The Mariners signed the reigning AL Cy Young winner and acquired a pair of 2021 All-Stars via trade. That it still felt like a bit of an underwhelming offseason speaks to the manner in which expectations have increased for the AL West up-and-comers.
Major League Contracts
- Robbie Ray, LHP: Five years, $115MM (Ray can opt out of contract after 2024 season)
- Sergio Romo, RHP: One year, $2MM
2022 spending: $23MM
Total spending: $117MM
Trades and Claims
- Acquired OF Jesse Winker and 3B Eugenio Suarez from the Reds for RHP Justin Dunn, OF Jake Fraley, minor league LHP Brandon Williamson and a PTBNL (later announced as minor league RHP Connor Phillips)
- Acquired 2B/OF Adam Frazier from the Padres for LHP Ray Kerr and minor league OF Corey Rosier
Extensions
- Signed SS J.P. Crawford to five-year, $51MM contract
- Signed RHP Andres Munoz to four-year, $7.5MM contract with three club options
Notable Minor League Signings
- Andrew Albers, Ryan Buchter, Mike Ford, Billy Hamilton, Matt Koch, Erick Mejia, Tommy Milone, Sal Romano, Steven Souza Jr., Patrick Weigel, Asher Wojciechowski
Notable Losses
- Kyle Seager (retired), Yusei Kikuchi, James Paxton, Joe Smith, Sean Doolittle, Hector Santiago, Justin Dunn, Jake Fraley
Buoyed by an exciting young core and a surprisingly strong bullpen, the 2021 Mariners were in contention until the very last weekend of the season. After an accelerated rebuilding effort that left the club with one of the game’s top-ranked farm systems — the best system, according to some outlets — last year’s 90-win showing cemented the Mariners’ status as a win-now club.
With that shift to a win-now mindset came heightened offseason expectations. The Mariners entered the winter known to be looking for a right-handed bat, ideally an infielder, and reinforcements for a rotation that is awaiting the arrival of several top prospects but had at least one, if not two short-term vacancies.
First and foremost, however, the Mariners had a decision to make on Kyle Seager, the longtime heart and soul of the franchise. After an emotional sendoff at season’s end and some controversy surrounding the communication from the team — or lack thereof — regarding his future, Seager’s $20MM club option was declined. He was paid a $3MM buyout and ventured out into the free-agent market on the heels of a 30-homer season. But rather than search for a new team and a fresh start, Seager instead somewhat surprisingly called it a career at just 34 of age.
The decision to decline Seager’s option was seen as something of a foregone conclusion, but it still stung for Mariners fans and the clubhouse. Seager had been one of two contracts of note on the books, however, and in the end, the team’s most costly players both departed. The other, Yusei Kikuchi, appeared as though he might stick around for one more season after the Mariners declined a quartet of club options on him, triggering a $13MM player option for the 2022 season. Instead, Kikuchi declined the option and eventually cashed in on a three-year deal with a Blue Jays team that appeared unfazed by his struggles down the stretch in 2021.
With Seager and Kikuchi off the books, there was seemingly no limit to what the Mariners could do in the offseason. Between the departure of that pair and the rebuilding effort that had cleared out the long-term payroll, the stage appeared set for the Mariners to spend at the top of the free-agent market and/or take on ample salary in a trade.
That led to natural speculation about the historic crop of free-agent shortstops, but president of baseball operations Jerry Dipoto made clear early in the winter the organization had communicated to incumbent J.P. Crawford they were committed to him at the position. Rather than move Crawford from his position, Dipoto voiced interest in versatile free agents— “adaptable,” as he put it — and even took the unorthodox step of name-checking the likes of Javier Baez and Marcus Semien when making those comments. Seattle was also quickly connected to Kris Bryant, who has increasingly bounced around the diamond in recent years, and Trevor Story, whom they coveted as a potential second baseman.
Semien and Baez, however, came off the board early, with Semien inking a surprising seven-year deal to join the division-rival Rangers and Baez landing six years and $140MM (plus an opt-out) in Detroit. Seattle, meanwhile, indeed landed some adaptability and kept its options open while making its first acquisition of the year. Adam Frazier, acquired in a trade that sent reliever Ray Kerr and 2021 twelfth-round pick Corey Rosier to San Diego, is a viable option at either second base or in left field.
Long a steady producer at the plate, Frazier hit at career-best levels with the Pirates before being traded to the Padres and regressing to well below his career norms. He was an odd fit for a Padres team that didn’t have a need clear at second base or in left field in the first place, and the .267/.327/.335 batting line he posted in 57 games with the Friars proved underwhelming. The Padres, needing to jettison payroll, traded Frazier for a good bit less than they’d surrendered to acquire him — and the Mariners stood to benefit.
