Bush League Baseball

2023: 88-74 (3rd in AL West)

Projections from Smart People

Source	Win Total Projection
Fangraphs	86
PECOTA	84.7
Vegas Insider	86.5

After ending a 20-year playoff drought in 2022, the Mariners went into 2023 with high expectations and ended up almost fulfilling them with a respectable 88-win, 3rd-place AL West finish behind the Astros and eventual World Series champion Rangers. Seattle has a lot of young talent that should keep them in playoff contention for at least the next few years.

Barring injuries, they should again have one of the top pitching staffs in baseball in 2024 and this year’s success will be determined by what they can do at the plate with some new faces in the lineup and more of a contact approach.

Hitting

After starting 2023 in a slump, Julio Rodriguez went on a second-half tear and all indications point to him still being very good at baseball in 2024.

J.P. Crawford and Cal Raleigh were 2023 pleasant surprises and return in the lineup to form the core of the offense with Rodriguez. Ty France is also returning and will make his best effort to be more 2021 and 2022 Ty France (3.1 and 2.3 WAR) than 2023 Ty France (0.5 WAR).

The rest of the core of the Mariners lineup will feature 3 new faces in Jorge Polanco, Mitch Garver, and Mitch Haniger. These additions essentially swap out the exiting trio of Teoscar Hernandez, Eugenio Suarez, and Jarred Kelenic. That should mean a trade off of more contact for less power, which probably makes sense for a team that very much had an all-or-nothing approach in 2023 and too often end up on the nothing side (the Mariners had the second most strikeouts in baseball last year).

Haniger had a couple of standout seasons previously with the Mariners, putting up 139 OPS+ with 26 homers in 2018 and 122 OPS+ with 39 homers and 100 RBIs in 2021. However, Seattle’s now getting back an older, more injury-plagued Haniger.

Pitching and Defense

The Mariners’ rotation and bullpen will pretty much pick up right where it left off at the end of 2022, which is a good thing. The 2022 Mariners pitching staff ended the year 3rd in baseball in ERA and WHIP and featured the ascent of young guns Logan Gilbert and George Kirby. Bryce Miller and Bryan Woo showed some promise when thrust into the starting rotation as rookies. There’s a chance that one or both could make a jump and provide an even stronger back half of the rotation this year.

After Paul Sewald’s mid-season departure last year, Andres Munoz showed he could step in to the closer role, where he’ll stay for 2023 and Matt Brash should continue to be a reliable setup man.

In the field, the 2023 Mariners were pretty average according to most fielding metrics. That’s likely to continue into this year, although the off-season moves were probably slightly net positive in the defensive categories.

The Takeaway

The Mariners should contend again for the AL West again with the Astros and Rangers behind top of the league pitching and an offense that has a lot of promising pieces if they are able to find a way to put them together.