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Contract Renewals: Gallen, Lewis, Alonso, McNeil, Anderson

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As a standard course of business every spring, teams reach agreement on contracts with their pre-arbitration players.  Since pre-arb players have virtually no negotiating leverage, their salaries aren’t far beyond the MLB minimum ($570.5K), and most teams now adopt a particular formula for assigning modest raises to pre-arbitration players who have performed above and beyond expectations.

When a player doesn’t accept this agreement, it has no change on his contractual status with the team.  It just means that his contract is “renewed,” and the team will impose the player’s salary for the coming season.  For a further explanation of the renewal process, MLBTR’s Jeff Todd provided an outline in a YouTube video last year.

Why would a player not accept the terms of his team’s raise?  Often, it is just a matter of “principle,” as Cardinals righty Jack Flaherty (who had his last two pre-arbitration salaries renewed) said last year, as a player who excels during a season simply feels he is worth more than the minor raise a team is offering.  Occasionally, you’ll see a player look for a more substantive raise, as Mike Trout’s camp asked for a $1MM salary for the 2013 season, following a 2012 campaign that saw Trout finish second in AL MVP voting in his first full year in the big leagues.

While Trout didn’t get his $1MM ask, some clubs have indeed rewarded players with pre-arb salaries worth well above (by a few hundred thousand dollars, in some cases) the minimum, both as a nod to performance and perhaps as a way to continue good relations with a player and his agent in advance of extension talks.

Here is a list of players whose contracts have been renewed for the 2021 season.  As you’ll note, the members of this group have already enjoyed significant early-career success.

  • Zac Gallen: The Diamondbacks right-hander finished ninth in NL Cy Young Award voting in 2020, and has a 2.78 ERA over 152 career MLB innings.
  • Kyle Lewis: The Mariners outfielder took a renewal on the heels of his Rookie Of The Year campaign.
  • Pete Alonso, Jeff McNeil: The two Mets regulars took renewals.  As noted by Mike Puma of the New York Post, Alonso’s 2019 NL Rookie Of The Year campaign got him a larger-than-expected salary bump to $652,521 for the 2020 season “as a goodwill gesture” from the team.
  • Ian Anderson: The Braves righty made a big impact in his first MLB season, with a 1.95 ERA over 32 1/3 innings.  Anderson also has the least amount of big league service time (0.094 days) of any player on this list.  MLB Network’s Jon Heyman tweets that Anderson will earn $575K while in the majors and $142,978 in the minor leagues.

AL West Notes: Correa, France, Athletics

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Astros shortstop Carlos Correa projects as one of the top free agents on next year’s market, though both he and the team have made clear that they hope to hammer out an extension before he reaches the market. Correa told reporters today that those talks have yet to begin, noting that the finger injury to Framber Valdez and the front office’s subsequent negotiations with free agents may have delayed the beginning of talks (Twitter link, with video, via Mark Berman of FOX 26). Correa was understanding of that and remains motivated to talk contract, though as is often the case with extension candidates, he placed a firm Opening Day deadline on any talks for a new deal. Houston GM James Click said in late February that the Astros “want to have some conversations” with Correa’s camp to see if the two sides can align on a deal to keep him long term.

Astros fans may also be interested to hear skipper Dusty Baker talk of Correa as a potential leadoff candidate in 2021. Correa hit leadoff today and told reporters he’s excited for the possibility of taking on that challenge (video link via Berman). Leadoff duties have traditionally been George Springer’s department in Houston, of course, but his departure creates a vacancy atop the lineup.

