Way too early offseason

[Seattle or Bust]

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

Williamson is sort of like the opposite of Evan White to me.

Evan White was already a developed player whose profile looked like a .270/.350/.430 15-20 homer player at worst with an elite glove at 1B. They then took a perfectly good profile and ruined it by trying to add power.

I think the opposite is true for Williamson. I think he needs to pull what they did with White... try to bulk up and change his swing mechanics to add more pop and hope his contact doesn't crater. That also means he needs a lot of time to do that. I can't see him being the starting 3B for the M's next year until he shows he can generate more pop.

[Donn Beach]

On the other hand, the Seahawks compete. I pointed out on the Seahawks forum, every other team in their division named the Seahawks as their rival game. The only team in the NFL to have that happen. Could you ever imagine the Mariners like that?

[Donn Beach]

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

Williamson is sort of like the opposite of Evan White to me.

Evan White was already a developed player whose profile looked like a .270/.350/.430 15-20 homer player at worst with an elite glove at 1B. They then took a perfectly good profile and ruined it by trying to add power.

I think the opposite is true for Williamson. I think he needs to pull what they did with White... try to bulk up and change his swing mechanics to add more pop and hope his contact doesn't crater. That also means he needs a lot of time to do that. I can't see him being the starting 3B for the M's next year until he shows he can generate more pop.

interesting comp...He's an interesting guy, he's your ultimate character, gym rat type of guy I guess. That LL article was interesting, mostly his college coaches talking about him. He did bulk up, he put a 100 points on his OPS between his junior and senior season. He's still a long ways from ML standards of course. What it was about was trying to prepare to be a ML player, what his coaches asked him to do. They didn't want to mess with his swing. He's got a nice swing, but yeah, its built for contact, not power. His defense is of course advanced, but his hitting is pretty advanced as well. I could see utility being his highest use. That being said, I think he is the sort of guy you want on your team.

[Donn Beach]

“He’s one of the best practicers that I’ve ever seen,” agrees Pat McKenna, who was Murphy’s assistant coach at William and Mary. “His give-a-crap level, all the way through, nothing was more important that others. He would go about his base-running just as well as he would want to go about his hitting, which, hitting is obviously a lot more fun than base-running. He just cared about everything. Nothing was too small for him. He showed up to the park, whether it was doing early work or practice, and went about it the right way all the way through. And he was one of those guys who just got better and better because of what he put into it.”

[Donn Beach]

i take it back, they did address his swing...

Panik quickly realized that Williamson’s swing, like his plan for the future, was already clearly defined: a flat, contact-based swing from an upright stance that suited Williamson’s allergy to striking out and high on-base approach. “It’s not always the perfect cage-rat, lab-rat swing that you would teach. It was a little bit different, but it worked for him.” Panik told Williamson that rather than work on overhauling his swing, the two would work on maintenance in daily drills, correcting and tweaking as necessary. “It was never about teaching him to hit. It was about staying out of his way.”

Panik and new head coach Mike McRae did suggest a slight alteration, however, at McRae’s reluctant prodding. McRae, now coaching at Rutgers, remembers being impressed immediately by the way the junior carried himself.

McRae told Williamson the truth: in order to get looks from professional organizations, his power numbers, batted ball numbers, exit velocities, all needed to increase, and in order for them to increase, Williamson needed to get stronger.

Williamson took the feedback to heart. When he came back to campus in August of 2023—just two and a half months later—he had added 15-20 pounds of muscle, especially in his upper body. “He was completely cut up,” says Panik. “It was a huge transformation in the body.”

“And from there, his batted-ball data—he always hit the ball hard, but where he was hitting the ball at 100, now he was hitting them at 110, 112. That makes a big difference. So he goes from 11 doubles, one triple, three homers, to 11, 5, and 12. He really did what he needed to do.”

But what impressed Panik the most wasn’t just the eye-popping exit velos or power surge or newly-built body; it was Williamson’s willingness to ask for help.

the article just goes on and on
https://www.lookoutlanding.com/2025/6/2 ... es-perfect

[Juliooooo]

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

I was actually giving this debate in another thread that was talking about how great the dodgers development is, and used that they are the #1 farm system. He mentioned that they have a large payroll, big fanbase, proximity to Japan, etc and every nod advantage, but that isn’t an advantage to their farm system. I disagreed.

Is a huge bonus as far as their ranking. They aren’t needing to trade for pieces near as often because they just sign them in the offseason for the most part. They also can let their guys have more time to develop. Imagine if we had E Arroyo, Gonzales, Brody Hopkins, Aiden smith, etc, plus all the mid tier guys we just traded away this trade deadline because we are filling out needs in FA rather than having to trade for them. We would also have Cole young still in the minors.

Not saying it’s even the wrong strategy, just using it as an example of why team ranking of farm system may not be the best indicator of your development. Mariners also have the advantage of getting bigger picks, usually getting a comp balance A pick, winning the lottery last year, and even getting an extra pick for Julio which has greatly helped their farm system.

[Juliooooo]

Williamson to me is a place holder. If they don’t sign a free agent 3B or trade for one, I could live with him at 3B until Emerson is ready (I think Emerson ends up at 3B long term) as long as they get a 1B. The problem was having Williamson, Moore, Garver, Mastruboni, Solano all getting regular AB.

Get a 1B/DH and I could live with Williamson at 3B for half a season. If Emerson isn’t ready, then trade for someone at the deadline if needed.

[DanielVogelbach]

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

Good call I'm sure I'm sure you're right. Probably just somewhat overshadowed by the FAs. So, they do both. They spend money on their own farm, and then they spend money on FAs. I think what happens, though, sometimes, is the teams with big wallets are more willing to deal their prospects, because they can make up for shortcomings by spending more money.

[DanielVogelbach]

On the other hand, the Seahawks compete. I pointed out on the Seahawks forum, every other team in their division named the Seahawks as their rival game. The only team in the NFL to have that happen. Could you ever imagine the Mariners like that?

Supersonics competed as well. Both NFL and NBA have salary cap. Sonics did win an NBA Championship before the salary cap, though.

MLB has no salary cap, but it does have rules that help small market / lower payroll teams. The main one is the 6 years of club control for new players. There is still no excuse to be as bad as the Mariners have been.

[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

Good call I'm sure I'm sure you're right. Probably just somewhat overshadowed by the FAs. So, they do both. They spend money on their own farm, and then they spend money on FAs. I think what happens, though, sometimes, is the teams with big wallets are more willing to deal their prospects, because they can make up for shortcomings by spending more money.

The Dodgers don't just sit back and rely on their money, that's what makes them so fucking tough. They also do more dumpster diving than the Mariners. They are scouring everywhere for talent

Dodger fan post, sound familiar lol

Can Friedman stop wasting resources on dumpster diving?!? Cavan Biggio has cost the team two winnable games now. Between him either standing there to get rung up to his poor defense, this dude is noting but a nepo-kid. $5 mil to confirm that this dude is . Elieser Hernández stunk up the pen as well; blowing kisses to the fans when he got the hook for loading the bases. Yohan Ramírez shouldn’t have been on the mound in the 9th. So that’s really not on him, instead it’s Roberts’ mismanagement of the pen that keeps putting this team in these predicaments. There’s a reason why all of these teams DFA’d these .