Even including last year’s rough 211 plate appearances in San Diego, Frazier carries a .281/.343/.416 batting line in 1829 plate appearances from 2018-21. For a Mariners club that posted the fourth-highest team strikeout percentage in baseball last year (24.8%), adding a contact-oriented bat like Frazier, who’s fanned in only 12.9% of his career plate appearances, was a sensible move. He’ll help to remedy some of the swing-and-miss issues that so often plagued Seattle in 2021. He’s only controlled through the 2022 season, but Frazier should give the M’s a solid bat to go along with excellent defense at second base.
The Frazier acquisition came just five days before Major League Baseball locked out the players and halted transactions for 99 days, but Dipoto and his staff still had time for one notable acquisition — a signing that proved to be the team’s largest strike of the offseason. Just 48 hours before commissioner Rob Manfred announced the lockout, the Mariners announced they’d ponied up on a five-year, $115MM contract bringing reigning AL Cy Young winner Robbie Ray to Seattle. The deal, which allows Ray to opt out after the third season, is the largest contract the organization has ever given to a free-agent pitcher.
It marked the culmination of an astonishing turnaround for Ray, who looked like a potential $100MM arm heading into the 2020 campaign before a lost season pushed him to take a one-year pillow contract. That proved to be perhaps the best $8MM the Blue Jays ever spent, as Ray not only rebounded to previous levels but broke out with far and away the lowest walk rate of his career. Ray paired that newfound command with his second-best strikeout rate — a 32.1% mark that was backed by career-high swinging-strike and chase rates (15.5% and 34.1%, respectively).
The Mariners are clearly sold on Ray’s transformation, and while they can’t love the slight dip in fastball velocity and major drop in strikeout rate he’s displayed through his first four starts of the season, Ray has tossed a quality start on three occasions already. That he’s now in a pitcher-friendly home park for the first time in his career bodes well for the lefty; Ray yielded an average of 1.54 homers per nine frames last year even during a Cy Young-winning season, but his new surroundings in the Pacific Northwest could help him to keep the ball in the yard with greater frequency.
Even with time running out before the lockout, the ever-active Dipoto still felt like a threat to make one more splash after signing Ray. The Mariners indeed took a big swing, reportedly making an offer to Story before transactions were frozen. (Jon Heyman of the New York Post reported last week that Seattle had offered in the realm of $125MM). Story, however, was still eyeing a concrete opportunity to remain at shortstop at that point. He eventually took a six-year deal with the Red Sox, agreeing to play second base for the 2022 season. Incumbent shortstop Xander Bogaerts has an opt-out clause at the end of this season, setting the stage for Story to slide over to shortstop in 2023 if (or when) Bogaerts opts out. Story, along with fellow rumored Mariners targets like Baez (Tigers), Semien (Rangers) and Kris Bryant (Rockies) eventually landed a contract of six years or more in length with another team.
Even with the swing-and-a-miss on Story, the Mariners weren’t quite done making pre-lockout deals. Just 13 hours before the lockout, the team announced a four-year, $7.5MM contract extension with flamethrowing reliever Andres Munoz. It was a surprising deal and a risk-averse one by Munoz, who’ll be surrendering three free-agent years. However, for a then-22-year-old reliever — he turned 23 in January — who’d only just recovered from Tommy John surgery and was still a full year from reaching arbitration, it’s understandable if the allure of a life-changing guarantee was too hard to pass up. Munoz can still become a free agent heading into his age-30 season, even if all three options are exercised, but it’s hard not to love the deal for the Mariners.
Munoz, acquired alongside Ty France, Taylor Trammell and Luis Torrens in the deal that sent Austin Nola and Austin Adams to San Diego, is averaging 100.7 mph on his heater so far in 2022 and has fanned 14 of the 27 batters he’s faced. He’s struggled with command at times, but he has some of the best raw stuff of any reliever in the American League. In terms of total guarantee, the Mariners are only risking about what it’d have cost them to sign a fifth starter (e.g. Jordan Lyles), so the upside on this contract is outstanding.
About 2400 hours later, after an excruciating 99 days of strategic leaks, finger pointing and generally unbecoming quarrelling between MLB and the MLBPA, the transaction freeze was lifted. Dipoto greeted a baseball fan base that was ravenous for some Hot Stove activity with what’ll go down as one of his all-time lines, saying in a March 11 radio appearance: “I woke up this morning ready to transact.”
