11/6/25: We Are Not Going Back
A free agency purview
Welcome back, friends. After the Mariners’ longest playoff run in franchise history ended eight excruciating outs from the World Series, the newsletter and its staff (of two) needed a break to recharge. The goal of the offseason moving forward remains two posts per week for you, our loyal and (many are saying) extremely attractive subscribers.
If you joined us during the season, the vibe around here during winter’s months is a bit different. While there will be the occasional transaction analysis or proposed trade/signing here and there, we tend to be a bit more esoteric and experimental. If you crave the sweet sweet comfort of data, projections and Real Ball there are many, many, many other sources for more traditional roster breakdowns,
Personally, I recommend Jonathan Jick’s Words from the Wharf, where he has an ongoing five-part exhaustive analysis of the various factors and scenarios the team is facing and considering. Additionally, if you’re a 67-loving youth and need everything disseminated to you by video, I strongly recommend Ben Ranieri’s Sea Level. Both gentlemen know ball, and respect their audience.
For our purposes today, we are not going to trouble ourselves with contracts, prospects, or arbitration projections. Today is about coming together on what we, as fans, expect of the Seattle Mariners moving forward. Ergo, ipso facto, and (most importantly) therefore, The Light Bat returns.
The 2022 Seattle Mariners were a hell of a lot of fun. Despite their flaws, the team rode the coat tails of Julio Rodriguez’s Rookie of the Year campaign, Cal Raleigh’s first full season at catcher, and Logan Gilbert’s first full season on the mound. There were two factors that led to the team separating itself from all the previous Mariner teams of the past two decades: A phenomenal trade deadline, and an incredible late-season hot streak.
Luis Castillo was lights out down the stretch, and August’s historic 14-game winning streak put the team on the path to its first playoff appearance in more than 20 years. Despite a sweep in the ALDS at the hands of their bitter rivals the Houston Astros, the team entered the offseason with a momentum not felt in generations.
With a superstar 21-year old centerfielder, four-win second-year catcher, and a once-in-a-lifetime in-house rotation all granting the team the baseball equivalent of a Hall of Fame quarterback on a rookie deal, the limits to the Seattle Mariners’ future were defined solely by the vision and acumen of ownership and management.
I’m not going to rehash what happened the next two years in any kind of detail. You already know. Suffice to say, rather than leveraging the opportunity handed them by their own good work and a healthy dose of good fortune, the Mariners squandered every last bit of momentum and goodwill 2022 afforded them. They treated their roster as though they were means-testing income levels necessary to qualify for a free school lunch.
Their vision seemingly did not extend one step beyond what they had already accomplished. As a fan, it was hard to process their actions (and inactions) as anything but those of a franchise happy to be where it was: An edge-case playoff team on a budget, happy to see it payoff with occasional playoff appearances, but thrilled either way with full stadiums and stable returns on investment.
The 2025 Seattle Mariners were a hell of a lot of fun. Despite their flaws, the team rode the coat tails of a MVP-worthy season from Cal Raleigh, another fabulous year from Julio, and a dominant season from Bryan Woo to the franchise’s first division title in nearly a quarter-century, and the longest playoff run they’ve ever had. There were two factors that led to the team separating itself from so many Mariners teams of the past: A phenomenal trade deadline, and an incredible hot streak.
Despite falling just short of the organization’s first-ever World Series appearance, the team enters the offseason with momentum and the opportunity to cement themselves as the new bullies of the AL West.
In many ways the opportunities of the winters of 2022 and 2025 mirror themselves. Therefore, I think it’s important to be clear on what where we are at.
The Seattle Mariners remain the only MLB franchise to never make a World Series. The demands and expectations are simple: Every moment, every day, and every decision made by ownership and management moving forward must be done with the understanding that 2026 is the year that changes.
The concepts of “sustainability” and “longterm thinking” espoused by the Mariners specifically (and the sport broadly) are rejected for what they are: Soft language used to justify austerity and profit maximization. Every dollar ownership has sunk into this franchise since the day they purchased it either has or will come back to them orders of magnitude greater. Their return on investment is already guaranteed by the nature of the asset they own, and the government-backed monopoly under which it operates.
I have said this before. It is not a new thought or a particularly insightful one, but to expand and emphasize: The people who sit atop the Seattle Mariners - ownership and upper-level management - are not necessary for the franchise’s continued health and existence. The sport as we enjoy it requires fans to love it, players to play it, and workers to facilitate the shared experience of those two parties. Every single other party - owners, sponsors, business partners, etc. - exist solely off of the abundance created by us and our players. Do not ever forget for one day that it is our money and labor that built the lavish offices and play spaces John Stanton, Jerry Dipoto, and friends call home. They need us, and we do not need them.
The Seattle Mariners are ours. Our region’s shared passion, creativity, and resources created the space for them to be born, and for half-a-century we have supported them ceaselessly. We have created a thriving community of fandom with generations of memories despite being given less from the team than every single other team in the sport. We made this team matter well before John Stanton and his cronies became owners by title, and we will do so long after they have cashed out their investment and moved on to leach off something else.
Major League Baseball’s collectively-bargained labor agreement puts very few limits or standards on how much its teams are limited by or required to spend on rosters. As such we do not require the team’s 2026 payroll to reach a certain threshold to be satisfied with their effort. What we do require is that roster payroll not be an inhibitor in the team’s pursuit of its first ever World Series appearance and championship. Again, that appearance and championship should and must be the driving focus of everyone in leadership for this offseason, the 2026 season, the 2027 season, and every season that comes after.
That said, given a brief survey of the sport and team’s landscape, it is our belief that nothing less than a 2026 payroll of at least $200 million is required to show ownership’s willingness to begin to match the commitment shown by the team’s players, fans, and employees.
Despite the similarities between today and three years ago, it’s possible 2022’s opportunity was even greater than today’s. If you want to focus on the age and salary of the team’s best players, it almost certainly was. Nonetheless, fecklessness, greed, and incompetence led to them squandering that opportunity to an astonishing degree.
We are not doing that again. It’s 2025. We are not going back.
Goms.
Good bat.