Thursday, February 27, 2025
55.0°F

THE CHEAP SEATS with STEVE CAMERON: M's look like a playoff team, but are they?

| January 31, 2025 1:15 AM

Maybe it’s the weather.

I’m thinking that’s a logical reason why readers are interested in one particular subject.

My mail is heavily tilted to a specific question: How are the Mariners going to improve their offense?

Or.

Do they think it’s necessary?

OK, I really do believe the temperature (not to mention snow) is causing this fascination with the Mariners beefing up their infield.

Stay with me here.

It’s freezing or below in Kootenai County, depending on the day and hour.

It’s chilly and raining over at T-Mobile Park.

But the weather app on my phone says it’s in the high 70s (heading to the 80s directly) down in Peoria, Ariz.

Yes, that’s where the Mariners’ spring training starts on Feb. 12.

Shoot, they play an exhibition game against the Padres on the 21st.

Baseball season isn’t far away, and I believe our gloomy weather makes us daydream about spring training — about some new relievers and rookie hitters exploding on the scene.

Most important: Can the Mariners come up with enough bats to support that peerless pitching rotation?


LET ME share a slice of information that ought to be good news — but also might make you roll your eyes.

The M’s have some terrific prospects banging their way upward toward The Show.

Respected sites like The Athletic, Baseball Reference and MLB all have six Seattle players in their top 100, and one of them lists seven.

All of them are hitters.

Several are mouthwatering prospects.

We COULD see infielder Cole Young and his sweet swing sometime this summer.

But.

The consensus is that most of these future stars won’t start arriving in Seattle until 2026 or the year after that.

The interesting part of that timeline concerns those starting pitchers, the backbone of any Mariners’ title challenge.

Unless they’re traded or sidelined by injury, all five members of the rotation will be blowing down hitters in Seattle for quite a while yet.

When the young hitters arrive from the minors, then?

Oh, yeah.

Sure, the Mariners have re-signed Jorge Polanco and his .213 batting average, shoving him over to third base in the process.

I agree, it’s an odd way to spend $7.5 million for a team pinching pennies.

Luis Castillo (La Piedra) is the senior figure in that group, and he’s signed through 2027, with a vesting option for the following year.

Now the kids.

Logan Gilbert got to the bigs first, but even “Walter” (his alter ego on the mound) won’t be a free agent until 2028.

George Kirby hits that level in 2029, then Bryce Miller and Bryan Woo in 2030.

If you’re doing the math — of course you are — those numbers mean that the entire rotation could be kept intact for three years.

Minimum.

One heavily publicized theory for obtaining offense involves trading Castillo (and his $25 million salary) for a bat.

I’ve heard Toronto’s Bo Bichette name come up, but Bo will be a free agent after this coming season, and I hate going after someone that you’ll lose after just one year.

Unless.

It’s right at the trading deadline, and you think one rental might get you to the World Series.


ANOTHER way of approaching this season would be trading a prospect or two for a proven hitter.

Keith Law, who covers MLB for The Athletic, has suggested specifically that the Mariners trade prospect Cole Young.

“They’ve gotta go get a bat,” Law said in a Seattle radio interview. “If they want to contend this year, they have to do something to boost the offense. Young is the name that’s always jumped out at me.”

Wait.

Do they really “gotta go get a bat”?

I suspect the Mariners believe their offense at the end of last season (when they went 21-13) can produce again under batting gurus Edgar Martinez and Kevin Seitzer.

An amazing fact: Seattle’s Victor Robles and Luke Raley were the top two hitters in the major leagues in September, measuring by WRC+ (weighted runs created).

Obviously, those two won’t be the best bats in MLB this year, but can they be pretty damn good?

Yep.

The Mariners think that Julio Rodriguez (aka The Franchise) will get a far better start after working with Edgar, and that J.P. Crawford is a cinch to rebound after a terrible year.

And they hope that one or more prospects might make the club.

Bottom line: Maybe they’ll find a trade, maybe they’ll stay quiet.

Either way, the M’s look like a playoff team.

Go ahead, fans, dream of sunshine.


Email: scameron@cdapress.com


Steve Cameron’s “Cheap Seats” columns appear in The Press three times each week, normally Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday unless, you know, stuff happens.

Steve suggests you take his opinions in the spirit of a Jimmy Buffett song: “Breathe In, Breathe Out, Move On.”