They kept insisting Kingery's defense ranked better at SS, though talk about a small sample. Still, they had made that commitment to Kingery, I think that was also part of JP becoming an afterthought in 2018 once he was able to play again.
There were so many different variables to the Seattle trade - I don't think they were actively trying to trade him/giving up on him, but they liked Segura and were desperate to unload Santana, and JP was the price of both. It was a high price - a fair price for one or the other, maybe (especially since they took back Nicasio's $ too).
