Way too early offseason

[DanielVogelbach]

Yeah but seems like this year's injuries were a little more than normal. Not catastrophic by any means.

Depth is one way to overcome the problem. Another way is to just stay healthy.

What really matters is the team you take into the post-season, so better to have the injuries earlier than later. That part could be coming together quite well for this team. Knock on wood. I was pretty concerned about Naylor's shoulder!

[HawkandMariner88]

If you want a 3B... here's an interesting one:

https://www.baseball-reference.com/regi ... raka000mun

Kid from Japan... hit 56 homers as a 22 year old.

246 career homers in 7 years in Japan... just 25.

Is he gonna have to be posted? Why not just stick with the young guys unless you planning on making a big trade at some point.

[Seattle or Bust]

Yeah but seems like this year's injuries were a little more than normal. Not catastrophic by any means.

Depth is one way to overcome the problem. Another way is to just stay healthy.

What really matters is the team you take into the post-season, so better to have the injuries earlier than later. That part could be coming together quite well for this team. Knock on wood. I was pretty concerned about Naylor's shoulder!

You would think that but the Mariners got lucky last year that no starters got hurt aside from Castillo who missed a short amount of time.

What you probably don't remember is that Julio, JP, Polanco, and Raley missed a good chunk of time which is why players like Cade Marlowe, Sam Haggerty, Tyler Locklear, Jonatan Clase, Leo Rivas, Jason Vosler all got extensive playing time to fill the voids.

I would say the M's positional players have gotten quite lucky this year. Aside from Robles, Raley, and perhaps Polanco (who is have a relatively healthy season given his career history), the position players haven't missed much time at all. So the injury luck just flipped.

[Seattle or Bust]

If you want a 3B... here's an interesting one:

https://www.baseball-reference.com/regi ... raka000mun

Kid from Japan... hit 56 homers as a 22 year old.

246 career homers in 7 years in Japan... just 25.

Is he gonna have to be posted? Why not just stick with the young guys unless you planning on making a big trade at some point.

Team announced he will be posted.

"Why not stick with the young guys?"

1. We don't currently have a 1B close in the system.
2. Williamson will never come close to hitting 20 homers, let alone 56, or 254 over 7 seasons. Despite his solid glove... he has slugged exactly 1 homer over 340 plate appearances. He has an OPS near .600 in the minors. His bat has not flashed even close to what it needs to be to start in this league.

[Donn Beach]

Astros are obviously one of the best run franchises. Winning World Series with #17 ranked payroll then a few years later with #10 ranked payroll.

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.

Plus the farm is your player development.

Basically the Yankees, Dodgers, and Red Sox let other teams develop the players, and then they buy them for their old age years. It's kind of a weird system, but that's how it goes.

that's simply isn't true, the dodgers have one of the best farms in baseball, they have developed some great players

[Seattle or Bust]

Astros are obviously one of the best run franchises. Winning World Series with #17 ranked payroll then a few years later with #10 ranked payroll.

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.

Plus the farm is your player development.

Basically the Yankees, Dodgers, and Red Sox let other teams develop the players, and then they buy them for their old age years. It's kind of a weird system, but that's how it goes.

that's simply isn't true, the dodgers have one of the best farms in baseball, they have developed some great players

The Astros also traded somewhere in the range of 15 prospects ranked within the top 10 of their farm during their contention years. They moved prospects like crazy to bring in talent to contend for titles.

I'd argue that the Astros aren't as well run anymore as you'd think. They added Dana Brown as their GM in 2023 and he's made some pretty questionable decisions that I think are going to doom the Astros in the next few years.

1. They have no farm. They continue to trade from a farm that ranks 25-30 for players that keep them above water. That's what the Mariners used to do and it doesn't work.

2. They have a lot of money tied up in aging players: Altuve is owed $33 million the next 2 seasons and at age 35 he's only been worth 1.2 bWAR. Walker is owed $20M a year the next 2 seasons at age 35 and has been worth -0.5 bWAR. They just traded for Correa who has been one of the worst infielders in baseball this season and is owed $32M a year for the next 3 years as he turns 33. Yordan's pay jumps from $15M to $28M over the next 3 years as he's dealing with an injury year. Christian Javier, who has spent the last 2 seasons hurt, is jumping from $10M to $24M the next 2 seasons. Lance McCullers who is always hurt is jumping from $11M to $17M next season. And Josh Hader, at 30, is owed $19M the next 3 years... his stuff is only getting worse and he's injured again.

