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david schoenfield
seattle mariners pitcher brian woo The team was being interviewed in the clubhouse after game 7 loss In the American League Championship Series toronto blue jays When, suddenly, in the background, you can hear an anguished scream.
Mariners fans understand heartache – they can relate to that scream.
For most of the Mariners’ 49-season existence, the club’s fans relied on hope: hope for a first winning season, hope that the franchise did not move, hope to make the playoffs for the first time, hope for ending a 20-year playoff drought. World Series hopes. And that hope was shattered with one blow of the bat on Monday night.
However, it didn’t start out that way. The Mariners won the first two games of the ALCS on the road in Toronto – and were the first teams to win the first two on the road in a best-of-seven series in MLB history (except 2020) and went 26–3.
After losing the first two games in Seattle, they won Game 5 in dramatic fashion. eugenio suarez3-2 series lead in Grand Slam. The winner of Game 5, when a series was tied, was successful in winning the best-of-seven series 69% of the time in MLB history.
The Mariners lost Game 6, playing as dirty a game as you can, and then lost Game 7. george springerThree-run home run in the seventh inning – only the second home run to come from behind while trailing by multiple runs in a winner-take-all game in playoff history (pete alonso Made the first hit last year for New York Mets,
That’s a lot of qualifiers, but it drives home the disappointment: This was a particularly tough loss, eight out of the franchise’s first World Series, a moment that Seattle sports fans will always remember, along with not giving the ball to Marshawn Lynch in Super Bowl XLIX. The Mariners are the only one of the 30 franchises to never play in the Fall Classic.
The pain will remain. Soon, however, thoughts will turn to 2026, as they should – and Seattle is in good shape not only for next season, but for the long term.
While the Mariners have made only two playoff appearances in the past five seasons, they are one of the most stable organizations in the game, one of just six with a winning record in every season since 2021 and seventh in wins over that span. They have a strong farm system with eight players ranked Kiley McDaniel’s August Top 100 Prospects UpdateThat includes shortstop Colt Emerson, the No. 7 prospect, and pitcher Cade Anderson, the No. 3 pick in the 2025 MLB draft, who is ranked No. 16.
The Mariners also have a stable group of key players: 17 of them who were worth at least 0.8 WAR in 2025 — MVP candidates cal raleigh Moved forward with 7.3 – all except free agents Josh Naylor and second baseman/DH George Polanco Have already been signed to new contracts or remain under team control (Polanco has a $7 million player option that he will likely waive).
Both remain fits in the lineup after strong 2025 campaigns, especially Naylor. apart from a few solid years ty france In 2021-22, first base has been a revolving door – and a problem – for the Mariners ever since John Olerud was traded more than 20 years ago. Re-signing Naylor seems necessary, partly because he also provides some much-needed contact skills in strikeout-heavy lineups.
This is not even an old team. Polanco (31), JP Crawford (30) and Randy Arozarena (30) is a sole regular person above 28 years of age, while luis castillo (32) Is the only starting pitcher older than 28. Castillo is contracted for two more seasons, while the other rotation members are also under control for at least two more years – logan gilbert (2027), george kirby (2028) and Brian Wu and bryce miller (2029). It’s a deep position to have that kind of potential stability in the rotation — Anderson is likely to progress quickly through the minors and Ryan Sloan, a second-round pick out of high school in 2024 and now ranked 43rd in ESPN’s prospect rankings, is shining in top-of-the-rotation material in his first minor league season and is also capable of rising quickly in the majors.
The foundation of the team’s current success can be seen in the 2018–19 offseason. President of baseball operations Jerry Dipoto took over the top job for the Mariners after the 2015 season. They had winning seasons in 2016 and 2018, but after the second season, Dipoto was concerned about the future of the organization.
“We were coming off an 89-win season,” he told ESPN during the ALCS. “At the end of the regular season, I would sit down with our owners and talk about what the plan is for the coming year. I thought the right thing to do after visiting with our front office group was to just reboot. We were a little too old, we were a little too top heavy, and we had too little potential capital. We weren’t able to rev that engine and maintain a competitive, championship level team.”
The front office each year prepares a flowchart of the organization that maps out the next six seasons, trying to predict what those six years will look like. It wasn’t looking good, so the Mariners committed to a rebuild. It started with Crawford, who acquired philadelphia phillies For Jean Segura (after first being asked out by the Phillies). Edwin Diazwho was traded to the Mets instead), and he has been the team’s starting shortstop ever since.
Seattle also saw julio rodriguezSigned as a 16-year-old in 2017, the 21-year-old has thrived as a rookie in 2022 and developed into an instant star. His inability to keep sliders low and away — like the final pitch of the 2025 season — can certainly be frustrating, but at age 24 he had two 30-30 seasons while averaging 5.7 WAR. His 6.8 WAR in 2025 ranked fourth among AL position players.
