Mariners’ Owner: Front Office Will Have Resources To Pursue Deadline Upgrades

The Mariners’ lack of offseason spending drew the ire of the fanbase, as Seattle’s offseason dealings appeared to be as much about managing payroll as they were reshaping the team. Seattle traded away Eugenio Suarez, used Jarred Kelenic to dump the contracts of Evan White and Marco Gonzales on the Braves, made financially motivated swaps involving Robbie Ray and Mitch Haniger, and only signed three free agents to major league contracts (Mitch Garver, Ryne Stanek and Austin Voth). The series of fiscally influenced moves came amid uncertainty surrounding the future of their television contract with ROOT Sports, and while the M’s certainly weren’t alone in their hand-wringing over their broadcast rights, they were arguably impacted as heavily or more heavily than many clubs around the game.

While those uncertainties still exist, Mariners managing partner John Stanton made clear in an interview with Adam Jude and Ryan Divish of the Seattle Times that he’ll provide president of baseball operation Jerry Dipoto, general manager Justin Hollander and the rest of the front office with some financial latitude as the current AL West division leaders look to bolster their club.

“[W]e will look at the [July 30] deadline,” Stanton said. “I’ll spend time with Jerry and Justin as we approach the deadline, and we’ll talk about where we are. Jerry and Justin are 10 times smarter about what it takes to have a successful baseball team. My job is to make sure they have the resources available to get there.”

MLBTR readers are encouraged to read the interview in full, which is rife with quotes from Stanton about the Mariners’ offseason, the future of the television contract and his hope to eventually sign other young players to extensions as the club did with Julio Rodriguez. Broadly speaking, Stanton touted “substantial” financial losses amid the television situation, suggested that ROOT Sports will continue to operate independently through the 2025 season, and claimed that loss of television revenue “isn’t the reason we’ve made any decisions over the past couple years.”

Such comments will undoubtedly raise some skepticism among the fanbase, but the forward-looking takeaway is that Dipoto, Hollander & Co. will be afforded some flexibility to build upon this year’s roughly $140MM payroll. Presumably, augmenting the lineup will be the front office’s prime focus. The Seattle pitching staff is sixth in the majors in ERA and FIP. They’re fourth in SIERA. Only three teams have a better collective strikeout rate than the Mariners 23.8%, and they’re tied with the Twins for MLB’s best walk rate at 6.6%. The starting rotation appears largely set with Luis Castillo, George Kirby, Logan Gilbert, Bryce Miller and Bryan Woo — health permitting, of course. Any contending club can always deepen its bullpen, but that’s likelier to be a secondary objective.

For as excellent as Seattle’s pitching staff is, the offense has been another story entirely. The Mariners’ 230 runs scored are the fourth-fewest in baseball. That comes despite sitting ninth in the majors with 66 home runs — a testament to the general lack of baserunners their lineup has produced. The M’s rank 29th in baseball with a .222 average, 27th with a .298 OBP and 25th with a .365 slugging percentage. Seattle’s .252/.329/.401 slash with men in scoring position is actually ninth-best in baseball by measure of their 113 wRC+ … but the Mariners’ 504 plate appearances with runners in scoring position is the second-fewest in MLB, leading only the tanking White Sox (476 plate appearances with RISP).

The majority of the regulars in Seattle’s lineup have underwhelmed this season. Rodriguez, Ty France, Luke Raley and Dylan Moore have all been productive over the past month, following poor starts to the season, but that’s only boosted Rodriguez to slightly below-average production overall. France has been a bit better than average but nowhere near the offensive force he was from 2020-22. Catcher Cal Raleigh has popped a team-leading 11 homers but is hitting just .209 with a .278 on-base percentage.

What’s particularly problematic for the Mariners is that several of the weakest spots in the lineup are the ones they sought to address in the offseason. Switch-hitting second baseman Jorge Polanco was one of the American League’s steadiest hitters from 2018-23 in Minnesota, batting a combined .270/.338/.455 in nearly 2700 plate appearances. He’s hitting .195/.293/.302 for the Mariners. Haniger got out to a blistering .300/.382/.500 start through his first 68 plate appearances but has faceplanted with a .185/.234/.281 line over his past 145 trips to the plate. Garver hit .250/.346/.508 in his final 1242 plate appearances before signing a two-year deal in Seattle. He’s hitting .170/.276/.309 as the team’s primary DH.

Between Rodriguez, France, Raleigh, Polanco, Garver, Haniger, injured shortstop J.P. Crawford and others, the Mariners have the makings of a productive lineup. Almost the entire unit has underwhelmed, however, leading to far more one- and two-run victories than the club would prefer. Those offensive weaknesses could be particularly exposed in a short postseason series, when teams can more aggressively lean on their top few pitchers to cover the bulk of their innings.

An upgrade in the outfield corners, in particular, seems like a worthwhile pursuit for the Mariners — and some help at the hot corner or second base could prove sensible as well, depending on whether Polanco can turn things around. (Adding at third base could allow hot-hitting Josh Rojas to slide over to second more regularly.) But while ownership can pledge to provide sufficient resources to the baseball operations staff, at least some of the improvement is going to need to come internally.

The Mariners have too many underperforming veterans with strong track records to upgrade over on the fly this summer — many of whom (e.g. Garver, Polanco, Haniger, France) are commanding salaries of note and are signed/controlled beyond the current season. That collection of veterans has exactly eight weeks until July 30 to get back on track. It’s unlikely they all manage to do so, but the front office’s strategy will come into focus as those who are able to bounce back begin to show signs of life.