^^^ That's a lot of pretty bad contracts for a lot of old players and the you've seen how they've performed with the lack of depth.

3. They haven't drafted very well at all. None of their players are really popping in the minors. And the back-end depth of their bullpen/rotation has started to really get impacted. They also don't have any way to solve it since they can't really trade for any more money and they don't have the prospects to fill the void. They've had some really good luck over the past couple years getting more out of 30+ year old journeymen... but I just don't see that as a recipe for success.

That's a bad recipe for success...

[Donn Beach]

Bryce Miller injury was also big for this year and he's coming back also. In 2024 he was sensational. I figure he wasn't as good this year because of the injury but he was playing through it.

If the Ms got 2024 production from Bryce Miller and Victor Robles they would have more wins for sure.

Gilbert and Kirby also missing significant time. That wasn't part of the offseason plan when you break down this season so far.

Canzone bats left. Robles bats right. I think Robles is gonna be on the post-season roster and he will add to the team chemistry. Robles is signed through 2027. He had an .860 OPS in 77 games with the Ms in 2024. That was just last year. Don't forget about Robles baby!!! He's coming back!!!

depth is what wins championships, look at the Dodgers, its their depth

That's just how baseball works.

Nothing is guaranteed. You get surprises. You get injuries. You get failures. You get successes.

Which is why teams who spend money to build out a complete roster tend to do better because they've been able to fill voids with depth.

It was a very silly expectation for people to just assume that all of our starting pitchers 1-5 would pitch high 2's low 3's ERA's and throw 200 innings each. Hilariously dumb.

[Donn Beach]

Is he gonna have to be posted? Why not just stick with the young guys unless you planning on making a big trade at some point.

Team announced he will be posted.

"Why not stick with the young guys?"

1. We don't currently have a 1B close in the system.
2. Williamson will never come close to hitting 20 homers, let alone 56, or 254 over 7 seasons. Despite his solid glove... he has slugged exactly 1 homer over 340 plate appearances. He has an OPS near .600 in the minors. His bat has not flashed even close to what it needs to be to start in this league.

the deal with Williamson, he's not a near term answer. I think getting picked in the second round and being promoted was deceiving. I view him more like a calzone or haniger, that it could be possible he is a starter when he hits 27-28. Or he's utility, which very likely could be it

[Juliooooo]

Astros are obviously one of the best run franchises. Winning World Series with #17 ranked payroll then a few years later with #10 ranked payroll.

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.

Plus the farm is your player development.

Basically the Yankees, Dodgers, and Red Sox let other teams develop the players, and then they buy them for their old age years. It's kind of a weird system, but that's how it goes.

that's simply isn't true, the dodgers have one of the best farms in baseball, they have developed some great players

They do, but why would they trade one of their top guys when they can just sign a free agent? That’s also what helps them to have one of the top farm systems.

[Donn Beach]

Astros are obviously one of the best run franchises. Winning World Series with #17 ranked payroll then a few years later with #10 ranked payroll.

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.

Plus the farm is your player development.

Basically the Yankees, Dodgers, and Red Sox let other teams develop the players, and then they buy them for their old age years. It's kind of a weird system, but that's how it goes.

that's simply isn't true, the dodgers have one of the best farms in baseball, they have developed some great players

They do, but why would they trade one of their top guys when they can just sign a free agent? That’s also what helps them to have one of the top farm systems.

that's the thing, it depends on the situation, they traded for Betts. The Dodgers can sign a FA, they can also pull off a trade if they want to, they also can develop players. But you know, I have a lot of respect for the Padres, Giants and Dbacks. They hang in there and compete against them. It's a hell of a division

that's the thing with the AL west, you have a nice rivalry between the Rangers and Astros but I feel like the Mariners are left out. And I still feel its geographical. There just isn't the pressure on the Mariners to compete like there are on say, the NL west teams to compete