Victorino and League traded to Dodgers in separate deals
Maui’s Shane Victorino and Oahu’s Brandon League are out of the cellar and teammates on a pennant-contending team, joining the Los Angeles Dodgers.
They arrive today via separate trades, Victorino from the Philadelphia Phillies, and League from the Seattle Mariners, according to several published reports.
The Dodgers are tied with San Francisco atop the National League West Division standings, while Philadelphia is on the bottom in the NL East and Seattle is last in the American League West.
The Dodgers, who swept the Giants over the weekend, beat out their rival for the services of Victorino and League, both of whom were rumored to have drawn interest from the Bay Area team. The Giants also traded for a Phillies outfielder Tuesday, acquiring Hunter Pence.
"New league, new hitters, new teammates," League said after the Mariners’ 4-1 over Toronto, a game in which he did not pitch. "It’s definitely an exciting time. Now, it’s a new chapter in my life and go help the Dodgers try and win a ring."
League, a Saint Louis School graduate, was 0-5 with nine saves and a 3.63 ERA in 46 games this season. The 29-year-old righty was an All-Star last year when he had 37 saves for the Mariners.
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League made history against the Dodgers in June when he got two outs against them as he and five other Seattle pitchers combined for a no-hitter against Los Angeles.
League has been particularly tough on right-handed hitters, holding them to a .225 batting average during his career.
League is 17-27 with 54 saves and a 3.69 ERA since 2004 with Toronto and Seattle. He had an inkling a deal might be in the works.
"You can’t ignore the rumors and the deadline’s the deadline. The past three years you’ve been hearing stuff, whether it be during the trade deadline or even in the offseason," he said.
The trade reunites Victorino with the Dodgers, who took him in the sixth round of the 1999 Major League Draft. He spent four seasons in the Los Angeles farm system before being acquired by San Diego in December 2002 as an unprotected minor leaguer. He was returned to the Dodgers five months later and then picked up by Philadelphia as an unprotected minor leaguer in 2004.
Victorino has made the Dodgers pay for it, homering against them three times in the postseason, including once in 2008 as the Phillies marched to a World Series championship.
Victorino, a St. Anthony High graduate who is expected to play left field and bat leadoff for the Dodgers, came in a trade for reliever Josh Lindblom and minor-league pitcher Ethan Martin.
"We’re excited to add an All-Star-caliber player with postseason experience," general manager Ned Colletti said in a statement on the Dodgers’ website. "He plays the game with passion, gives us a top-of-the-order bat from both sides of the plate, can steal bases and is solid defensively in the outfield."
As a center fielder for the Phillies, Victorino was hitting .261 with nine homers, 40 RBIs and 24 steals. He helped the Phillies win five consecutive NL East titles and the 2008 World Series. Lindblom is 2-2 with a 3.02 ERA in 48 relief appearances for Los Angeles.
Although Victorino and League did not know each other growing up in Hawaii, the two played each other in the minors a few times and they both played in the 2011 All-Star Game in Arizona.