Yes, the Seattle Mariners will be better in 2023: And here’s why.

A major topic of conversation this offseason, in regards to the Seattle Mariners, has been if the M’s have truly upgraded from their 2022 roster. At face value, it’s an understandable question. The main core, including a weak offense at times, remains intact and free agency wasn’t exactly how we hoped it would go. However, the trade market is where Jerry Dipoto and Justin Hollander have done a lot of their roster upgrades over the years and this offseason was no different. Yes, Teoscar Hernandez and Kolten Wong are upgrades. If you have doubts about that, it’s time that you stop having those doubts.

Those additions, along with natural progression for our young core, will prove that the 2023 Mariners, barring injury, will be better than the 2022 Mariners. Of course, baseball isn’t simple to predict. There’s also the growing frustration of division rivals like Texas and Anaheim upgrading their rosters while many believe Seattle stayed neutral. That isn’t the case and there’s statistical evidence to prove why 2023 will be the next step in this era of Mariners baseball.

The Continued Ascension of Julio Rodriguez

I don’t think enough people understand just how special Julio Rodriguez is. I don’t think enough people understand just how special Julio Rodriguez will be going forward, either. Yes, Julio received his accolades, which included a Silver Slugger and nearly winning Rookie of the Year unanimously, and many have come to realize the talent that the city of Seattle will be honored to watch for years to come. However, I don’t think enough people truly get how good Julio Rodriguez was in 2022 and how good he’s going to be going forward.

Everyone knows about Julio’s struggles to begin his career, but I’ll discuss it anyway. In the month of April he hit a lowly .205 with a wRC+ of 61, even lower than Jesse Winker and Adam Frazier. The two main concerns about Julio’s first 81 plate appearances were his 37% strikeout rate and that he hadn’t hit a single home run. Once the calendar rolled over to May, there was no stopping Julio, as Sandy Alcantara soon found out in the final game of their three game series in Miami.

From May 1st to the end of the season Julio Rodriguez slashed .297/.355/.550 (.905 OPS), which ranked 6th in all of baseball during this timespan. His .550 slugging percentage also ranked 6th while his 161 wRC+ ranked 5th. Important to note is that his K% dropped to 24% during this time, which is slightly below league average, but you learn to live with it. Even Aaron Judge struck out 25% of the time during this stretch.

From June 1st to the end of the season Julio’s .558 slugging percentage ranked 3rd in baseball behind only Aaron Judge and Yordan Alvarez, who were both far ahead of Julio. His OPS and wRC+ ranked 6th and 5th, respectively. After another productive month in July where he finished with an .884 OPS, was selected to represent the Mariners alongside Ty France in the All-Star Game, and put on a show in the Home Run Derby, Julio struggled in August as he was returning from a wrist injury sustained in a game in late July against the Astros. This didn’t stop the Mariners from signing Julio to a complicated long term extension that has the potential to keep Julio in Seattle for the entirety of his major league career, though. After that? Oh boy.

Just for fun, if you remove the month of August in Julio’s 5/1–10/5 sample size, Julio’s slashline is .309/.368/.579 (.947 OPS) with a 173 wRC+.

After Julio Rodriguez signed his extension and it was announced on August 26th, he went ballistic with his offensive output. How does a 207 wRC+ sound? His 1.071 OPS ranked 4th among hitters with at least 100 plate appearances in this timespan trailing on Aaron Judge, Yordan Alvarez, and Mike Trout. Pretty elite company. His aforementioned 207 wRC+ trailed only Judge and was tied with Yordan. Even his K% improved, dropping to 21.6%, hovering around league average. Even in the playoffs Julio didn’t stop, accruing a .400 OBP during the Wild Card Series in Toronto before following that up with an OPS of .896 against the Astros in the ALDS.

A couple other strengths to Julio’s game are his fielding and his base running. Julio put together 3 DRS and 6 OAA in center field this year, both strong numbers to go with his offensive capabilities. What no one saw coming entering 2022 was his speed. His 29.8 sprint speed ranked 13th in all of baseball, no one thought he was that fast. He used that speed to collect 25 stolen bases and with his 28 home runs he became the 1st player in major league history to have a 25 HR/25 SB season in their debut season. With the rule changes of less pickoff attempts and bigger bases, might we see Julio go for 30/30 or even 40/40? Time will tell. He did sustain two injuries sliding into second base in 2022 so that may prevent Julio from having a guaranteed green light on the base paths.