More from the division…

  • Ty France may not have a set position with the Mariners, but the team plans to get him 500-plus plate appearances in 2020, writes Ryan Divish of the Seattle Times. As Divish notes, Seattle GM Jerry Dipoto tried to pry France away from the Padres on multiple occasions before successfully landing him as part of the Austin Nola trade last summer. Manager Scott Servais spoke glowingly of France’s work so far this spring, and Divish suggests that France could get semi-regular work at designated hitter while also seeing occasional starts at third base, second base and first base to keep the Mariners’ infielders fresh. France is 8-for-13 with a pair of doubles, three homers, a walk and no strikeouts this spring. He batted .305/.368/.468 in 155 big league plate appearances last year and is a career .372/.454/.713 hitter in 458 Triple-A plate appearances (albeit in a supercharged Pacific Coast League offensive environment).
  • The Athletics will continue to build up southpaw Cole Irvin as a starting pitcher in camp, writes Matt Kawahara of the San Francisco Chronicle. Oakland acquired the lefty from the Phillies in exchange for cash over the winter, and although the bulk of his work in the Majors has come out of the ’pen, the A’s plan to continue building him up to serve as a possible depth option behind their current rotation. Only three of Irvin’s 19 Major League appearances with the Phils were starts, but 41 of his 43 career appearances in Triple-A came out of the rotation. The 27-year-old carries a 3.07 ERA at that level, and while his 18.8 percent strikeout rate is a good ways shy of average, his 4.7 percent walk rate is excellent.

AL Health Notes: Rosenthal, Mariners, Long, Greiner

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Athletics reliever Trevor Rosenthal is dealing with a slight groin strain, manager Bob Melvin told reporters (including Martín Gallegos of MLB.com and Matt Kawahara of the San Francisco Chronicle). The team believes it’s a minor issue, Melvin says, but there’s no current timetable for when Rosenthal will resume throwing. It isn’t clear if Rosenthal will have to start the season on the injured list but that would seem to be a possibility with Opening Day just over three weeks away. The 30-year-old was the A’s top free agent acquisition after rebounding with a 1.90 ERA/2.31 SIERA over 23.2 innings with the Royals and Padres in 2020.

Other health notes from the American League:

  • Mariners second baseman Shed Long Jr. has inflammation in his right shin, reports Ryan Divish of the Seattle Times (Twitter link). Long underwent tibia surgery last September but the area continues to cause him problems. At the moment, it seems the organization is hopeful that a bit of rest can improve the situation. The upcoming season looks to be a critical one for Long, who failed to cement himself as Seattle’s second baseman of the future during a disappointing 2020.
  • Catcher Grayson Greiner suffered a broken nose in yesterday’s Spring Training game and will miss a week of action, the Tigers announced. The news comes as a bit of a relief, as Greiner went down after being struck in the face by a 94 MPH fastball in a scary incident. Assuming his recovery goes as expected, it seems the 28-year-old should be ready for Opening Day. Greiner’s in competition with Jake Rogers and non-roster invitees Eric Haase and Dustin Garneau for the backup job behind Wilson Ramos.

AL West Notes: Seager, Bregman, Lowrie, Murphy

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Since it seems unlikely that the Mariners will exercise their $15MM club option on Kyle Seager for the 2022 season, the third baseman could very well be entering his 11th and final season in a Seattle uniform.  Seager told Ryan Divish of the Seattle Times that he is focused on baseball rather than any contractual possibilities, but did say that if he does leave the M’s, he wants to go out with only positive feelings between himself and the organization.  This wasn’t exactly helped by the recent description of Seager as “overpaid” by former Mariners president/CEO Kevin Mather, and while Seager disagreed with the label, he seemed to shrug off the criticism.  “You certainly don’t love hearing comments about you like that….but that stuff is out of my control.  And if I got frustrated every time someone complained about me, I’d be having a tough go of it,” Seager said.

Beyond just leaving on a high note off the field, Seager naturally would also love some more success on the field — the M’s have enjoyed just three winning seasons in Seager’s decade with the team, and haven’t reached the postseason.  The rebuilding Mariners may not be quite ready to contend just yet, and Seager is something of a difficult trade candidate since his 2022 club option vests into a guarantee if he is dealt.  (Plus, Seager will gain full no-trade rights roughly three months into the 2021 season, as he is on pace to achieve 10-and-5 status.)  The third baseman said that he hasn’t spoken with GM Jerry Dipoto about trade possibilities or the club option, but Seager figures that without the vesting clause, he would have been moved a long time ago as part of Seattle’s roster overhaul.

