There have been some people lobbying for the Mariners to deal reliever Miguel Batista to the Colorado Rockies for 3B Garrett Atkins, with the justification being that the Rockies could use a reliever, the money matches up nicely and the Rockies don’t need Atkins getting in the way of Ian Stewart.  While I still don’t quite understand why the Rockies would want to do this, this is a scenario the teams have indeed discussed with each other.

Why do this if you’re the Mariners?  Atkins has some name value spawning from a solid 2006 and fantasy baseball, but he’s a terrible player for the Rockies right now and would be even worse for the Mariners.

He’s hitting .227/.303/.339 with just 14 extra base hits in 60 starts, 25 coming in hitter friendly Coors Field.  His approach hasn’t changed but he’s not hitting for power like he has in the past.  I’ve heard that he’s lost a tick or two of bat speed and is having a difficult time catching up to good fastballs.

Even if he were to revert to his 2008 form he wouldn’t be particularly good.  He hit .286 with 21 homers and 99 RBI but his OPS sat at just .780 and his wOBA was below average for a third baseman.  That kind of offensive production was completely acceptable from Adrian Beltre, but he just so happens to be one of the best run savers in the business.  Atkins is a very bad defender based on the metrics and no better according to the scouting reports.

Right now Atkins hurts his team at the plate and in the field.  Maybe you believe he’s about to come around offensively, but moving to a tougher ballpark in a tougher league in a trade to Seattle wouldn’t exactly help him get back to his past level of play.

This season Atkins has a negative WAR value (-0.7).  Last year he was worth just 0.6 WAR.  He’s been terrible.  Throw that name value out the window– this guy hasn’t deserved a starting job since 2007, and even then he was far from great.

Batista is also terrible, but he’s only going to hurt the team a couple times per week while Atkins is going to drag the team down every single day.

When the Batista-for-Atkins speculation first cropped up my initial reaction was a shoulder shrug and the thought that it couldn’t hurt.  But at this point I’m against such a deal and would rather grind it out with Batista for the rest of the year or try to dump him on some other team.