By Jerry Del Priore
The Seattle Mariners of Major League Baseball purchased the contract of infielder Danny Muno from the Southern Maryland Blue Crabs of the independent Atlantic League, the team announced on Thursday.
Muno will report to the Tacoma Rainiers, Seattle’s Triple-A affiliate in the Pacific Coast League.
Muno, an ex-New York Met, had batted .254 while slugging one home run, driving in four runners, scoring nine runs, and stealing four bases in 59 at-bats in 18 games with Southern Maryland.
Muno had signed with the Detroit Tigers in Spring Training, but was cut.
While with the Mets in 2015, the 28-year-old Long Beach, California, native played in 17 tilts.
After New York plucked him in the eighth round of the 2011 MLB draft, Muno was shipped to the short-season Single-A Brooklyn Cyclones to begin his professional career. He wound up raking to the tune of .355 with two homers and 24 RBI along with an impressive .466 on-base percentage and 22 doubles in 220 at-bats in 59 games with Brooklyn.
In addition, Muno made the New York-Penn League (NYPL) All-Star team that season, and the Mets named him as the Sterling Award winner for the Cyclones, symbolic of the team’s MVP.
But the six-foot-one switch hitter received a 50-game suspension in 2012 after testing positive for a metabolite of Drostanolone, an anabolic-androgenic steroid (AAS).
