Blaine Newnham / Times associate editor
Olivo shows up ready for work

MARK HARRISON / THE SEATTLE TIMES Catcher Miguel Olivo was in a Mariners uniform a day after being traded from the Chicago White Sox as part of the Freddy Garcia deal. Olivo likely will split time early with Dan Wilson.

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As the clubhouse doors swung open yesterday, Miguel Olivo was nowhere to be seen.

Instead, walking across the carpeted floor on the way to what had been his locker was Freddy Garcia.

"He's still here," Olivo, the 25-year-old catcher, said later. "That's funny."

Garcia, who doesn't pitch for the Chicago White Sox until Thursday in Minnesota, is allowed 72 hours to join his new team and he's taking his time. Perhaps he is as brokenhearted about leaving Seattle as he said he was.

But even if he wasn't, and even if there was little hope of him signing with the Mariners next season as a free agent, the trade that brought in a major-league catcher, Olivo, and two good prospects, outfielder Jeremy Reed and infielder Michael Morse, may be one of the better trades in the club's history.

Who knows?

What the Mariners do know is that they got good return for Garcia.

A case can be made that they got more for Garcia than the Kansas City Royals got for Carlos Beltran, perhaps the most talented player in the game today.

The Royals didn't get a major-league player, like Olivo. They might not have gotten a prospect as good as Reed.

Olivo wasn't in the clubhouse early yesterday afternoon because he was in the batting cage, just hours after stepping off a plane from Chicago.
 
He wasn't waiting 72 hours to begin his life anew. He was swinging a bat Dan Wilson loaned him.

"I'm happy," Olivo said.

Sunday he cried in a corner of the White Sox clubhouse off-limits to reporters. He wouldn't talk because he said he couldn't.

"It is hard to talk when you have something in your throat," he said, determined to explain the disappointment of being traded.

"I just want to play baseball. Maybe I can play more here than I did in Chicago," he said.

You'd like Olivo. He has a certain effervescence about him, a smile that shortcuts cynicism, that makes the day after look better than the day before.

"Everyone thinks this is a good opportunity for me," Olivo said. "So do I."

Manager Bob Melvin put Wilson in the lineup last night against Texas. He wanted to give Olivo a day to say hello to teammates, unpack his suitcase.

"He'll get his fair share of playing time, no question about that," said Melvin of Olivo. "But so will Dan Wilson."

In 46 games with the White Sox, Olivo drove in 26 runs, two more than Wilson drove in in 58 games, more RBI per game than any other Mariner.

If it came to trading Garcia — and it did — then Olivo was a good acquisition.

It is too bad the Mariners needed help at catcher. In 1997, they traded Jason Varitek to Boston. In 1999, they used their first-round pick to draft Ryan Christianson. Two years later they traded to get another first-round pick, Ben Davis.

Both Christianson and Davis failed to be the catcher of the future. Coupled with the Varitek trade, both are examples of mistakes that led to this season and the dumping of Garcia, a 27-year-old All-Star pitcher.

Olivo played 114 games last year for the White Sox. He has shown an unmistakable flair, hitting a home run off former Yankees left-hander Andy Pettitte in his first major-league at bat.

Behind the plate, he threw out the first runner that dared steal on him, Beltran.

"He's a good pitcher," said Olivo of Garcia, "and when you want to get something good, you have to trade something good."

The Mariners traded Garcia because they didn't believe they could re-sign him to the long-term deal he wanted, and because they cared less about winning a few more games this season than gaining solid position prospects.

What they got in the process was a major-league catcher who can throw out runners with the best of them and has shown an ability to drive in runs.

Olivo, a native of the Dominican Republic, signed with Oakland as a 17-year-old.

"When you left your house, all you saw was baseball," he said of his homeland. "I knew I would be a baseball player."

He met his wife while playing in the Oakland farm system in Modesto, Calif., where he now lives with the former Gloria Torres and their four children, Miguel Jr., Minaya, Alexandra and Erica.

He learned to speak English with Gloria's help, and their children are bilingual.

The 6-foot Olivo was a 145-pound catcher when he signed with Oakland. Now he weighs 218. He has rare speed for his position, stealing 29 bases in Class AA, a season in which he also hit 10 triples.

Sunday, he hit a home run off Greg Maddux in the second inning, and after lining out sharply to center field in the seventh, was taken out of the game by manager Ozzie Guillen.

"I knew something was up," he said. "I knew I hadn't done anything wrong."

It was the Mariners who had done plenty wrong and were finally trying to correct it.

Blaine Newnham: 206-464-2364 or bnewnham@seattletimes.com