No Longer Sleepless In Seattle, Young Mariners On Mission To Win First Pennant In Team History

It’s not for lack of trying.

The Seattle Mariners will start the 2023 baseball season March 30 as the only one of the 30 major-league teams that has never won a pennant.

Created as a 1977 expansion team to fill the void created by the failure of the Seattle Pilots after one season, the M’s have had their share of great players, including Hall of Famers Ken Griffey, Jr., Randy Johnson, and Edgar Martinez.

They’ve also had some amazing years, including a 116-win season – most in American League history and tied with the 1906 Chicago Cubs for the most victories ever.

Those 2001 Mariners went 116-46, posting a .716 winning percentage, but lost to the New York Yankees in the playoffs.

It was downhill from there, with Seattle not returning to post-season play before last year, when they went 90-72 to finish second to the Houston Astros in the American League West. The wild-card win wasn’t enough, however, as the Astros beat the Mariners in the AL Division Series.

Seattle’s playoff drought was the longest by a team in any of North America’s big four sports. In fact, the Mariners had losing records in 30 of their first 46 seasons.

Now, however, things are looking up. Fleet center-fielder Julio Rodríguez, just 22, has established himself as one of the game’s elite talents, a legitimate MVP candidate with 30/30 potential.

Consecutive 90-win seasons, plus signings of Rodríguez and other key players, have convinced Seattle fans that this could be the year the club prevails. But it will take a lot to close the 16-game gap that separated the clubs last summer.

Team president Jerry Dipoto, a notorious trade-maker since joining the club in 2015, acquired slugging outfielder Teoscar Hernández from Toronto and Gold Glove second baseman Kolten Wong from Milwaukee, adding to a lineup likely to be loaded with power.

Lindy’s Baseball 2023 Preview, a comprehensive annual, predicts the M’s will have a trio of 30-homer men in Hernández, Eugenio Suárez, and Rodríguez, the defending American League Rookie of the Year. It could have another in Cal Raleigh, a catcher who clouted 27 last summer.

Rodríguez was only 21 last August when the M’s gave him a contract that could reach $470 million over 17 years if all options and incentives were realized. The deal keeps him in Seattle through 2029 but contains club options for at least eight more years, with bonuses relating to the player’s performance in Most Valuable Player voting.

If the pact reaches its full value, it would be the largest and longest in the history of the game.

For Rodríguez, who joined the Seattle system at age 16, it guarantees $210 million over 12 years.

“The biggest thing for me was to have some upside built into the contract,” said the 6-foot-3, 228-pound Dominican, who bats right-handed.

He’ll anchor the outfield between Hernández and Jared Kellenic, a left-handed young slugger obtained from the New York Mets in the Edwin Diaz trade. The Mariners are still waiting for him to realize his potential.

Manager Scotrt Servais, a former catcher starting his eighth year as manager of the Mariners, has few questions in the infield, where Suarez, J.P. Crawford, Wong, and Ty France are the probable starters from third to first. France was an All-Star last summer.

Veteran outfielder AJ Pollock, another potential power source, is the most likely designated hitter.

Pitching could make or break the season for Seattle. The rotation has a strong right-left tandem in Luis Castillo and former Cy Young Award winner Robbie Ray plus rising stars Logan Gilbert, George Kirby, and Marco Gonzales.

Paul Sewald, who added a sharp slider last season, could be pushed as closer by hard-throwing Andres Munoz, one of several Mariners signed to long-term contracts.

Castillo, acquired from Cincinnati right after the 2022 All-Star Game, got a contract extension that runs through 2027, with Ray and Crawford inked through 2026.

If the division race is tight, the Mariners will be in for a wild last week – seven straight home games against the Astros and revamped and revitalized Texas Rangers.

Seattle is seeking maximum mileage at minimum cost – at least when compared to three division rivals with a legitimate chance to win.

The Mariners payroll, according to Spotrac, ranks 18th in the majors at $129,814,047. That’s lower than the Angels, who rank seventh; the ninth-ranked Rangers; and the 10th-place Astros.

Ray, 31, carries the highest 2023 salary at $21 million but Hernández, Castillo, Suárez, and Crawford also will earn more than $10 million this season.

The team and the city will realize a multi-million dollar windfall this summer when they host the All-Star Game on July 11 at T-Mobile Park. The only other time the Midsummer Classic was played in Seattle, in 2001, the domed stadium was called Safeco Field and the team was piling up a record number of victories.

Seattle fans hope history repeats.