He might’ve had to wait three days, but transact Dipoto did. On March 14, the Mariners landed outfielder Jesse Winker in a trade with the Reds, doing so for a prospect package that was a bit lighter than most would’ve expected because they agreed to take on the entirety of Eugenio Suarez’s remaining three years and $35MM. The trade cost the M’s pitching prospect Brandon Williamson, outfielder Jake Fraley, righty Justin Dunn and a PTBNL — later announced as righty Connor Phillips, their second-round pick from the 2020 draft.
In Winker, the Mariners acquired a 2021 All-Star who has emerged as one of the best hitters in baseball against right-handed pitching. Winker will draw his walks against lefties but is generally punchless against same-handed opponents. When holding the platoon advantage from 2020-21, however, Winker boasted a Herculean 169 wRC+ that trailed only Juan Soto and Bryce Harper. During that 2020-21 breakout, Winker hit .321/.417/.619 against righties and .292/.392/.552 overall. He’s controlled through 2023, and even though he’s had a slow start in 2022, Winker has the ninth-largest gap in Statcast’s expected weighted on-base average (.405) and his actual wOBA (.265). He’s upped his walk rate, cut back on his strikeouts and seems due to begin producing sooner than later.
Taking on Suarez surely wasn’t what Mariners fans had in mind amid the early talks of adding a big bat — not after he combined to hit just .199/.293/.440 from 2020-21. Suarez led the NL with 49 homers in 2019, but the ensuing rise in strikeouts looked to have tanked his overall offensive output. He somewhat quietly slashed a much better .238/.335/.524 in 215 post-All-Star-break plate appearances last year, though, and at least early on, he’s been a boon to the Seattle lineup (.271/.377/.525). If Suarez indeed rounds back into form — and remember he’s only 30 — what already looked like a solid get for the Mariners will be all the more strong.
Curiously, however, that trade marked the end of Seattle’s major dealings. Righty Sergio Romo was brought in on a one-year, $2MM contract — but only after fellow right-hander Casey Sadler underwent season-ending shoulder surgery. Dipoto & Co. brought in a slate of recognizable veterans on minor league deals, but none of Billy Hamilton, Steven Souza Jr., Ryan Buchter or Tommy Milone are going to grab too many headlines at this stage in their careers. It was a nice series of depth adds, but as far as impact moves, there’s a sizable gap between Dipoto name-dropping Baez/Semien and eating Suarez’s contract in a salary dump designed to get Winker into the lineup.
Then again, perhaps the front office doesn’t mind if onlookers felt the offseason fell shy of expectations. As previously noted, Suarez is mashing to begin the season, and Ty France has been one of the game’s best hitters. The Mariners’ offense has been one of MLB’s most-productive through nearly three weeks, and that doesn’t even include much in the way of help from top prospects Julio Rodriguez and Jarred Kelenic. If one or both of them gets going at the plate, the lineup could be deadly even without one of those marquee free agents.
Seattle’s final move of note might’ve come after Opening Day, but the groundwork for the deal surely was laid during Spring Training. Doubling down on the notion that Crawford is the Mariners’ shortstop of both the present and the future, the team signed the 27-year-old to a five-year, $51MM contract. That figure includes Crawford’s preexisting 2022 salary but tacks on an additional four years and more than $46MM in guaranteed money. Whether he’s thriving based on that peace of mind or would’ve taken his game to new heights regardless can be debated, but Crawford has posted a mammoth .356/.466/.559 slash with a career-best 13.7% walk rate and just a 5.5% strikeout rate so far. He’ll surely regress to some extent, but the arrow on the former first-round pick and top prospect’s bat has been pointing up for the past couple seasons.
Crawford joins France, Rodriguez, Kelenic, Marco Gonzales, budding rotation star Logan Gilbert, impressive rookie Matt Brash, former Rookie of the Year Kyle Lewis and a series of yet-to-debut prospects (George Kirby, Noelvi Marte, Emerson Hancock) as holdovers in a core that’ll now be bolstered by veteran additions of Ray, Winker, Frazier and Suarez. It may not have been the cannonball into the deep-end of the free-agent pool for which Mariners fans had pined, but the future in Seattle is unequivocally bright, and the team still has both a deep farm system and considerable payroll capacity to make deadline acquisitions as needed. The end of a 20-year playoff drought finally looks to be in sight.
Julio Rodríguez is extremely impressive as a CF on D. Better than half the CF’s in MLB today.
If ego, self-promotion and hot-doggishness can serve as fuel, he should become an upper echelon MLB hitter as well.
Samuel, I enjoy your comments. You know baseball.
Well, over the years I have seen a lot of hot-doggishness in baseball players.
Part of the fulfillment, maybe, but ball players, fighter pilots, bronc riders, they all are allowed some grandstanding and ego.
His size may work against him and slow him down in a year or two.
And I suppose he may become an upper echelon hitter.. We still have to wait and see about him and about Kelenic, too.