More from around the AL West…

  • Alex Bregman has been nursing a balky lefty hamstring in camp, and the Astros star tells MLB.com’s Brian McTaggart and other reporters that the injury first occurred in early January.  After being careful throughout the offseason and during Spring Training, Bregman felt his hamstring was around 90 percent healed and he is planning to soon get some games under his belt in preparation for Opening Day.  Bregman also noted that he has been “trying to clean up running form…whether it’s posture or working on my hips and stuff like that” to avoid more hamstring injuries in the future, as he missed over two weeks last season due to a right hamstring strain.
  • Athletics infielder Jed Lowrie could play in his first game of the spring by Tuesday, if the veteran gets through base-running activities today without any setbacks.  Oakland manager Bob Melvin told the San Francisco Chronicle’s Matt Kawahara and other reporters that today’s drill is “kind of the last hurdle for” Lowrie in being cleared for action.  Lowrie underwent knee surgery in October, as he looks to finally escape the knee problems that plagued him in 2019 and 2020 as a member of the Mets.  After appearing in only nine games in 2019, Lowrie didn’t play at all last season.
  • In another Athletics health update, Sean Murphy has been catching bullpens and will hit soft toss on Sunday, according to Melvin.  Murphy is recovering from a collapsed lung and a subsequent surgery in the offseason, and while it isn’t yet known when he might appear in a Spring Training game, Melvin said the catcher is “moving along nicely.”

Jarred Kelenic To Miss Time After Suffering Knee Strain

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7:40PM: For his part, Kelenic is not worried about being derailed by the injury. He plans to be back in seven days, per the Athletic’s Corey Brock. The Mariners will obviously monitor Kelenic closely, but GM Jerry Dipoto also did not sound overly concerned, saying he looks forward to seeing Kelenic back in the “near future.”

1:44PM: Kelenic suffered a Grade 2 strain, Divish reports, which usually carries a recovery period of three-to-six weeks.

1:21PM: Mariners prospect Jarred Kelenic will be out of action after an MRI revealed a strain in his left adductor muscle, the team announced.  Kelenic suffered the injury during Friday’s game against the White Sox.

No mention was made of a recovery timeline, apart from GM Jerry Dipoto saying “we are relieved that the long-term outlook is positive.  We all look forward to seeing him back on the field in the near future.”  Ryan Divish of the Seattle Times estimated that Kelenic is likely to miss “a few weeks” of time, which would rule out any chance of Kelenic making the Opening Day roster.  Kelenic has yet to play any Triple-A ball in his brief pro career, and it now seems as if he will indeed begin his 2021 season with Triple-A Tacoma.

Kelenic’s MLB debut date has been the subject of controversy in recent days, stemming from the infamous comments made by now-former Mariners president/CEO Kevin Mather during a video speech to the Bellevue Breakfast Rotary Club in February.  Mather openly discussed how the M’s had no intention of calling up any of its top young prospects from the alternate training site last season, and hinted that the team was planning to keep Kelenic and Logan Gilbert in Triple-A long enough this year for the Mariners to gain an extra year of team control over their services.  Kelenic and his agent later commented that he would have made his Seattle debut in 2020 had Kelenic accepted a long-term contract extension that would have given the M’s even more team control over Kelenic’s future.

A consensus pick as one of baseball’s top 10 prospects, the 21-year-old Kelenic was the Mets’ choice as the sixth overall pick of the 2018 draft, and the centerpiece of the Mariners’ return in the blockbuster deal that sent Robinson Cano and Edwin Diaz from Seattle to New York in December 2018.  The trade already looms as a pivotal moment in Mariners history, and it will become even more impactful should Kelenic and Justin Dunn live up to lofty expectations.

Jerry Dipoto, Jarred Kelenic Respond To Kevin Mather Controversy

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The Mariners are in damage-control mode following CEO Kevin Mather’s resignation in the wake of a bizarre video interview that brought considerable backlash on the organization. General manager Jerry Dipoto and manager Scott Servais called the entire situation “embarrassing” when meeting with the Seattle media this week (link via The Athletic’s Corey Brock). Dipoto sought to distance the organization from Mather’s comments, repeatedly emphasizing that Mather was just one individual and that his views were not shared throughout the organization.

