Former Rangers Had a Lot to Do With Martin Acquisition

Take a trip down memory lane to September 2014, and you'll remember interim skipper Tim Bogar taking over after the unexpected resignation of Ron Washington and having a pretty good run in the final month before ultimately losing out on the managerial opening to some guy named Jeff Banister.

During that 20-something game stretch, Bogar did a lot of experimenting, with one of the main trials being moving Leonys Martin to the lead-off spot full-time, and he excelled with the boost of confidence he got from Bogar that he never had from Washington.

Martin had all the tools for that spot — speed, base-stealing ability, bunting ability, etc. — so why not? Bogar talked about Martin being a prime candidate for the spot in 2015, but of course it ended up not being up to him.

Fast-forward to Monday, and Bogar is the bench coach in Seattle, where he's joined by former Rangers slugger Nelson Cruz in the outfield, and both of those guys had a lot to do with bringing Martin to Seattle on Monday.

“Tim helped out a great deal, and Leonys obviously performed very well for him in Texas,” new Mariners GM Jerry Dipoto told the Seattle Times. “I spoke to Nelson Cruz about Leonys, and he had some very positive things to say.”

It was a great trade for the Rangers, and the Mariners seem to think they got a pretty great deal, too, thanks to some old friends.

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