Likely outcome for the rest of the offseason

[ddraig]

The M's have an outstanding nucleus that needs to continue to develop into the Hall of Fame talents that they can be. That includes Rodriguez, Raleigh, Kirby, Gilbert and Castillo.

Of the five you mention. I'm willing to bet that four of those five won't be here in three or four more years. The kids, excluding Julio, will not re-sign with the M's, preferring to take free agency to get the hell out of Dodge when they can. Not only do they want to make money, but more importantly to them, they want to play for a winner! And Castillo may not even last another year!

[acctingman]

80-82

Miss the playoffs by a couple games.

Rinse, repeat

Enough fans will go to games, make Stanton more money.

Fuck this organization

[GL_Storm]

I mostly agree with you. I doubt many of the kids on the team today will stay with the club. Management has shown no reason to remain. The best rotation in the business and they show no need to improve the offense. The kid pitchers are playing for their own stats knowing at best they will have a .500 record at the end of the year. Why stay? You think Cal is going to stick around when his contract is up? Fat chance. JP and Julio will likely stick around, but that's gonna be about it!

I disagree with the statement that the front office hasn't recognized the need to improve the offense. They've signed or traded for a number of players to improve the roster, including the offense. The problem is that most of the acquired players don't work out very well.

The ones they've signed to play second base (Frazier, Wong and Polanco) have been surprising failures, especially Frazier who was coming off his best season. Winker was also a surprising failure so there's definitely been some bad luck involved. However, others were terrible in concept and performed as badly as one could expect. Haniger, LaStella, Pollock, Urias, Zavala and especially Garver who had been 0-32 lifetime at T-Mobile.

Some of this was bad luck but teams also create their own luck through their choices. The bigger picture here is this approach of trying to adjust the roster reactively year to year with players on short-term deals, the idea being that by avoiding longer-term commitments you maintain your payroll flexibility. There's a certain amount of logic to that approach but it has not worked at all. While the team has had consistent winning seasons the last few years, that's largely been in spite of the players brought in.

The part that has worked better is what you might think of as the longer-term parts of the strategy, using the draft and international signings to acquire and develop franchise-level players: Julio, Cal, Kirby, Gilbert, Miller, Woo, and Brash. Also Munoz, that they got in a trade, as well as the consistent ability to turn enough fringy relievers into the best versions of themselves to make the bullpen consistently productive.

Given their track record, my view is that this front office needs to get away from the approach of trying to reactively fill the gaps in the roster each year. They've shown clearly that they aren't good at it, so maybe just don't do it, or at least do less of it. And since they aren't likely to start overpaying for the Marcus Semien's of the world, I think that means more of a focus on developing from within.

But we'll see what they do.

[Donn Beach]

The M's have an outstanding nucleus that needs to continue to develop into the Hall of Fame talents that they can be. That includes Rodriguez, Raleigh, Kirby, Gilbert and Castillo.

Of the five you mention. I'm willing to bet that four of those five won't be here in three or four more years. The kids, excluding Julio, will not re-sign with the M's, preferring to take free agency to get the hell out of Dodge when they can. Not only do they want to make money, but more importantly to them, they want to play for a winner! And Castillo may not even last another year!

But other than the Braves that's pretty much business as usual in today's baseball. The Red Sox managed to sign Devers, the Astros altuve and the mariners Rodriguez. I don't see fandom bring linked to keeping players past theIr FA. If you have a real once in a lifetime player like the Yankees have with with judge I can see committed to resigning them. But I can't see expecting to get a number of players signed.

[Donn Beach]

I disagree with the statement that the front office hasn't recognized the need to improve the offense. They've signed or traded for a number of players to improve the roster, including the offense. The problem is that most of the acquired players don't work out very well.

The ones they've signed to play second base (Frazier, Wong and Polanco) have been surprising failures, especially Frazier who was coming off his best season. Winker was also a surprising failure so there's definitely been some bad luck involved. However, others were terrible in concept and performed as badly as one could expect. Haniger, LaStella, Pollock, Urias, Zavala and especially Garver who had been 0-32 lifetime at T-Mobile.

Some of this was bad luck but teams also create their own luck through their choices. The bigger picture here is this approach of trying to adjust the roster reactively year to year with players on short-term deals, the idea being that by avoiding longer-term commitments you maintain your payroll flexibility. There's a certain amount of logic to that approach but it has not worked at all. While the team has had consistent winning seasons the last few years, that's largely been in spite of the players brought in.

The part that has worked better is what you might think of as the longer-term parts of the strategy, using the draft and international signings to acquire and develop franchise-level players: Julio, Cal, Kirby, Gilbert, Miller, Woo, and Brash. Also Munoz, that they got in a trade, as well as the consistent ability to turn enough fringy relievers into the best versions of themselves to make the bullpen consistently productive.

Given their track record, my view is that this front office needs to get away from the approach of trying to reactively fill the gaps in the roster each year. They've shown clearly that they aren't good at it, so maybe just don't do it, or at least do less of it. And since they aren't likely to start overpaying for the Marcus Semien's of the world, I think that means more of a focus on developing from within.

But we'll see what they do.