Mather, of course, not only all but admitted to service-time manipulation of the organization’s top prospects but also called Marco Gonzales “boring,” said Kyle Seager was “overpaid” and in his last season as a Mariner — it’s not clear whether Seager expected to return after the conclusion of his current contract — and made disparaging comments about being required to pay translators for Japanese players while also slamming top prospect Julio Rodriguez’s English-speaking skills in unprompted fashion (among many other bizarre and at-times troubling comments).

Mather indicated within his interview that top outfield prospect Jarred Kelenic rejected a long-term contract offer, and he only narrowly stopped short of plainly stating the manner in which they planned to delay his MLB debut to gain an extra year of team control. Mather stated that Kelenic would not be on the Opening Day roster, regardless of spring performance, but that he’d be in the Majors by the end of April. It’s true that most teams do this, but public admission of this nature is fuel for a grievance from the MLBPA and only further fans the flames in the looming collective bargaining talks.

Unsurprisingly, Mather’s comments didn’t sit well with Kelenic’s camp. Agent Brodie Scoffield and Kelenic himself spoke to USA Today’s Bob Nightengale yesterday, and both parties indicated that Kelenic would’ve been in the Majors last year had he been willing to sign the extension offer put forth by the Mariners prior to the 2020 season.

Scoffield told Nightengale it was “made crystal clear to Jarred” that the decision to keep him at the Mariners’ alternate training site for the 2020 season was driven by service time. “There’s no question that if he signed that contract, he would have been in the big leagues,” said Scoffield. Kelenic himself agreed, saying it was the “God’s honest truth” that fact was communicated to him multiple times. “It got old,” said Kelenic.

While Dipoto clearly wanted to distance himself from as much of Mather’s commentary as possible, he pushed back on the notion that the Mariners have set out to deliberately game the service-time mechanism.

“I’m not sure how you construe service-time manipulation with a 21-year-old who has played 20 games above A ball and has not yet achieved 800 plate appearances as a professional player,” said the GM. That’s a rather dubious assertion, however. First and foremost, using games played is a clearly flawed benchmark following a year in which zero minor league games took place. Secondly, Mather’s blunt acknowledgment that Kelenic would not open the year with the Mariners but would be up in late April only further underscores the service-time element of the situation.

Despite all the negative attention surrounding the situation and his palpable frustration, Kelenic emphasized to Nightengale that he is wholly committed to the Mariners organization. Citing a love of the fans, the city of Seattle and his teammates, Kelenic said: “If anything, I’m more motivated to bring a World Series championship to Seattle.”

It should also be stressed that the door on a potential extension with the Mariners isn’t closed as a result of this public unpleasantness. Scoffield tells MLBTR that he and Kelenic would still listen to new proposals from the Mariners, should they want to put together another offer. Whether a middle ground can ultimately be reached can’t be known at this time, but at the very least Mariners fans should be heartened that the relationship by no means appears fractured.

Specifics of the Mariners’ original proposal aren’t known, but not all contracts for pre-MLB players are created equal. Kelenic’s teammate, Evan White, inked a six-year, $24MM deal before making his debut — a very similar pact to the one signed by Philadelphia’s Scott Kingery. White Sox left fielder Eloy Jimenez and center fielder Luis Robert, on the other hand, signed six-year pacts worth $43MM and $50MM, respectively, before making their own debuts.

The question for the Mariners now is whether they’ll try for a new deal, stay the course by keeping Kelenic in Triple-A to open the season, or bite the bullet and carry him on the Opening Day roster even without a long-term deal in place. Calling him to the Majors shortly after his service time has been sufficiently held down would be, after all of this attention, one of the more brazen examples of service manipulation in recent memory. Kelenic already spoke to Nightengale of how the now-former CEO’s comments “widened the gap” between the front office and the locker room, adding that Dipoto’s attempt to smooth things over with the players was  “strange” and not particularly well-received.

It’s an ugly situation all-around. However, while Gonzales acknowledged to Brock that Mather’s words were “hurtful and personal” for a lot of the clubhouse, himself included, there could in some ways have a unifying effect on the clubhouse. “Sometimes common goals can unite you,” said Gonzales. “…Sometimes a common enemy can do the same, if not greater.”

