The Mariners are riding a six-game win streak that has pulled them into a tie with Houston for the top spot in the AL West. Josh Naylor has eight hits, including a trio of home runs, over that stretch. He’s batting .260/.306/.460 with eight home runs in 41 games since being acquired from Arizona at the deadline. He’s also incredibly 16-16 in stolen base attempts, ranking third in MLB behind Juan Soto and Jazz Chisholm Jr. in steals since he was traded. Unsurprisingly, the Mariners would like to keep the impending free agent in the Pacific Northwest.
“Yeah I think we would (like to retain him),” M’s president of baseball operations Jerry Dipoto told MLBTR’s Darragh McDonald on this week’s edition of the podcast. “That remains to be seen how Josh feels about the matter. It’s never easy when you’re in a playoff race to open discussions like that. I know that there is interest on our end, and I believe that there is interest on Josh’s end.”
Naylor hasn’t suffered from Seattle’s home park, which grades as MLB’s most difficult for hitters. He’s batting .338 with five home runs in 19 games at T-Mobile Park since the trade. That’s an extremely small sample, but Naylor also had success against Seattle pitching as a visiting player. He’s a career .283/.319/.535 hitter over 140 plate appearances at T-Mobile Park.
“He’s actually as good as anybody that’s played in the last handful of years at hitting in this ballpark. It doesn’t seem to bother him much. We’ll see if there’s an interest in sticking around as a Mariner,” Dipoto noted. Naylor echoed those sentiments when speaking with the M’s beat earlier this week (link via Ryan Divish of The Seattle Times).
“Every time I was an opponent, this is like the first place I couldn’t wait to come to,” the lefty hitter said. “I feel comfortable everywhere, to be honest, but I just really enjoyed playing here coming here as an opponent. I thought it was a super cool stadium. The fans were always electric. I think you see the ball well here, personally. I like the open roof. When the roof is closed, it’s cool. But I love the feeling of the roof open.”
The Mariners are going to look beyond 36 games of park-specific data when deciding how seriously to pursue a long-term deal with Naylor. His success there provides some comfort on both sides, though. The Mariners haven’t been big spenders on free agent hitters throughout Dipoto’s decade-long tenure atop baseball operations. As shown on MLBTR’s Contract Tracker, Mitch Garver is the only free agent position player to sign for multiple guaranteed seasons in that time. Beyond Garver’s $24MM guarantee, last offseason’s one-year, $7.75MM agreement to bring back Jorge Polanco is their second largest deal for a free agent hitter.
Naylor is headed into his age-29 season. He won’t be attached to draft pick compensation because the midseason trade rendered him ineligible to receive a qualifying offer. He should easily surpass the Garver contract and has a chance to secure a four-year deal despite teams’ general reluctance to sign first basemen to long-term contracts. Naylor carries a .271/.333/.462 slash in more than 2000 plate appearances over the past four seasons. His plus contact skills give him a solid offensive floor and he’s a reasonable bet for 20+ home runs annually. His glove rates around league average, and while he’s one of the sport’s slowest players, this year’s stolen base proficiency demonstrates better baserunning instincts than one would expect based on his physique.
Dipoto spoke generally (not regarding Naylor individually) about the organization’s lack of free agent activity on the offensive side. “I don’t necessarily think it’s a personal plan and certainly not something we discuss here internally. … We just haven’t been able to attract the right player that we feel great about investing more than 2/24 in. We’ve tried and we’ve come up short on a number of occasions in trying to recruit those free agents,” he told MLBTR. “We’re also entering a stage in our development where we’re pretty confident in our system and the ability to start churning position players in a way that we were churning out starting pitchers a handful of years ago.”
