The move by the Mariners to hire Perry Hill as their first base and infield

PEORIA Brad Hand Jersey , Ariz. (AP) — Ask around the Seattle Mariners spring training complex and the most popular person putting on a uniform each day is likely a 66-year-old who is nearly four decades removed from playing professionally, and has become a respected authority throughout baseball as one of the best infield instructors around. coach in the offseason went mostly unnoticed, but his influence is already making a difference.“Oh man, I think he saved my career, honestly,” said shortstop J.P. Crawford, one of the Mariners’ key offseason acquisitions of young talent. “I was having a problem where I couldn’t point them out or see them, and I took groundballs with him for a day and he fixed me and got me right. He brings energy to this team. We need him on our team. I love him. He’s probably everyone’s favorite on the team. He just brings so much energy to the team and he’s so important to us.”Crawford didn’t meet Hill until this year after he was traded from Philadelphia to Seattle and spent a few days in January in Arizona working with Hill. There’s plenty of opportunity for Hill to teach in Seattle, both with the current group of major leaguers that could use some refinement, and with the Mariners’ crop of prospects they hope will be in the majors in a few years.“I like the teaching part. Maybe a tweak here, tweak there to help somebody,” Hill said. “These guys are tremendous athletes or they wouldn’t be here to begin with, but sometimes they get off track and they need a road map and I’m kind of like a tour guide. They’re doing the tour and every once in a while they get off the path and it’s my job to get them back on.”The longest relationship with Hill belongs to second baseman Dee Gordon. When Gordon was traded from the Los Angeles Dodgers to Miami before the 2015 season, Hill was serving as the Marlins’ infield coach. Gordon had struggled at times in Los Angeles with consistency throwing and it was one of the first tasks Hill took on.Gordon was skeptical, at best.“He was enthusiastic about it. He was telling me how good I could be,” Gordon said. “I didn’t trust him. Just being honest, I didn’t trust him. It got better.”Ultimately, Gordon had to be open to some of Hill’s ideas. And it was one of the first drills that gained Gordon’s trust. Hill told Gordon to field a ball at second base, close his eyes and throw to first.“He tells me to throw a ball with my eyes closed. If I do everything right it will go right to the first baseman,” Gordon recalled. “I throw it http://www.padresfanproshop.com/authentic-brad-hand-jersey , and listening for the chain-link fence, and ‘pow.’ I don’t believe it. Let me go over to shortstop and try. Second base is easy. I go over to shortstop, same thing. … I’m like, yo, this is crazy.”Gordon went on to win a Gold Glove in his first year with the Marlins, and in 2017 with Gordon playing 158 games, Miami had the best fielding percentage in baseball at .988.“He’s awesome. He cares. It’s not just a job for him,” Gordon said. “He cares about you doing the things to get better so you can be as good as possible for our team, for our defense. It’s not coincidence the teams he’s had have broken records for fielding percentage.”It was Gordon who was at the center of the discussions that eventually led to Hill leaving Miami and landing in Seattle. Mariners manager Scott Servais reached out to Hill last season when Gordon was moved from center field back to second base to get some idea of how long it might take Gordon to make the transition in the middle of the season. Servais had tried and failed to hire Hill many years ago when Servais was the farm director in Texas. This time, there ended up being a position for Hill after Servais reorganized his coaching staff in the offseason.