Minor MLB Transactions: 2/23/21

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Tuesday’s minor moves from around baseball…

  • The Braves have agreed to a minor league contract with outfielder Travis Snider, Jon Heyman of MLB Network tweets. The former Blue Jay will now reunite with Braves general manager Alex Anthopoulos, who was the GM in Toronto during part of Snider’s tenure there. Snider was a star prospect early in his Jays tenure but hasn’t lived up to the hype in the majors. The 33-year-old owns a .244/.311/.399 line with 54 home runs in 1,971 plate appearances, and he hasn’t appeared in the bigs since he split 2015 between Pittsburgh and Baltimore.
  • The Mariners announced that they have outrighted Robert Dugger to Triple-A. The team designated the right-hander for assignment last week, which came a little over two months after it claimed him off waivers from the Marlins in December. Dugger, 25, pitched to a 7.40 ERA with a similarly poor 4.2 K-BB percentage in 45 innings as a Marlin from 2019-20. He’ll remain with the M’s as depth for at least the time being.

Mariners CEO Kevin Mather Resigns

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FEB. 22, 3:02pm: Mather has resigned, Divish was among those to tweet.  As part of a statement regarding Mather’s resignation, Mariners chairman John Stanton said: “There is no excuse for what was said, and I won’t try to make one. I offer my sincere apology on behalf of the club and my partners to our players and fans. We must be, and do, better. We have a lot of work to do to make amends.” Stanton added that he’ll serve as acting president/CEO until the team finds a permanent replacement for Mather.

2:17pm: The MLB Players Association has released a statement about Mather: “The Club’s video presentation is a highly disturbing yet critically important window into how Players are genuinely viewed by management. Not just because of what was said, but also because it represents an unfiltered look into Club thinking. It is offensive, and it is not surprising that fans and others around the game are offended as well. Players remain committed to confronting these issues at the bargaining table and elsewhere.”

FEB. 21, 10:20PM: Mather issued a public apology, stating “I want to apologize to every member of the Seattle Mariners organization, especially our players and to our fans. There is no excuse for my behavior, and I take full responsibility for my terrible lapse in judgement.  My comments were my own. They do not reflect the views and strategy of the Mariners baseball leadership who are responsible for decisions about the development and status of the players at all levels of the organization.

“I’ve been on the phone most of the day today apologizing to the many people I have insulted, hurt, or disappointed in speaking at a recent online event.  I am committed to make amends for the things I said that were personally hurtful and I will do whatever it takes to repair the damage I have caused to the Seattle Mariners organization.”

7:25PM: In a video speech given to the Bellevue Breakfast Rotary Club on February 5, Mariners president/CEO Kevin Mather discussed a number of topics surrounding his team and the upcoming season at large.  The speech was posted to YouTube earlier today and later removed, though not before several outlets (including Grant Bronsdon and Kate Preusser of the Lookout Landing blog and Ryan Divish of the Seattle Times) took note of several eyebrow-raising statements made by the Seattle executive.

Speaking with an unusual (and rather shocking) amount of openness, Mather made multiple comments that are sure to gain the attention of Mariners fans, players, and the players’ union.  The most problematic remarks concerned how star prospect Julio Rodriguez and former pitcher Hisashi Iwakuma reportedly have or had difficulties speaking English.  Asked to tell attendees about Rodriguez, Mather began with, “Julio Rodríguez has got a personality bigger than all of you combined. He is loud, his English is not tremendous.” Rodriguez has already responded to Mather’s comments with a pair of pointed tweets.

In response to a separate question, Mather went on a tangent about Iwakuma, saying:

“For instance, we just re-hired Iwakuma, he was a pitcher with us for a number of years. Wonderful human being, his English was terrible. He wanted to get back into the game, he came to us, we quite frankly want him as our Asian scout, interpreter, what’s going on with the Japanese league. He’s coming to spring training. And I’m going to say, I’m tired of paying his interpreter. When he was a player, we’d pay Iwakuma X, but we’d also have to pay $75,000 a year to have an interpreter with him. His English suddenly got better, his English got better when we told him that!”

