A mere 17 months ago, Seattle Mariners fans were on cloud nine. The team had ended a 21-year playoff drought. While the season didn't end with a World Series appearance, hope abounded in Seattle. Center fielder Julio Rodríguez had become Major League Baseball's brightest young star. The team had a youthful, exciting core to build around including catcher Cal Raleigh and ace pitchers Logan Gilbert and George Kirby. It looked like the Mariners were in prime position to be baseball's next perennial contender.
But as the 2024 season opens this week, that once sunny optimism has been obscured by more than your average Seattle rain clouds.
After failing to capitalize on the momentum and missing the playoffs last year, M's players and fans alike expressed how they desperately wanted ownership to spend more money on improving the roster. After all, the Mariners were a team in the bottom half of MLB spending despite being in a wealthy market with fan support.
So what did the Mariners do this offseason?
Well, they traded away starting third baseman Eugenio Suárez to dump salary. Then they traded away starting outfielder Jarred Kelenic... to dump salary. To complete the trilogy they traded away Cy Young winner Robbie Ray... to dump salary (but at least they got Mariners fav Mitch Haniger back in that deal). They also didn't re-sign slugger Teoscar Hernandez.
After cutting that much salary, did they pony up for a superstar like Shohei Ohtani? Did they sign NL Cy Young and Seattle native Blake Snell — who openly expressed wanting to play for the Mariners? Nope. Nah. No chance.
The M's signed a backup catcher (Mitch Garver), a reliever (Ryne Stanek), and a back-end starting pitcher (Austin Voth). That's it. They eventually made small trades for second basemen Jorge Polanco and utilityman Samad Taylor, but that was hardly headline-making stuff.
Instead of building on the cheap young core, the Mariners essentially sat the offseason out. In his January offseason report card story, ESPN's David Schoenfield fittingly gave the M's an F grade.
Mariners General Manager Jerry Dipoto had a lot of heat on him for his inaction, but he openly stated that ownership had placed financial limitations on what moves he could make.
And that's the problem.
The Mariners ownership group is a joke. Principal owner John Stanton and the rest of the M's brass have turned what should be a gem MLB team into a poverty franchise.
Fundamentally, you probably shouldn't be a pro sports owner if you do not want to spend to win. Treat the companies that helped you amass wealth as a business, but you need to be willing to not make wild profits as a team owner. Especially in a rich market like Seattle, the lack of willingness to open up one's pocketbook is embarrassingly pathetic.
Things were only made worse at a now infamous Mariners press conference after last year's disappointing season. Dipoto practically shamed Mariners fans for not being stoked that the team was not contending, citing winning "54%" of games as the goal and further saying, "We're actually doing the fan base a favor in asking for their patience to win the World Series while we continue to build a sustainably good roster." Well any patience wasn't rewarded at all this offseason, as the roster appears to be markedly worse than it was heading into Opening Day last season.
While it sucks to have a bad owner overseeing a terrible team, it's not actually the worst situation you can be in as a fan. In those cases, it's easy to just tune the team out. The actual worst thing is the Mariners' current citation: a good team that's full of promise... but owned by wildly out-of-touch cheapskates who care more about higher profits than winning on the field.
If the Mariners owners don't care about winning, why should fans care about the Mariners? ♦
Seattle Mariners Opening Day vs. Boston Red Sox • Thu, March 28 at 7:10 pm • Root Sports
