Tridents Up or Tridents Down? A Preview of the Seattle Mariners 2024 Season
I love baseball.
I love being at the ballpark. The sights. The sounds. The friendly banter between fans of the teams playing on the field. The 6th Inning Hydro Challenge Boat Race presented by Snoqualmie Casino. I love it all.
You can’t help but feel excitement knowing a new season is on the horizon and Opening Day is just a few hours away. Every team starts with the same record, and the majority of fanbases all share the same outlook on the upcoming season.
Hope.
You hope for a long run into October. Typically this means your team had a successful season, and it met the expectations of a fanbase. Some fanbases expect a playoff run, and a spot in the World Series. Anything short of making it to October and the World Series is viewed as a disappointment. A few fanbases have to come to the realization the season is likely over before the calendar hits July. Others, just want a taste of playoff baseball as a berth in the playoffs doesn’t happen frequently for those teams.
It’s tough for those fanbases. Where do you decide to set your expectations? Do you look at what history tells you or do you look at the results from the last three seasons? Optimism wants you to see the recent results of three consecutive winning seasons, but pessimism tells you it only resulted in a single playoff berth, the first one in 21 seasons. I am using a particular team in this example, and we will look at what their 2024 season looks like.
Yes, I am talking about the 2024 Seattle Mariners.
2023 was a roller coaster of a season. The Mariners, coming off of their first trip to the playoffs since 2001, had high expectations going into the season. The majority of the roster returned from the 2022 playoff squad, but a few new faces were added in the offseason, and a couple of young pitchers were asked to step in earlier than expected to help fill out a starting rotation that was hit with season ending injuries the first two months of the season. The team started off slow and had some early season struggles finding consistency at the plate with pitching carrying them throughout the majority of the season. The team found themselves hovering around the .500 mark until right after the All-Star break into August, where it had its best month in franchise history record wise winning 21 games. By the time the calendar had turned to September, the Mariners had found themselves in first place of the division. Unfortunately, September proved to be a much tougher month for the team. The results from the previous month did not carry over. Although they fought to the end, the Mariners lost the division by 2 games, and missed out on the final Wild Card spot by a single game.
That last week of baseball in Seattle was insane. My wife and I had only planned on attending one game each during the Astros and Rangers series that final week, but we ended up catching the last six games of the season. The Mariners lost two of three to the Astros and combined with other results put them in a win or go home scenario with Texas. Thursday night saw an exciting end of the ballgame with the season on the line and down to their last out but thankfully J.P. Crawford came through with the walk off hit. That momentum carried into the next game and Crawford hit a grand slam, and the Mariners won 8–0. Going into the Saturday game, the crowd energy was great and the vibes were good. Texas jumped out early and ultimately ended the Mariners season that night. I won’t forget that feeling leaving the stadium after one final trip to the team store and grabbing another Team Issued Jersey for the collection. It was quite the 180 from arriving at the stadium 4 hours earlier. It was eerily quiet as fans filed out, and you could feel the disappointment. There wasn’t much anger, just a quiet sadness to it all. We went to the game Sunday and wanted to root on the team to finish strong. It’s just who we are as fans. Sadly the game was much the same vibe as the night before, just quiet and sadness knowing there wasn’t much to play for, and there was not another baseball game until March.
This brings us to this year. A new year, and a new hope.
The team is being managed this season by Scott Servais who enters year nine of his managerial stint with the ball club, and the majority of the coaching staff returns for the upcoming season. I think the job Servais has done with this team the last few years has gone widely underappreciated. The Mariners as an organization has done very well in recent years with player development, and the majority of the roster is filled with home grown talent. All things considered with the payroll constraints put on the front office, the coaching staff has put the players, more times than not, into a position to succeed and hopefully optimize the results. Success ultimately falls onto the players’ responsibility to perform however.
Sidenote: Just to get this out of the way, I am not going to place the blame on the lack of success and or playoff berths on payroll. There is a million different ways to look at this, and everyone is going to have their own opinion. Wins and losses are ultimately determined by the players on the field and not by those who simply sign and cut the checks each season. It takes a roster of 26 players and coaches to win a baseball game. It shouldn’t matter if a player is getting $5 Million or $50 Million if they are not performing at their best to win games. If players don’t perform to their capabilities, it’s not going to matter. Nobody sucks at the Major League level, they are some of the best at what they do for a living. You can have the highest payroll in baseball and it does not guarantee results. Does it help? Perhaps. However, results are earned and not given out based on payroll.
The strength of this team is pitching. A starting rotation that is in the conversation for having the best in baseball. Very few teams can make the claim the Mariners can when it comes to the starting rotation, and for the most part, it’s home grown featuring four players drafted and developed by the Mariners farm system. The Mariners have what so many teams covet. Young, controllable arms with team friendly contracts. The front office has done a great job keeping this group intact and not wavering in their conviction when an opportunity presents itself with deals involving these fantastic pitchers. The Opening Day starter this year is La Piedra, Luis Castillo, the ace of the staff coming off his first full season in Seattle where he was an all-star. He is followed in the rotation by another all-star, George Kirby. Both of these guys had phenomenal seasons last year, and are in preseason conversations for this upcoming season’s AL Cy Young Award. The rest of the rotation is filled out with often over looked and under appreciated Logan Gilbert, and two pitchers looking to build on some success they had in their rookie seasons, Bryce Miller and Brian Woo. Miller and Woo’s development in year two is going to be crucial to the team’s success this season. Both had flashes of brilliance, but there were questions coming into the upcoming season with both needing to show improvement with their secondary pitches.