While Mather also praised Rodriguez, Iwakuma, and other players during the speech, his overall breakdown of Seattle’s roster carried more than a few awkward moments.  For instance, Mather continually referred to catcher Luis Torrens as “Luis Torres,” and he described longtime third baseman Kyle Seager as “probably overpaid” while also citing Seager’s clubhouse leadership.

It’s quite possible league officials may also have a few words with Mather considering how he discussed such topics as prospect service time, noting that the Mariners didn’t intend to promote any of the top prospects working out at their alternate training camp last summer.

“There was no chance you were going to see these young players at T-Mobile Park,” Mather said.  “We weren’t going to put them on the 40-man roster, we weren’t going to start the service time clock.  There were all kinds of reasons that, if we had an injury problem or COVID outbreak, you might’ve seen my big tummy out there in left field.  You would not have seen our prospects playing in T-Mobile Park.”

It isn’t any surprise that the Mariners or any other team are looking to gain as much extra team control as possible over their young players, with this tactic most often manifesting itself in a prospect’s debut being delayed just long enough so the club can gain an extra year of control over the player, or delay their chances of reaching Super Two eligibility (and another year of arbitration).  Front office executives couch these decisions under a nebulous guise of saying that a prospect needs more seasoning in one aspect or another of his game, with the prospect suddenly being ready as soon as the service time threshold has been passed.  The MLBPA was already expected to pursue ways of addressing this loophole during the upcoming collective bargaining agreement negotiations, and Mather’s comments figure to be the union’s clearest evidence yet that teams are engaging in service-time machinations.

This coming spring, Mather implied that both star outfield prospect Jarred Kelenic and pitching prospect Logan Gilbert would have their debuts delayed.  “We would like [Kelenic] to get a few more at-bats in the minor leagues,” Mather said.  “Probably Triple-A Tacoma for a month, and then he will likely be in left field at T-Mobile Park for the next six or seven years.”  As for Gilbert, “you won’t see him on April 1st, but by mid-April” he will be on Seattle’s active roster.

Kelenic was offered a contract extension of six years in length, Mather said, plus multiple years of club options.  This has been the standard model for most teams when making long-term deals with players who have yet to debut in the big leagues, and the Mariners reached such a deal themselves with Evan White back in November 2019.

Mather didn’t seem to have any hard feelings about Kelenic’s decision to reject the offer, and he also gave credit to White for taking an extension, saying the first baseman “took a lot of heat for signing that deal, the union really pushed back and said, ’don’t do it.’ ”  Mather added that the Mariners will continue to offer similar extensions “to…three or four more players…over the next two years,” saying “we’re eager to sign these players up [and] we’re willing to take that risk.  Some we’ll win on, some we’ll lose on.”

Mather also made some candid comments about Seattle’s pursuit of free agent pitching, as his speech took place before the team signed James Paxton.  The CEO mentioned that the Mariners were in talks with both Paxton and Taijuan Walker, noting that Walker “thinks he’s going to get a three-year deal.  I don’t think he’s going to get a three-year deal.”  As it turned out, Walker essentially did get a three-year contract from the Mets in the form of a two-year pact with a player option for 2023 that will pay Walker at least $20MM in guaranteed money and potentially as much as $25.5MM.

Speaking of the free agent market in general, Mather said that Major League Baseball “lost $2.9 billion last year, and we have taken the position that there are 180 free agents still out there on February 5 unsigned, and sooner or later, these players are going to turn their hat over and come with hat in hand, looking for a contract.”

In terms of the season itself, Mather said he was “embarrassed” that Spring Training was beginning as scheduled, and that the league and players couldn’t come to an agreement on delaying both spring camp and the season itself by a month.  “There is a high level of distrust between the union and the management currently, and I’m very worried about what’s coming in the future,” Mather said.  The Mariners are hoping to have a “small” number of fans in attendance to begin the season and then gradually increase to nearer to full capacity by September, but Mather said that the situation will all depend on local health officials and the state of the pandemic.

