Can the Mariners ever find their winning ways, when ownership has made it so difficult? Washington. … [+]
Getty ImagesThe Seattle Mariners enter the 2025 season having done little in the offseason. While not tanking, the club continues to offer “hope” as a core principle. Fans deserve better.
In some odd multiverse, the Seattle Mariners are a Bizzaroworld version of Andy Defrense from the Shawshank Redemption. Fans, convicted to serve in Shawshank prison, listen intently as the Mariners say, “Remember, hope is a good thing, maybe the best of things, and no good thing ever dies.”
The Mariners have made the postseason just once since 2001; a futility record that should offer urgency. This off-season has offered little in the way of hope for fans.
“We’ve been a good run-scoring offense on the road,” President of Baseball Operations Jerry Dipoto said at the end of last season. “I think we can be a good run-scoring offense both at home and on the road with a more balanced approach. … The team has shown that they are capable of doing this – that we don’t need to to go out and revamp our roster. There’s a reason we’ve had a good team for a handful of years now, and it’s because our players are good.
“Now we just have to continue to help them evolve their game in a way that suits our ballpark that we can really magnify the results.”
In other words, hope for the best. If the Astros regress, and the Angels and A’s stay bad, and the Rangers don’t become the Texas Rangers of 2023, well, the Mariners may have a shot. This is no way to sell tickets.
Ask Dipoto about the budget, and he’ll say curtly, “We don’t talk about the budget.” But if the talk of budding prospects that might be, could be, if you just hang onto hope, will be difference makers, his demeanor changes and lights up.
In fairness, this isn’t Dipoto’s fault. This is on ownership.
In 2022, the Mariners made their first postseason appearance since ’01. Instead of dropping the hammer in the 2022-23 offseason to try and not only make the playoffs, but try to do something with it, they largely stood pat. They had additional financial resources that offseason given they were hosting the All-Star Game in 2023 and had made the playoffs the season prior. Both goosed season ticket sales. The team went 88-74, going 45-36 at home and 43-38 on the road. They finished 3rd in the AL West.
With the regional sports network bubble affecting ROOT Sports Northwest, while the club denied it, that offseason appeared to have been about shedding salary. With a league-leading 1,603 strikeouts, Dipoto used that as excuses to not offer a qualifying offer to Teoscar Hernandez, and traded Eugenio Suarez to the Diamondbacks for right-hander Carlos Vargas and veteran catcher Seby Zavala. Doing so lost a clubhouse presence and a hole at third base.
If strikeouts were the reason the Mariners made their moves in the 2023 offseason, it sure didn’t help. The Mariners went from a league-leading 1,603 Ks in 2023 to a league-leading 1,625 strikeouts in 2024. The team went 85-77, and finished 2nd to the Houston Astros. After Dipoto infamously said in October of 2023 that a target for the club would be to win “54% of the time,” the 2024 campaign saw them win 52.5% of their games.
And in reality, the real reason the Mariners have been as close as they have been is due to their incredible pitching depth. Where Seattle ranked at the bottom of nearly all offensive categories, they led the league in pitching stats.
Seattle is Seattle. It sits on Puget Sound. It gets a marine layer. That can affect the balls that the Mariners do get around on. And Seattle is Seattle in other ways. Being with the Mariners means you have the longest travel for road games. And while I live in the Pacific Northwest and love it, make no mistake it’s not exactly bursting at the seams with night life. Free agency signings likely come with having to overpay given the abysmal record the club has with making the playoffs in the mix.
But, it’s high time to stop the excuses. Owner John Stanton has tied one arm behind Dipoto’s back, while opening up new suite space in what was formally the T-Mobile Park pressbox that sees prime seating go for over $38,000 a season per person. The club may be losing revenues with the RSN, but they are anything but wanting across the board in nearly every capacity outside that.
“Hope” is a very good thing, but it’s the last thing that should happen in professional sports. You could cut the Mariners some slack if they tried to do more after making the playoffs in 2022. Being in a bunker mentality can only go on for so long before the growing chorus of “sell the team” starts to grab headlines. The 2025 season seems prime to see that happen.
It wasn’t exactly a sign of a blossoming future when manager Scott Servais was fired and Dan Wilson was hired as his replacement. Wilson may one day be a good manager, but with no managerial experience, the Mariners didn’t hire him on an interim basis — a chance for Wilson to prove himself. Instead, he was given the job outright. And if you’re looking for signs that the Mariners are going to invest in winning, that’s not the sign you’re looking for. If anything, it signals that the Mariners will be largely in the same position they have been dating back to 2001 for a while.
Let’s face it. Being a Mariners fan is as dark and gloomy as a winter’s day in Seattle. The fans deserve some sunshine.
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