he’ll give the M’s some depth at multiple spots.
As I said the last time Alen Hanson’s name was mentioned on MLBTR in January of 2020, he still looks like the rapper Wale.
They also used the same picture of him for the last 3 articles!
Ha — I guess we need to update our collection of Alen Hanson images!
There you go — updated to a fresh, new, first-time-ever-used-at-MLBTR Alen Hanson pic. 🙂
If nothing else, I’m impressed that you apparently set up an Alen Hanson column in your app to see the last several posts on him, haha.
Had a fun 2 weeks in SF in 2018. Was awful after. At least watching him run is entertaining.
Same thing in Chicago with us
That one game where he blasted around the bases and blew past the stop sign to score was priceless
The Pirates could never figure out which position to leave him at. Turned out that it didn’t matter much: he didn’t play any position particularly well, and he didn’t hit much from any position either. Nothing against him, it’s nice to see him get another shot.
Which Hanson brother was this?
Alen
Mmbop. Nigerian cousin.
This is the first Alen spelling of that name I have ever seen, and I am a connoisseur. I spell mine Allan, which often gets misspelled since it is 3rd most common behind Alan and Allen. I even know one Alon. But Alen is unique.
I wonder if his parents wanted something unique, or just didn’t care about spelling?
You done messed up, A L Lan!
Really? As someone who spells their name Allen, I also get it misspelled to the other versions of the name
Strictly a AAA player.
Probably true but I’m still surprised he wasn’t already on some organizations AAA roster already. He plays all over the field, has some speed and a little pop in his bat. Clearly his game has issues too but he’s a solid depth piece in today’s game to potentially cover injuries on the big league team for a couple weeks or so.
The muppet guy?
He’s a poor man Vlad Guerrero JR
At least Vlad has power. Side note, Vlad Jr can’t play anything but the corners.