That he’s turned into a potential Gold Glove center fielder (he’s a finalist for the award this season) is just an added bonus.
“We all thought he was going to be a corner guy,” Dipoto said. “And, you know, between the ages of 19 and 21, he turned into an athletic Adonis, and without telling us, coordinated with his agent, Ulises Cabrera, and invested in an Olympic running coach. He came to spring training in 2022, and he said, ‘You think I can play center field?’ Because he had made it his goal to become a center fielder.”
With Rodriguez impressing not only on the field but also off the field, Dipoto spoke highly of his star player’s focus, how he wants to be great and how he has studied the careers of great athletes.
“When Julio is in a quiet place, he’s a deep thinker,” Dipoto said. “He’s focused on becoming as great as he can.”
Maybe there’s more to come – especially if Rodriguez can learn to throw down those sliders.
Along the way, under Dipoto’s leadership, the Mariners were drafting pitchers – and doing a great job of developing them. In 2018, they drafted Gilbert in the first round. In 2019, it was Kirby in the first round. Miller was a fourth-round pick in 2021 while Wu was a sixth-round pick that year. they came closer andres munoz and setup man matt brash in two different trades with San Diego Padres On the same day in 2020, no major deals resulted in any deals.
Dipoto credits Scott Hunter, his scouting director since 2016, and Hunter’s staff, as well as Justin Hollander, who is now the team’s general manager. It’s rare to find rotation stalwarts like Miller and Wu at that point in the draft – let alone two high-leverage relievers in one day.
“Every player that has been acquired or drafted in a trade was acquired while we were here, and that makes it really special,” Dipoto said. “It didn’t happen overnight. We’ve busted our heads, we’ve stubbed our toes, we’ve put our foot in our mouth. Literally. And you learn.
“To see J.P. Crawford there from 2019. He’s the rock. To see Julio, who we signed at 16 years old, standing in center field, doing things that are really on a Hall of Fame trajectory. To see Cal Raley, who we drafted and developed, go out there and probably have the best catcher season in history. To see a starting rotation that’s 80 percent home runs.”
Dipoto first signed Crawford to a long-term deal through 2022, then Rodriguez later that summer and Raley signed before this season. With J-Rod and Raleigh signed through at least 2031, Seattle has the offensive foundation in place, and that group of prospects is on the way.
The final key for 2026 sits with the rotation – it struggled with a 6.37 ERA in the ALCS and averaged fewer than four innings per start. There was a big decline in its mass warfare from 2024:
baseball-reference
2025: 7.8 (19th)
2024: 11.7 (10th)
fangraphs
2025: 11.0 (14th)
2024: 14.9 (4th)
Some of the decline can be attributed to injuries – Gilbert, Kirby and Miller each missed significant time with them – but consider the home/road split in ERA for Seattle’s starters over the past two seasons:
2025
Home: 3.30
Road: 4.67
2024
Home: 2.74
Road: 4.05
Looking at the quick hook manager Dan Wilson deployed throughout the postseason, it seems he didn’t trust his starters to go deep at all (Wu, the best starter in the regular season, was not at full strength and only pitched out of the bullpen in the ALCS).
It makes you wonder: Does this team need an ace? maybe someone will like it tariq skubalis entering his final year with detroit tigers Trade speculation will follow him throughout the winter before free agency and if the Tigers do not sign him to an extension. The Mariners at least have the prospects and pitching depth to seriously test Skubal.
Emerson is likely to take over at third base in 2025 and will eventually replace Crawford at shortstop after Crawford’s deal expires in 2027. That means the popular Suárez, the third baseman whom the Mariners traded at this year’s deadline, will be let go as a free agent. Second baseman Cole Young (ranked No. 57) Preseason Top 100 Prospects List) has played in 77 games as a rookie this season and will get another shot after getting off to a good start before falling to a final line of .211/.302/.305. He hit only four home runs, but he’s only 22 and could have more power to come (“You should see his BP session,” Dipoto said). rookie catcher harry fordThe No. 65 pick in the August update should handle backup duties behind Raley after a strong performance in Triple-A, perhaps letting Raley get a few more DH at-bats and rest those legs after playing all but three regular season games for Seattle in 2025.
Everyone around the team says that Frequently mentioned good feelings There was a real deal with the Mariners, a clubhouse and a good-natured group of players. The ALCS loss was disappointing, but the Mariners would bounce back.
“Players come here and fall in love,” Dipoto said. “They fall in love with the environment. It’s a beautiful ballpark. It’s the clubhouse. It’s the camaraderie. It’s 25 teammates. It’s a wonderful thing that’s been happening here for many years.”
The foundation has been prepared. Now the organization just needs to figure out how to go one – or, preferably, two – steps further.
