Because somebody has to be.
The Mariners will likely define their season in game 162 again.
I wanted to write this post at the 42-game mark. The team has said in the past they like about that many games to assess the roster, and ~25% seemed like a fair threshold for a check in. But I wasn’t sure what I wanted to say at the time. The Mariners started 3-7, then they went 19-7, winning nine consecutive series. Then they went 1-5 while getting blown out at home. Was it the their best start in recent history? Or was it their blurst start, a feat possible for any group willing to bang away at typewriters for months at a time?
The last 10 games haven’t exactly cleared this up. The Mariners swept the Padres in San Diego, took two of three from the White Sox in “pour” conditions, and dropped three of four in Houston in a sloppy series so frustrating it ended with Dan Wilson getting ejected for the first time in a 35-year career in professional baseball. At 29-23, the Mariners are 1.5 games up on the Astros and more on the Rangers. They’re still projected to win the AL West, and their playoff odds sit at about 75%. But Pythag and BaseRuns show a mostly even division. The season began with a projected three-way tie at 86 wins, and it feels like we’re trending in that direction.
Before I get into some general thoughts on the team so far, let’s take a look at how the “early” 2025 Mariners compare to the rest of the league and to the “early” Mariners of the past. This year’s squad doesn’t come across as particularly notable in either table.
Approaching health
The rotation was to be the highlight of this roster. It’s been disappointing… so far. The Mariners rotation has a 3.64 FIP, which is top 10 in MLB and about identical to their FIP last year. But the rotation also ranks 18th in innings pitched, a year after finishing with the most in MLB. They rank 14th by fWAR. The following plot shows FIP, innings pitched, and game score rolled over 10 games. It highlights both the rotation’s early season struggles, and the potential this group holds.
I am somewhat concerned about Luis Castillo. His barrel rate is up while his homers are way down. The “stuff” looks worse by a variety of metrics, and he’s striking out far fewer batters. It’s possible Castillo will regress a bit in the next few months, and I expect his career will follow something resembling an aging curve through the end of his contract in 2027.
I also assume any drop off from Castillo will be made up by gains from the rest of the staff, which brings me to the delayed lead here: injuries. Who knows. Pitcher injuries on the Baseball Prospectus injury dashboard range from very minor to very serious. The way the team has described the current cluster of injuries sounds closer to minor, but the only thing we can say for certain is pitcher injuries are inevitable over time for most players.
- Bryce Miller was placed on the IL with right shoulder inflammation on May 14 after his start on May 12. He looked off in eight outings this year before the IL stint, and his arm health was a common topic in post-game interviews. Kate Preusser recently detailed his struggles for the site. Miller told MLB.com’s Daniel Kramer on Friday they’ve potentially figured out what’s bugging his arm, the issue is not believed to be structural, and they hope to take care of it in the offseason. Miller isn’t expected to miss much more than the minimum, and he can return as early as Thursday.
- Logan Gilbert, the Mariners truest ace, was placed on the IL on April 26 with a right elbow flexor sprain. The peripherals looked awesome for Gilbert in the early season, as if he’d taken a step forward into the “truly elite” club, though he struggled to pitch deep into games. Kramer suggested Gilbert could begin a rehab assignment soon.
- George Kirby began his season on the IL with right shoulder inflammation, with an effective date of March 24. He returned on May 22. He threw hard in his first outing, and his Stuff+ met or exceeded his Stuff+ last year, though his command was poor.
- Bryan Woo ranks seventh by game score, 10th by fWAR, 11th by FIP, and 18th by innings pitched. He is not known to be injured. Woo is now comfortably (and perhaps conservatively) one of the 20 best starting pitchers in MLB.
If this stretch of injuries is nearing the end, my thoughts are it could have been a lot worse. The rotation never quite bottomed out under Emerson Hancock and Logan Evans. They did, however, put a larger than normal burden on the bullpen in a lot of close games. The bullpen struggled in April but improved after Matt Brash returned from Tommy John surgery on May 3. Brash and Gabe Speier make a strong 2a and 2b before Andrés Muñoz, who has been perfect this year. The rest of the pen has been inconsistent, with flashes of brilliance undercut by a pesky home run problem. Ideally, the rotation will ask less of them going forward.
The heart and the rest
April was the Mariners best month of the Statcast era. They finished the first 30 games with a .353 xwOBA, besting a .352 mark set in August 2023. That “best offense in MLB” pace has not continued, and we can see the line has shifted back towards average in May.
I’ll give you the positive spin first. The heart of the Mariners order has continued to look quite good, and they’ve actually improved in some ways as the season has progressed. Cal Raleigh’s “there’s now way he can maintain that” barrel rate from April jumped higher in May. He has the second most homers in MLB with 17 and would have a case for AL MVP if Aaron Judge weren’t having the best season in the history of baseball. Julio’s strong April turned into a stronger May by xwOBA, and his actual results have slowly caught up, as his strikeout rate drops to new career lows. Randy Arozarena continued to be pretty much exactly himself this month — scorching baseballs, drawing walks, and striking out enough to obscure the fact he’s a top 50 batter in MLB this year. I’ll even say J.P. Crawford’s month, while not quite good, was fine. We know he’s a walks-driven player who’s total production is clustered at the whims of flares and barrels, and I expect he’ll finish the year as an above average contributor at a premium position.
And then there’s everyone else. While nobody expected Jorge Polanco would continue his Judge-ian (or Raleigh-ian) pace, his decline in May has been steep. He’s still hitting the ball hard but making less contact overall, mostly on the ground (and still only from one side of the plate). There’s not enough space to get into the nuances for the rest of the role players — and there are nuances — but they’ve mostly been bad, inconsistent, or otherwise limited.
This is the lineup we thought we’d see. The Mariners are a shallow lineup lead by three or four good-to-great batters. It’s not a perfect group, but they’re better than most, and they’re hitting their projections as a top 10 offense in MLB. This pace seems sustainable.
But it’s never easy in Seattle. It’s not a coincidence the recent homestand crushed the lineup’s momentum. The Mariners have a .673 OPS and 25.5% strikeout rate at home, and a .759 OPS and 21.6% strikeout rate on the road — among the largest home/road splits in MLB history. Seattle’s run environment is suppressive enough to where we must think about the home and road Mariners as distinct entities. One was the worst in MLB in May. One was pretty OK.
You can see the vision here. The Mariners have a proven-great rotation inching closer to health. They have a few dominant high leverage arms out of the bullpen. They have three or four top 50 batters in MLB. And they have the room and resources to improve the rest (when they’re feeling up to it). The Mariners survived and occasionally thrived over a stretch where they got very little from their truest strength. And they enter the summer standing atop the hole in the AL West, rather than trying to dig their way out of it. The opportunity they’ve been talking about forever is the one that’s still in front of them.