Seattle’s farm system indeed has a forthcoming influx of young talent. The M’s already graduated rookie second baseman Cole Young, who showed flashes early before hitting a second half slump. They have five additional position players on Baseball America’s most recent Top 100 prospects. None of those players are first basemen, though, and the M’s dealt Tyler Locklear to the Diamondbacks in the separate deadline trade for Eugenio Suárez. Turning the position back over to Luke Raley, who has battled injuries amid a down year, isn’t ideal.
The M’s pushed their payroll to roughly $166MM with this summer’s additions, as calculated by RosterResource. They have around $77MM committed to next season. An arbitration class featuring Randy Arozarena, Logan Gilbert, George Kirby and Bryce Miller will cost roughly $35-40MM. Seattle also has a $6MM option on Andrés Muñoz which they’ll certainly exercise. Polanco will be able to return on a contract option that could reach $8MM, though he’s likely to decline that after one of the best offensive showings of his career.
Seattle isn’t likely to be huge players in free agency, but there appears to be room for an offseason built around re-signing Naylor and making a few supplementary additions. It’s also possible they shop Luis Castillo, who’ll make $22.75MM annually for two more seasons. Castillo, who was the subject of some trade chatter last winter, has generally been a reliable mid-rotation presence but has struggled in the second half.
Naylor’s impending free agency was one of myriad topics that MLBTR and Dipoto discussed this week. Seattle’s baseball ops president also spoke with Darragh about the volume of trades for which he’s gained the “Trader Jerry” nickname, reuniting with Suárez after trading him away two seasons ago, re-signing Polanco despite his injury-plagued first season with the club, and the increasing difficulty of trading prospects for major league talent with fewer teams embarking on five-plus year rebuilds than there were a few seasons ago.
They will have competition for sure unless an offer he can’t refuse is given so close to season end. WSox believe it or not as an example are looking into vet bats/good clubhouse guys to go along with young Teel/Montgomery/etc in 2026.
The White Sox can try, but he’ll have some good offers in hand from a variety of competitive teams. Unless Chicago swoops in with a franchise crippling offer, he’ll much more likely go somewhere that’s in a current competitive window rather then a team that hopes to be some day.
No doubt-just to illustrate there is an added team to drive up the bids a bit outside usual suspects vs the more clear ‘win now’ offers he may get….though somewhat doubt he gets franchise crippling caliber dollars from anyone.
Cb
“Chicago swoops in with a franchise crippling offer”
White Sox have a lot of payroll space and aren’t going anywhere for a while. There’s no franchise crippling offer
Vargas is a quality defender at first, but below average at third. Better to upgrade the hot corner instead.
Sign him, then do everything possible to make sure the blackouts continue so we can’t see the games.
Those damn blackouts
Try looking into “unofficial streaming services options.” Untethered freedom, like the Lord envisioned.
Duh
Coming back to SD.
Or Going back to Cali LL Cool J style
“Beyond Garver’s $24MM guarantee, last offseason’s one-year, $7.75MM agreement to bring back Jorge Polanco is their second largest deal for a free agent hitter.”
I had to reread this to make sure I was understanding correctly. Imagine if this team would spend money on offense
There’s something flashy and high profile about Naylor that the overall production and WAR value doesn’t exactly align with.
He’s discussed like he’s a 5+ WAR player but really he’s like a sub-2-WAR player.
He is also the “perfect” age to hit free agency. Right in that sweet spot that a 7 year deal would get him to age 35, etc.
I think he’s lined himself up for a slight ‘hometown discount’ from the Mariners of like 8 years/$175M and if there’s a decent bidding war and it’s all about the maximum amount of dollars, I think it could get to like 10 years/$250M.
4yr $60m would be a huge contract for him
Slun – I think your estimate is much closer to reality. 5/75 or because of age even 6/90 but that 15 AAV mark or just a little better the shorter the term, seems about right.
5 seems like too many years but someone might go that high. Even 4 years might take Seattle out of the running but 4yr 60m does seem very doable for him to get.
1B, 29yo, not the most elite body type—10 years?!? Bro, put down the pipe.