“Far exceeded my expectations. Just the energy. The understanding of what it takes, doing the grind every day,” Servais said. “Perry has a system. He teaches a system. He knows it like the back of his hand — it’s not something that is data driven. It’s his eyes and teaching and having a feel for players’ strengths and weaknesses and addressing the weaknesses. And in a positive way to get the players to want to work. There is an art to coaching. It’s not a science, it’s an art, and he’s a pretty good artist.” Jacob deGrom and Noah Syndergaard are two of MLB's biggest potential trade-deadline prizes, and they probably aren't going anywhere.The New York Mets right-handers are 30 and 25 years old, respectively. DeGrom is under club control through 2020; Syndergaard won't hit free agency until after the 2021 season at the soonest. DeGrom is in the midst of a Cy Young Award-caliber season, and Syndergaard, injury issues aside, owns one of baseball's most electric arms.The Mets are buried in last place in the National League East. But those are the type of assets you build around, not the kind you ship away.What if New York could loan out its co-aces Tyson Ross Jersey , however, with the assurance they'd return to Queens after the season?It's nothing more than a thought exercise, obviously. League officials won't rewrite the trade rules in the middle of summer.There is a precedent, however. Professional soccer players in the English Premier League can be "loaned" out for limited periods before returning to their club of origin. Sometimes, they make a significant difference for their new squads.What if the same standard were applied to MLB?To give credit where it's due, NBC Sports' Christopher Crawford recently floated the notion:Christopher Crawford Crawford_MILBA thought:Lets say that MLB had a rule where a team could quot;borrowquot; an MLB player starting July 31. It would be like any other trade, only the player -- if hes under contract -- returns to the team in November.What would a player like Mike Trout get in that situation?That's a fascinating hypothetical. What wouldan offense-hungry contender pay for a few months of Mike Trout's services? At least one top-level prospect, probably, plus ancillary pieces.The Los Angeles Dodgers surrendered power-hitting prospect Yusniel Diaz to the Baltimore Orioles to rent Manny Machado in June. Diazbecame the Orioles' No. 2 prospect, perMLB.com, and the O's also nettedbat-missing right-hander Dean Kremer and third baseman Rylan Bannon, who'd hit 20 homers at High-A, as well as right-hander Zach Pop and infielder Breyvic Valera.Renting out Trout would help the Los Angeles Angels to rebuild their farm system and set them up for future contention. And it would put the game's best player in a position to perform on the postseason stage, where he's logged a scant 15 plate appearances in seven-plus big league seasons.Picture Trout temporarily in the middle of the Chicago Cubs' or New York Yankees' lineups. Are you not intrigued?Jim McIsaac/Getty ImagesThe same could be said for any number of star players who are toiling for teams on the fringe of or essentially eliminated from contention: the Miami Marlins' J.T. Realmuto, the San Francisco Giants' Madison Bumgarner, the Cincinnati Reds' Joey Votto. They'd tip the balance of power wherever they landed while adding exponential excitement to October.This proposal will engender hired-gun cynicism. It's the antithesis of loyalty. If your loyalty lies with the guy donning the laundry of your choice above all else, surely you're fuming.But as MLB wrestles with declining attendance and waning enthusiasm, it needs to get creative. It needs to find ways to put the best players in the spotlight and crank up the drama.Plus, free agency has already decimated the concept of franchise fealty. Whatever lip service they pay to the fans and cities they temporarily call home, most players follow the money. As they should.Let's cast aside the charade Allen Craig Jersey , then, and admit it's about entertainment. Many in the NBA have embraced the superteam, where contenders load up on superstars intent on winning a title. Why shouldn't baseball follow suit?"I'd give up everything I have, all of the individual awards I've ever won, for a World Series," Trout said in June, per USA Today's Bob Nightengale. "It would be so sick to win the World Series, ride around with that trophy, and see everyone so happy. That's something you dream about."Jae C. Hong/Associated PressUnfortunately for Trout, the Angels entered play Sunday 13 games behind the Houston Astros in the American League West and eight games off the wild-card pace. The odds that he'll realize his dream with the Halos in 2018 hover somewhere in the vicinity of zero.Would it be as sweet if he did it in another uniform? That's an open question. But it would be sweeter than watching the postseason from his couch.Trout, deGrom, Syndergaard et al. will likely remain with their current clubs in 2018. If you root for the Angels and Mets, then you're probably happy about that.If you're a fan of the game, on the other hand, it's an unfortunate reality鈥攚ith a possible, if drastic, fix.