As many speculated after he was DFA’d, the Seattle Mariners have indeed acquired Bill Hall from the Milwaukee Brewers.  The Brewers get Ruben Flores, a minor league reliever who is still having trouble breaking the Class-A threshold at age 25.

Hall was a great player for a 2-3 year stretch, but has fallen off sharply the last couple of years.  He’s a great defender at 3B and can hack it in the OF and up the middle as well, meaning he’s an option as a utility guy down the road.

But perhaps he could be more.  It’s long been thought that Adrian Beltre will leave once his contract expires at the end of the year, and the Mariners may have just brought in the second half to their undervalued backup plan for 2010.

I like Matt Tuiasosopo, but if the organization decides he’s not the guy, they could turn to a Bill Hall/Jack Hannahan platoon.  Both guys are stellar gloves and could come up with some decent offensive production in a platoon role.  As recently as last season Hall hit .306/.371/.522 against lefties and holds a career mark of .275/.347/.484.  Hannahan only has a career .222/.318/.356 line against right handers, but he’s shown signs of life this year since joining the Mariners and he seems like a guy just an adjustment or two from turning his stellar approach into some more offensively production.

We’ll see how it plays out.

Edit to add:  Even if Hall continues to be terrible, this is a fine move by the Mariners.  Seattle gave up a reliever with okay stuff that can’t stay healthy and Milwaukee is paying practically his entire salary.  That’s the important thing to remember is that Bill Hall is like a free lottery ticket.