Love Naylz, but less than a zero percent chance he gets a 10yr deal. Unless he finds a trillion dollar owner who just lives for charity
Not a chance in hell. That’s a ridiculous contract for a ridiculous amount of time. He’s likely to get a 4 or 5 year deal. Max.
Won’t be a “trillionaire” for long, spending that way!!!
17 years/$850M
Who says no? I mean, honestly.
TTO – I see he has 2.4 WAR with time to get to 3.0.
So, not sure how he is a “sub 2 WAR” player.
More importantly, how does a sub 2 WAR player get 8/175 or 10/250 contract?
His 162 game average is 1.7 WAR and this year, at 2.4 WAR so far, is his most productive season ever, which ain’t saying much.
And I think in this day and age the amount of bloated contracts is nuts and a lot of teams are over extending guys and over paying guys to avoid going through the process again later on or over and over again, so I just assume that teams and players game out future salaries and then average it all out and thus you’re seeing more and more deals in the 10 year range, give or take a couple of seasons.
Only the top 6 or so payroll teams can or will sign guys to deals like that. They are the reason teams have to give psycho contracts like that to get top free agents—i.e. why the other 24ish teams never gets those players on the open market in the first place. Just the haves and have nots.
Baseball salary structure is killing this game imo
I just think of a guy like Bryce Harper- who I like, I have nothing against and he’s had 2 or 3 truly amazing seasons, but overall had mediocre true value for multiple multiple seasons leading up to his free agency and yet got one of the largest deals ever- based on hype and perception.
Oddly enough, after a bunch of mediocre seasons with the Nats, once he signed that deal, Harper really improved and has more than justified that contract to the point that he is basically underpaid for his overall production.
I don’t think that will be Naylor. But I do think the hype vs the actual production thing is comparable here and teams like Seattle do open their pocket book when they feel it is necessary.
After first basemen had a brutal offseason in free agency last year.. I think you can expect more of the same.
Across the league, there is a fair amount of depth at the position. Plus, another potentially deep list of FA’s at 1B.
Add on the concerns around age, body type and injury history.. it is difficult to see anyone going 5 years on Naylor.
There is absolutely no way he gets 10 years or $250M. He’s a 1B-only player without an elite bat and only above average power. A good player to be certain but I’d be surprised if he gets 5 years and shocked if he gets 6+.
My guess as of now would be 4/$80M.
He’s getting 16M$ per for 4 years.
Don’t think that is far off and would love SD to sign him for that.
He’s been fantastic for them since they acquired him, it would be great if they could work something out before he hits the market.
It’s funny, he’s graded out poorly defensively for most of his career but it seems like something has clicked in Seattle? His glovework at 1B the last several games has been a big part of them pulling out these close wins.
From watching him in Cleveland.. Naylor could really pick at 1B. I always thought he was pretty good, just from the eye test.
The biggest issue I recall was that he would often try to range for balls that were too far to his right, instead of getting to the bag.
Sure they want to sign him to a 1 yr contract
So 1 of the 3 naylor brothers are good. I expect the A’s to release Myles naylor over the next year since he can’t hit at all and stuck in A ball
The speed is a surprise
25hr-30 sb is Worthy of 5yrs/125 mil
A chart?!?
MLBTR has the ability to add charts to their articles instead of all the clunky writing?
They should do this more
Replace Alonso in NY?
If Cohen wants him the Ms dont stand a chance.
Us lowly markets just get to pick at the scraps the Cohens of the world dont want.
How do you know Naylor wouldn’t prefer playing in Seattle either way ? He has expressed how well he fits in here; and money isn’t everything, and the Mets are the Mets.
Love to hear a GM say something like “we hope he does great in the postseason, but we sure don’t want him back next year.”
That would be great! Naylor is one of my favorite players and he seems to enjoy playing for the Mariners.
According to fangraft, Castillo is getting 24.1 per year for the next two years. Plus a 25 million option.