Way too early offseason

[Michael K.]

The average is 7.5. And that is with some serious outliers like 2002, 2003, 2015 and 2017

Teams in the top five have won it half the time. Increase that to top 10 and it's 24 out of 30. But yeah, has nothing to do with spending.

[Michael K.]

When you say fuck the farm... you do realize why the Mariners have Geno and Josh right? Cuz the farm. Having 9 out of the top 100 prospects in all of baseball is significant when you're sizing up the state of the franchise.

Read the entire post. I also asked you if you feel our farm would have been screwed if we had entered this year with an actual major league ready DH, 3rd Baseman or First Baseman. You chose to ignore that. They added those bats and barely dipped into the farm. But yeah, let's spend so much time worrying about the farm that we go another two and a half decades of being irrelevant at the Major League Level. No organization spends as much time pimping it's minor leagues than this one...I wonder why that is?

Again, half of the last thirty WS Champs have been top 5 in payroll, and twenty four of the past thirty have been Top 10. But lets continue to strive to be outside the Top 10 and hope we can maybe be one of those teams that wins six out of thirty! You notice something about those six? There are six teams that have done it. In other words? It's pretty fucking hard to repeat.

We act like as long as we have a great Farm we are winning a WS. Look at the repeat champs in your list and tell me which one of them spend as much time bragging about Top 100 prospects as we do? None, that is the answer.

[harmony]

The Seattle front office reportedly faced financial constraints last offseason but how much money will the Mariners spend this upcoming offseason?

This year the Mariners are dishing out $52 million in salaries to eight likely pending free agents:

Mitch money (Haniger $15.5 million, Garver $12 million)
Jorge Polanco's $9.5 million (mutual option unlikely to be exercised)
Donovan Solano's $3.8 million and Dylan Moore's $3.2 million
Eugenio Suarez's $4.1 million and Josh Naylor's $3.8 million
Caleb Ferguson's $968,000

https://www.spotrac.com/mlb/seattle-mariners/payroll

A $10 million salary increase awaits Cal Raleigh in 2026 but the extension salaries of Julio Rodriguez, Luis Castillo and J.P. Crawford stay at 2025 levels. Andres Munoz and Victor Robles get contractual pay hikes of $2.6 million and $1 million, respectively, while Logan Gilbert, George Kirby, Randy Arozarena, Luke Raley and Gabe Speier are due arbitration raises (as are Trent Thornton and Gregory Santos, if tendered).

Without making offseason moves, and without tapping into a top-ranked farm system, the Mariners could field a variation of this 2026 lineup:

C Cal Raleigh
1B Luke Raley
2B Cole Young
SS J.P. Crawford
3B Ben Williamson
RF Victor Robles
CF Julio Rodriguez
LF Randy Arozarena
DH Dominic Canzone

SP Logan Gilbert
SP Bryan Woo
SP Luis Castillo
SP George Kirby
SP Bryce Miller
SP Logan Evans
SP Emerson Hancock

RP Andres Munoz
RP Matt Brash
RP Gabe Speier
RP Carlos Vargas
RP Eduard Bazardo

With money coming off the books, will Seattle front office spend? If so, what players should the Mariners target?

[Captain 97]

Back to the topic at hand.....
To me the biggest need is 1B they have nothing in the Minors that is close. There were rumors that the Braves were making Matt Olson available at the deadline. If I am Rosterbating I am making that trade.

Next I am signing Geno to a 2 year deal while the young infielders continue to develop. 5 of their top 13 prospects are middle infielders. Hopefully they should be able to fill 3B and SS from within as JP and Geno's contracts expire.

Lastly I am adding a couple of leverage relievers.

If Ford doesn't go in the the Olson trade, bring him up as backup catcher/DH.

Looking at some back of the napkin payroll calcs. and factoring in the expiring contracts as well as arbitration raises it seems like you should be able to get that done somewhere around 180-190 Million. Which would be just outside of the top 10 in payroll.

Would you rather have Olson who has averaged a .800 OPS since the beginning of last season for 4 x $22 and give up a prospect(s) for the next four years for his age 32-35 seasons or Sign Naylor for a similar amount for four years and keep all of your prospects for his age 29-32 seasons?