Dtrain brought this up and I questioned it then. I don't believe the mariners are trying to have a bunch of short term contracts just for the sake of payroll flexibility, I don't see where there is an argument for it's value. I think there's an argument for utilizing pre FA contracts. And I think they are genuinely interested in extending players but that's easier said than done and has plenty of risk.

[Vogelbomb]

I think they believe in their farm and they recognize that come 2026, they've got a decade plus lined up of players that can hold down 2b, ss and 3b. Whether it's Cole Young, Colt Emerson and Michael Arroyo from 2b-3b or we see Bliss-Young-Emerson or Young-Celesten-Emerson or Arroyo-Celesten-Emerson... I mean this is the future from 26-36. Celesten is probably a 27 guy at this point. But Emerson could take over for JP in '26, then maybe he slides over for Celesten's debut sometime in 27 or 28.

They don't want to block any of these guys. There's depth there, too. If it goes Young-Celesten-Emerson come 28, Bliss and Arroyo will still be there as pre-arb dudes. And you have Peete who could be moved to the OF but also offer infield depth.

[bpj]

The ones they've signed to play second base (Frazier, Wong and Polanco) have been surprising failures, especially Frazier who was coming off his best season. Winker was also a surprising failure so there's definitely been some bad luck involved. However, others were terrible in concept and performed as badly as one could expect. Haniger, LaStella, Pollock, Urias, Zavala and especially Garver who had been 0-32 lifetime at T-Mobile.

Some of this was bad luck but teams also create their own luck through their choices. The bigger picture here is this approach of trying to adjust the roster reactively year to year with players on short-term deals, the idea being that by avoiding longer-term commitments you maintain your payroll flexibility. There's a certain amount of logic to that approach but it has not worked at all. While the team has had consistent winning seasons the last few years, that's largely been in spite of the players brought in.

The part that has worked better is what you might think of as the longer-term parts of the strategy, using the draft and international signings to acquire and develop franchise-level players: Julio, Cal, Kirby, Gilbert, Miller, Woo, and Brash. Also Munoz, that they got in a trade, as well as the consistent ability to turn enough fringy relievers into the best versions of themselves to make the bullpen consistently productive.

Given their track record, my view is that this front office needs to get away from the approach of trying to reactively fill the gaps in the roster each year. They've shown clearly that they aren't good at it, so maybe just don't do it, or at least do less of it. And since they aren't likely to start overpaying for the Marcus Semien's of the world, I think that means more of a focus on developing from within.

But we'll see what they do.

Dtrain brought this up and I questioned it then. I don't believe the mariners are trying to have a bunch of short term contracts just for the sake of payroll flexibility, I don't see where there is an argument for it's value. I think there's an argument for utilizing pre FA contracts. And I think they are genuinely interested in extending players but that's easier said than done and has plenty of risk.

Utilizing the young players cheap years is great business.

The problem for the Mariners, is if they're not going to sign free agents, they're at a competitive disadvantage. One less tool available.

If they're going to ignore the free agents (or be ignored), then they need to make up for that by trading off the guys who refuse to sign extensions when they have 1-2 years of control remaining.

They can't keep letting guys like Haniger walk without getting a return.

Especially if they're also going to go out and spend prospect capital for short term guys like Teoscar, and then refuse to offer them QO's to get talent back in the system.

They keep sending talent away, but not bringing enough into the system, relative to other teams, imo.

[Donn Beach]

Those trades do usually involve multiple years of control. I have felt in the past they viewed them as possible signings. I don't think they go out of their way to have short term contracts

[Double Mocha Man]

DMM, you're right, I stand optimistic over here on my side of the wall. Like you say, who had that season from Julio pegged? And frankly, if he's 10 percent better last year, the M's win 2 more games and they find their way into the postseason.

I think that's the point. This isn't a bad roster at all. They need their core players to perform up to their respective talent levels. Will everyone reach their max? Certainly not. But I think a few more players who regressed considerably last year from Garver to J-Rod to JP to Arozarena, I think out of that group, can you get 25-80 percent progression back to the mean? Julio hits that 80 percent bump and maybe Garver and JP just slide in at a 25 percent bump? Arozarena somewhere in the middle?

if that can happen while Robles and Raley continue to do their thing, we see Bliss and Young have a solid rookie campaign when they get their shots, and Cal just continues to get better, this team can be really sneaky good.

Yes, I'm an optimist. I love my M's and I'll always support them even when there doesn't seem to be a good reason to. I see a return to the playoffs this season and an offseason that brings us at least one extension between the Cal, Logan, Furious George triumvirate.

Your optimism is commendable. I'm with you. My only concern would be Robles. Hopefully he doesn't return to the mean. What a great find he was!

[Donn Beach]

Zips is pretty optimistic about Robles and the mariners in general. Seemed to me it wasn't much impressed with them in the past

Once you get past Rodríguez and Raleigh, the offense is fine, but rather underwhelming. Being decent everywhere raises your team floor quite a bit, but it also becomes very hard to meaningfully upgrade. ZiPS does see Victor Robles remaining a very solid starter in 2025, which is good news, and while second base feels a bit messy, the projections see basically all of the options as passable; this isn’t a White Sox situation from a few years ago, where they collected a bunch of 0.5-WAR second baseman with the apparent desire to Voltron them into an All-Star. ZiPS is especially sold on Cole Young’s future.

https://www.si.com/mlb/mariners/news/zi ... nting-2024