Mariners Sign Ryne Stanek

TODAY: The Mariners officially announced the signing after Stanek passed his physical.

MARCH 8: The Mariners and right-hander Ryne Stanek have agreed to deal, reports Mark Feinsand of MLB.com. It will be a $4MM guarantee for Stanek, per Feinsand, with $2MM in bonuses also available. Ryan Divish of The Seattle Times reports that the MVP Sports Group client will report to Peoria tomorrow to take his physical and sign the contract. Divish also relays that it will be a one-year deal. The Mariners will need to make a corresponding 40-man roster move whenever the Stanek deal becomes official.

Stanek, 32, will jump across the American League West after spending the past three years with the Astros. He had solid results in that time, serving as a setup man for closer Ryan Pressly. Stanek made 186 appearances for Houston in that three-year span, racking up 41 holds and three saves. He allowed 2.90 earned runs per nine innings and struck out 27% of batters faced. The 12.2% walk rate in that time was certainly high but he was effective in spite of it.

Last year, he got that walk rate down to 9.9%, a personal best for his career. But his strikeout rate also dipped to 23.9%, barely above the 23.6% league average for relievers in 2023. His 4.09 ERA was more solid than great but the overall track record of his time in Houston is nonetheless strong. He also tossed 18 postseason innings for the club over those past three years with an ERA of 3.00.

Beyond the results, Stanek is also appealing for his stuff. His fastball averaged 98.2 miles per hour last year and he also has a splitter and a slider, throwing each of the latter two pitches around 18% of the time last year. Stanek received plenty of attention this offseason, as the Astros reportedly had some interest in a reunion while clubs like the Mets, Cubs and Red Sox were connected to him at various points.

Ultimately, he will land with the Mariners, which is a logical spot. Seattle is set to go into the season with Andrés Muñoz as their closer but the setup group has been dealing with a batch of injury concerns here in Spring Training.

Matt Brash was shut down a couple of weeks ago with an elbow issue and once seemed like he was facing a season-long absence, though he was cleared to resume throwing last week. Similarly, Gregory Santos was shut down due to some discomfort near his teres major muscle but has since started ramping things back up. Just yesterday, it was reported that Jackson Kowar will be meeting with a doctor to have his arm evaluated. None of those three situations seem disastrous in a vacuum but it appears there’s enough general uncertainty that the Mariners decided to reach out and add another arm into the mix and Stanek was the best one still out there.

RosterResource estimates the Seattle payroll is currently $136MM. That’s just barely under last year’s Opening Day figure of $137MM, per Cot’s Baseball Contracts. Previous reporting has suggested that uncertainty around the club’s TV revenue situation would limit them to a modest bump over last year’s spending. Adding Stanek’s salary bumps their payroll to $140MM, slightly beyond where they were a year ago.

The club’s Opening Day bullpen mix will largely depend on health at this point. Muñoz will certainly be in one spot and Stanek in another, while Brash and Santos will take two more if they are healthy. Kowar seemed to be trending to taking a spot before his health issues cropped up. Options for filling out the rest of the group include Gabe Speier, Trent Thornton, Tayler Saucedo, Austin Voth, Carlos Vargas, Mauricio Llovera and others.

For clubs still looking for bullpen upgrades at this late stage of the offseason, Stanek coming off the board leaves Brad Hand, Aaron Loup, Brad Boxberger and Mark Melancon as some of the most accomplished hurlers that remain unsigned.