It is backed by a bullpen who has gained a reputation for coming in during the late innings and shutting the door, closing out tight ballgames. Andres Munoz has been given the keys to the closer role, and it is likely we will see Matt Brash settle into an 8th inning set up role when he returns from the IL. Like most bullpens, this one has seen some turnover each of the last few seasons. Losing Justin Topa in a trade wasn’t enjoyable, but adding Ryne Stanek and Gregory Santos in the offseason should help the back end and overall improve an already solid bullpen. However, with both Brash and Santos starting the year on the IL, the team will have to fill in their roles and get creative. It might take a month or two to have the bullpen sorted out and guys know where they fit in.
The Opening Day lineup is likely going to look a little different with new players taking over at 2nd and 3rd base and both corner outfield positions being manned by newcomers to the club. Jorge Polanco looks to penciled into the lineup at 2nd base this season, and 3rd base looks to have a couple of players fill the spot at the hot corner where Mr. Good Vibes Only, Eugenio Suarez, held it down the previous two seasons. The offseason saw a couple of trades bring in some new faces, and one familiar face, Mitch Haniger. The addition of Haniger is important for not only what he brings to the field but also the clubhouse. He is a leader, and was beloved by so many of his teammates prior to leaving via free agency before the start of 2023. Haniger had a phenomenal Spring Training and will look to have a return to the form that saw him put up incredible numbers in 2021 for Seattle. Add in the key free agent signing of Mitch Garver, and all of a sudden you have what appears to be a pretty solid lineup on paper. Hopefully this new season, we see Ty France revert back to his 2022 All Star form, and a couple of late season acquisitions in Josh Rojas and Dominic Canzone emerge as key pieces to this Mariners roster. I expect to see continued success at the plate for J.P. Crawford, Julio Rodriguez, and Cal Raleigh this year as each will look to improve on the good 2023 seasons they had.
They say it takes a village, and baseball is no different. It has been a talking point throughout the offseason, but this year’s team is looking to avoid the things at the plate that have plagued this team in year’s past. The Mariners will look to avoid a repeat of last year where the team at times would struggle hitting with runners on base. Often the ball would not even be put into play. Hitters struggled to control the zone, and would often chase pitches they had no business swinging at. Strikeouts are rally killers, and in crucial games where if you are going to make outs, you need them to be productive, this problem reared its ugly head countless times, most notably in September down the final stretch of the season. It proved to be too much to overcome when the regular season ended.
At some point during the season, each player is going to have the opportunity to deliver in a crucial moment in the game. It’s impossible to be carried by one individual throughout a season. Injuries will happen, and thankfully there is an abundance of options in AAA Tacoma who can come up and contribute when called upon. You hope it doesn’t come to that, but it’s inevitable that slumps will also happen as well. The pieces are in place for this team to have a great season. It’s up to the players to make it happen.
What does a successful season look like for the Seattle Mariners? If you ask the players, anything short of the World Series Championship isn’t even discussed. Most fans would probably agree. That’s the ultimate goal. Can this team make a run in October? Absolutely. Is it going to be easy? Nope. It’s tough to win baseball games. 162 games is a long season. The AL West looks to be a three team race. The Mariners, the Houston Astros and the Texas Rangers, who won the World Series last year. All three teams are good, solid ballclubs but each has its flaws. Arguably you can say each team also got better this offseason. The players and coaches will get it all sorted out for us once the first pitch is thrown for the season.
The keys in my opinion for the Mariners to have a good season, and to win the division is pretty simple. The team needs to stay healthy. With three major league pitchers starting the season on the IL, there is already a little bit of adversity to face and navigate your way through. Pitching is the strength of this ballclub, but ultimately it will come down to how much improvement do we see from the offense this season? Defensively there is some question marks, but the bigger issue facing this ballclub is can this team produce and manufacture runs when they need it the most?
I would also like to see the positions in the lineup where they don’t have someone automatically penciled in every day get figured out pretty quickly. It is hard to have any expectations for guys who get to play one game a week, and their at bats are sporadic at best. This was an issue last season with position platoons. The team didn’t get very good contributions from players they were counting on, but also failed to get them consistent at bats. There is only so much work you can do in a batting cage, and it’s not exactly easy to replicate game situations once the season starts. The team last year was counting on production from too many part time players and it hurt them when they didn’t provide the hitting they needed in clutch situations. Hopefully we do not see a repeat of this problem this year, and we see guys emerge as everyday players in this Mariners lineup.
Can this Mariners team win the AL West? Yes, absolutely.
Can this Mariners team win 90+ games? Most definitely.
Will the Mariners win 90+ games this season? I believe so.
Will the Mariners finish the season as World Series Champions? Let’s wait and find out.
It’s a long season. There’s going to be highs and lows. There will be excitement and drama. There will be chaos, and unquestionably a lot of fun.
And I am here for all of it.
Go Mariners.
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