So far, so good.
Kelenic is nearly at the point where he’s had enough at bats to start to make some conclusions about him as a hitter:
.176 / .259 / .345 in 437 PA (70 OPS+)(30% K Rate).
Not good.
Yes, I’m starting to wonder every game if Kelenic is going to settle down at some better level with the bat.
But the two I actually worry about are Frazier and Winker.
They have no excuse.
The growth of players is not always linear. Sometimes it takes a year or five.
Winker is absolutely destroying the baseball this year, but defenses are playing him perfectly. He’s a victim of scouting more than anyone on the team.
Agree @BPG. Winker’s batted ball profile is incredible so far. It will start to turn around soon.
That’s when a great hitter stops doing whatever it is that is so predictable.
Maybe learn to go to the other field.
This is why so many hitting coaches get canned about a third of the way through each season.
Somebody has to help a hitter find out what works.
Batted ball profile my arse. That’s like saying a pitcher is throwin great, it’s just that he’s pitching where the hitters can hit him. It’s no different in hitting. Winkler needs to learn bat control and hit where defense isn’t.
Winker I mean, not Fonzi
I know the writers love it when you promote kids, but maybe Kelenic & Rodriguez could use some more AAA ABs. I bash the Angels enough for their handling of Adell, but Kelenic & Rodriguez are very similar.
Kelenic’s problems are more mental than physical- he is extremely tough on himself and it’s affecting his AB’s. Julio is fine, he has done well over the last 7-10 days: batting around .300 while being a threat (8) on the bases.
Julio is also controlling the K-Zone, he is not chasing as much as his numbers suggest. He’s had 15 called strikes on pitches that were clear balls, most of them ball 4’s. If you or anyone has watched his AB’s you’d see his treatment by the Umps is ludicrous, it’s almost comical how bad they’ve been with him. It’s not just Julio mind you- I saw Jo Adell get punched out on an inside pitch that was 6” off the plate.
The trouble with good young hitters like Kelenic, Julio, Adell and Witt Jr- the only way you learn to hit MLB pitching is to stay in the Bigs and learn to hit MLB pitching. You can’t do that against AAA pitching.
Kelenic needs to have a better 2-strike approach, either shorten his swing in those counts or learn to foul off pitches that are within the strike zone but out of his hitting zone. He can’t continue to swing for the fences on every single swing.
Seattle really needed another outfielder like Suzuki. Banking on two unproven outfielders to produce without a real alternative was a pretty big gamble, and right now Jarred Kelenic looks especially terrible.
The trades were fine. Signing Ray, and eventually Romo, made a ton of sense as well. But trading Williamson and Dunn, and giving Brash a spot in the rotation (all of which is fine), thinned out their starting pitching depth. The problem is that they didn’t replace the players who would have otherwise served as depth. No verteran SP rebound candidates, just Ponce de Leon and the hope that Kirby & Stoudt will be ready before significant injuries creep in.
Seattle got better on the active roster. They could still add at the deadline. I just wonder if damage will be done before then. Keep in mind that this team arguably missed the postseason the last two years in a row because of a lack of depth.
20 years without a postseason now and they chose to lean on a lot of inexperienced home-grown players. I honestly hope it works, but I have my reservations.
Wondering if it’s time yet to start worrying about Robbie Ray. His velo is down 2 MPH , can’t seem to get over the 94 MPH hump. Giving up dingers, which he is prone to do, but the lower velo isn’t helping. We all saw the similarity in the contract structure of Gausman and Ray, and so far Gausman is the top performer in that head to head comp. Yes it’s early. And Ray has had to pitch in some horrible weather. Okay , not going to panic yet…short sample size. Go M’s !
Definitely too early to worry about Ray. The HRs have stung, and the lower velocity probably explains the low Ks, but that could be explained by the short spring and he’s still giving them innings despite the underwhelming start. He’ll pitch in far more pitcher-friendly stadiums this year as well, so there’s plenty of reason to believe we’ll see better from him.
Meanwhile, Gilbert has looked like a real front-line starter.
This may be an unpopular opinion, but I wasn’t a fan of the Winker trade. Seattle already had a log jammed outfield, they needed infielders much more. But I think when they realized that Bryant, Semien and others wanted too much money, they got desperate and traded for Winker. They also may regret Suarez’s contract in short order. Brandon Williamson looks like a legitimate future #3 starter, if not possibly a #2. Connor Phillips could also end up being quite good. Dunn and Fraley aren’t nothing, either.
I definitely don’t think they ended up with the 2022 offense they were hoping for. That being said, their pitching looks extremely promising, and they have a lot of very good pitching prospects due up within the next year or so.