I'd Rather have Olson by a mile. He has more than double the WAR in 2025 and about 5 times the WAR for his career. Naylor is a decent piece but even in a career Year he is only slightly more than a role player. I want the guy who has averaged 5.1 WAR/162 and is on pace for like 4.9 this year over the guy who has a total of 7.1 WAR in 7 seasons.

[Captain 97]

The idea that this team sucks without Geno and Josh is not true. They were already good. And the farm is loaded up with top 100 prospects (#1 in MLB with 9, Astros only have 1, Rangers have 3, Oakland has 3) You really don't even need Geno and josh you just need something other then Ben Williamson and Solano. The team is looking good for this season and also going into next season and beyond. This is a high-water mark for the franchise.

3 and 7 leading up to the deadline.
9 and 1 after.

You do realize that Geno has a .357 OPS since the trade don't you? I am sure that the energy of the acquisition helped some but they have really been winning in spite of him rather than because of him.

[Captain 97]

I don't follow the league too closely, but it does seem that Houston is well managed.

The concepts of player development and club control / arbitration years can't be overemphasized here. Michael seems to think that spending money is the most important aspect of winning MLB games and it's really only a small piece of the puzzle.

Players peak at age 26-29. So, even a young player debuting at 22 years old will be under club control until he's 28. Sign him to a small extension and you've got him on the cheap until he's starting to leave his peak.

The Ms spent sooo much money on Robbie Cano and he was mediocre. So, you don't just want the Ms to spend money on FAs. You also want them to get FAs that will perform. These are two totally different things!

The most important part to winning is to get the quality young players. There are obviously good veteran players out there. But, a lot of them are locked up in contracts, so we're only talking about a few FAs a year. A couple teams like Yankees and Dodgers traditionally load up on them.

The other important part to winning is patience. Often times teams "go for it" when they weren't ready and it sets them back. Now not only are they a mediocre ballclub, but they're farm is depleted. You can only spend your way out of that problem so much, because the Soheih Ohtani's don't just grow on trees.

Robbie Cano was far from mediocre for the M'. He was a 3 time All-star, with 2 top 10 MVP finishes. He averaged 4.76 WAR per season over his 5 years here and his OPS+ for the M's was higher than it was for the Yankees. Obviously they got out from under that contract just in time but he was worth every penny of what they actually spent on him.

[DanielVogelbach]

The idea that this team sucks without Geno and Josh is not true. They were already good. And the farm is loaded up with top 100 prospects (#1 in MLB with 9, Astros only have 1, Rangers have 3, Oakland has 3) You really don't even need Geno and josh you just need something other then Ben Williamson and Solano. The team is looking good for this season and also going into next season and beyond. This is a high-water mark for the franchise.

3 and 7 leading up to the deadline.
9 and 1 after.

You do realize that Geno has a .357 OPS since the trade don't you? I am sure that the energy of the acquisition helped some but they have really been winning in spite of him rather than because of him.

10 games is a small sample size also. Obviously the team is better with Josh and Geno, but they weren't a .300 winning % team without them either.

[DanielVogelbach]

Robbie Cano was far from mediocre for the M'. He was a 3 time All-star, with 2 top 10 MVP finishes. He averaged 4.76 WAR per season over his 5 years here and his OPS+ for the M's was higher than it was for the Yankees. Obviously they got out from under that contract just in time but he was worth every penny of what they actually spent on him.

Wrong wording on my part. He wasn't the Robbie Cano from the Yankees. He got popped for PEDs. It was a bad signing. But, you're right he put up some good seasons and was the Ms best player for a while. I was actually way more into the Cano / Cruz teams than I am the current team, but that's just because I don't watch sports that much anymore. I have a Robbie Cano jersey in my closet. As far as excitement for a World Series run, I definitely think the 2025 team gives the most hope since the 2001 team. Obviously the 2022 run was fun, but the team seems more formidable this season.

[DanielVogelbach]

The average is 7.5. And that is with some serious outliers like 2002, 2003, 2015 and 2017

Teams in the top five have won it half the time. Increase that to top 10 and it's 24 out of 30. But yeah, has nothing to do with spending.

The point isn't that you can't buy talent. The point is that you can win the World Series without having a top 10 payroll.

I've never claimed that increasing your payroll doesn't give you more options. I've only claimed that you can win without a high payroll. Similarly, you can spend a bunch of cash and lose a bunch of games.

[DanielVogelbach]

I forgot they're still paying for Haniger.