Another thing to check out with Julio Rodriguez is how he fared against individual pitches. As a rookie, you probably expect him to be all over fastballs and struggling with offspeed and breaking pitches, as most rookies do. Julio is no ordinary rookie. Julio registered at least a run value of 3 on each pitch with the exception of the splitter, which registered a -1 run value. He had run values of 3 on change ups and curves while having a run value of 4 against sliders and 5 against cutters. Where Julio did most of his damage was against 4-seams and sinkers. Julio had at least a 62.5 hard hit percentage against both pitches, with both coming in with an 8 run value or better. When your batted ball profile is compared to Austin Riley, Teoscar Hernandez (hello), and Ronald Acuna Jr., you’re doing something right.

Last thing to cover with Julio are his splits. Playing in Seattle you may think he struggled with hitting at home, like numerous Mariners of the past have. Maybe he struggled with the right on right matchup. For these splits I am using Julio’s stats from May 1st onward, I don’t care about his April because that clearly isn’t who he is and he proved it.

vs LHP: .288/.362/.510 (.872 OPS) 153 wRC+

vs RHP: .299/.353/.563 (.915 OPS) 163 wRC+

Away: .303/.363/.517 (.880 OPS) 151 wRC+

Home: .289/.345/.588 (.934 OPS) 171 wRC+

There are no weaknesses in Julio’s game, it’s insane. He’s 22 years old. He’s only going to keep improving and could easily be in the conversation for top three player in all of baseball by this time next year. It’s a special time to be a Mariners fan because Julio Rodriguez is already the face of this new era of Mariners baseball and he’s just getting started.

Natural Progression from our Core

This one isn’t so simple. Projecting a young core to progress and carry a majority of the load can be risky. The two teams to do it the best have been the Astros and the Braves, two teams the Mariners are trying to replicate. We have seen top prospects in the past just fall flat and never progress like Victor Robles, Jo Adell, and our very own Jarred Kelenic. I will not be covering Kelenic in this part of the article as he has yet to prove himself as apart of our core. I will be covering Logan Gilbert, J.P. Crawford, George Kirby, Cal Raleigh, Matt Brash, and Andres Munoz, though.

Starting with J.P. Crawford, there isn’t too much to dive into here. After an elite start to the season, one where everyone knew it wouldn’t last, J.P. fell off a cliff. From Opening Day to May 5th, J.P. ranked 5th in wRC+ at 202 and his fWAR ranked 4th, trailing only Manny Machado, Nolan Arenado, and Jose Ramirez. After that he only had an 82 wRC+ and a 0.4 fWAR which ranked 22nd… among shortstops. His 82 wRC+ during this span was identical to Isiah Kiner-Falefa. Unlike IKF, J.P. did not have the glove that he once had in 2020 and 2021, ranking as one of the worst defensive shortstops in terms of OAA in 2022.

It is well documented that J.P. was fighting quite a few nagging injuries during the season which very well have been the cause for his sudden regression with the glove. With the bat, no one knows what to expect. From June 1st, 2021 to May 31st, 2022, J.P. had a 121 wRC+ that included an on-base percentage above .360 and a batting average approaching .290, and even better he finished the year with a .359 OBP after September 1st. He’ll slot in as the 8 or 9 hitter and if he can provide Gold Glove defense and be a OBP machine to set up the top of the lineup, he’ll be just fine.

The x-factor of the pitching staff and a guy entering his third MLB season: Logan Gilbert. Gilbert has flashed ace potential on numerous occasions but hasn’t fully put it together just yet, but he’s getting closer. His sophomore season saw an improvement in fWAR, ERA, FIP, and xFIP while his xERA was nearly identical to his 4.09 xERA in his rookie season. How did he improve? Not how you’d think. His K/9 and BB/9 both regressed which is not encouraging to see, however his HR/9 fell below 1.00 while getting more ground balls and escaping jams more frequently as his left on base percentage (LOB%) jumped nearly 10%.

The great thing about Logan Gilbert is that he will give you innings and that’s what he did in 2022, throwing 185.2 IP while going at least 5 IP in all but one of his 32 starts. Gilbert also went at least 6 IP in 18 of his starts, although 6 innings usually is where he capped out as he only entered the 7th inning in seven of those 18 starts. What’s odd about Gilbert’s skillset is that he isn’t the dominant strikeout pitcher you’d think, despite the fastball that normally sat 96–99 MPH down the stretch of the season. Gilbert recorded double-digit strikeouts only once all season, his third to last start of the regular season in Anaheim.