Mariners Likely Done Adding Major League Pieces

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The Mariners sought multiyear accords with a couple of free agents this winter, including Kolten Wong and Tommy La Stella, per Daniel Kramer of MLB.com. The Mariners were clear in their attempt to find a left-handed bat to split time with Dylan Moore at second base. Ideally, that player could stick his cleat in the grass at times as well, specifically as an option in left field.

Though the Mariners came up empty, there were more than a few free agents who fit that mold. Ha-Seong Kim, Marwin Gonzalez, Jonathan Villar, Jurickson Profar, Brad Miller, Jace Peterson, Ehire Adrianza, Brock Holt, and Dee Strange-Gordon signed elsewhere at a variety of different price points. It’s a little hard to fathom that the Mariners couldn’t find a way to add someone from that group. Presumably, those names either didn’t fit GM Jerry Dipoto’s vision or priced themselves beyond the Mariners’ comfort zone. Mike Freeman and Eric Sogard are two options whom the Mariners could turn to, should they want to bolster their depth. They are prepared to enter camp with the roster as-is, however.

Per Kramer, Dipoto more-or-less put a bow on their winter work, saying, “We had a series of targets, each of which we thought were ideal fits. We put them in an order that we thought best represented the way we saw that player, and then we tried to go out and get them. In all of those cases, we offered multiyear contracts that seemed to fit what we were trying to do not just for 2021, but for 2022 and potentially beyond that. We were aggressive in that market. We just failed to bring in the offensive piece we were looking to add.”

Without that additional piece, the Mariners will roll with Moore at second and Shed Long filling that versatile bench role. Sam Haggerty and Donovan Walton will push him for playing time in spring training, while Taylor Trammell and Jake Fraley will get take some spring at-bats in left. Designated hitter Ty France could also see time at second.

In further Mariners news, Logan Gilbert will likely start the season in Triple-A. While he was previously going to have an opportunity to contend for a spot in their six-man rotation, the James Paxton signing will allow the Mariners to protect his innings and bring him along slowly.

This follows a trend for the Mariners’ roster-building this winter, as they’ve tried to build out their depth to allow for maximum flexibility in how they promote and push their young players. Mission accomplished: if anything, the Mariners are light on veteran depth at the moment on the position player side. As is, they can allot most of the playing time this spring to youngsters, including top prospects Jarred Kelenic and Julio Rodriguez – both of whom are likely to start the season in the minors.

The Mariners CBT payroll sits at $102MM, per Roster Resource, with their actual payroll even slimmer at $85MM. That leaves them roughly $5MM shy from 2020 payroll level. This winter, they handed out four Major League deals to free agent pitchers: Paxton, Ken Giles, Keynan Middleton, and Chris Flexen. Giles and Flexen received two-year pacts, though Giles will miss this upcoming season. The Mariners have not signed a position player to a Major League contract.

Mariners Designate Robert Dugger For Assignment

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The Mariners announced that they’ve designated right-hander Robert Dugger for assignment in order to open a spot on the roster for righty Ken Giles, whose two-year contract is now official.

Dugger, 25, was an 18th-round pick of the Mariners back in 2016 who was traded to the Marlins in the deal that brought Dee Strange-Gordon to Seattle. Dugger made his big league debut in Miami but didn’t find much success in parts of two seasons there, posting a 7.40 ERA with a 13.7 percent strikeout rate and 9.4 percent walk rate in 45 innings. Dugger’s struggles have persisted in Triple-A, although he had a solid track record up through the Double-A level, where he owns a 3.60 ERA with solid strikeout and walk numbers through 180 innings of work.

Seattle claimed Dugger back from the Marlins in early December when Miami designated him for assignment, and the Mariners will now have a week to trade him or pass him through outright waivers. If he goes unclaimed, Dugger would remain with the organization (without the 40-man spot) and likely return to big league camp as a non-roster invitee.

The pair of moves leaves Seattle’s 40-man roster at capacity, although since Giles is recovering from Tommy John surgery, he could be placed on the 60-day injured list to open a spot if the Mariners make another late addition.

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