When thinking of what makes Gilbert himself, you think of his overpowering fastball. When he misses, he misses badly. Logan was among the worst pitchers in baseball in average exit velocity and hard hit percentage against him. While his 4-seam wasn’t as statistically great as it was in 2021 (-12 run value and -0.7 RV/100 in 2022 compared to -19 run value and -1.5 RV/100), his slider improved greatly, although it still turned out as an average pitch. Unfortunately, that’s the case for all of his pitches outside of his 4-seam. That’s what makes Gilbert the x-factor of the pitching staff.

Logan Gilbert had a good 2022 season, but if you look a bit deeper you can see some inflation is his ERA and FIP. The Yankees were shut down by Gilbert in 2021 and made sure that history would not repeat itself as they tagged him for 13 runs in 9.1 IP in a back to back start stretch for Gilbert in early August. If you remove those two starts Gilbert’s ERA and FIP improve to 2.71 and 3.12, respectively. That’s the difference between a good season and a great season. After that pair of disappointing starts Gilbert made some tweaks to his slider with the help of veteran catcher Curt Casali. In the ensuing 9 starts Gilbert pitched to a 2.53 ERA and 2.44 FIP while anchoring the rotation as Ray, Kirby, and even Castillo had a few rough outings heading into the postseason. Even during this stretch, his K/9 and BB/9 numbers hardly improved, the big difference was he only allowed two homers in this 53.1 inning stretch of dominance.

Everything came together on September 30th, Gilbert’s final start of the regular season. With the Mariners magic number at 1 and the Orioles already securing a win earlier in the day, Gilbert spun 8 innings of a masterclass that set up one of the biggest swings in the history of the Mariners. He even tossed a solid game against the Astros in Game 1 of the ALDS, even if it was all for nothing at the end of the day. If Gilbert can put it all together in 2023, he’ll be yet another arm in the rotation that opponents should fear.

Speaking of arms in the rotation that should be feared, George Kirby looked nothing short of brilliant in his rookie season. You could tell immediately from Kirby’s MLB debut that he would be something special as he diced up the Tampa Bay Rays on Mother’s Day for 6 shutout innings and 7 punchouts. He battled some consistency issues over his first 10 starts but everything that could go wrong did go wrong in a game against the Orioles in late June as he surrendered four homers and 7 earned runs in a blowout loss. In Kirby’s first 10 starts he had allowed 12 home runs. How many did he allow after that?

One.

That one home run was in the final series of the regular season when Javier Baez took Kirby deep to the opposite field for a homer. This would be the final home run Kirby would allow in the entirety of his rookie season. This includes the postseason, which we’ll get to a bit later.

After the meltdown against the Orioles, Kirby threw 15 more starts to a tune of a 2.92 ERA, a great stretch for a rookie. This timespan includes being sent down around the All-Star break to monitor his innings. What’s most impressive about this stretch, outside of being allergic to allowing home runs for 3 months, was his 1.80 FIP. Among pitchers who threw at least 70 innings during this stretch, his FIP ranked third in all of baseball trailing only AL Cy Young winner Justin Verlander and NL Rookie of the Year runner up Spencer Strider. Pretty elite company. His fWAR ranked 9th among starting pitchers, ahead of guys like Sandy Alcantara, Clayton Kershaw, and Framber Valdez. His HR/9 ranked 2nd and his BB/9 ranked 18th meaning Kirby limited the two biggest issues for most pitchers and did it at an elite level.

Kirby’s biggest strength, even going back to his days at the University of Elon, was his control. He limits walks. George Kirby limited walks so well that he didn’t walk multiple batters until the 23rd start of his career, by far an MLB record. Sadly, he walked three batters twice in his final three starts as he showed some fatigue as the innings were starting to add up. If you were to remove these final three starts from his 7/2–10/5 sample his ERA and FIP improve to a microscopic 2.09 and 1.33, respectively. Now, if you use his entire season, his 2.99 FIP ranks 13th best in all of baseball among pitchers who threw at least 130 innings, tied with Alcantara and ahead of Shane McClanahan, Zac Gallen, Dylan Cease, and Gerrit Cole. Elite stuff.

Like his teammate Logan Gilbert, Kirby usually relies on his 4-seam fastball and rightfully so. His -18 run value on his 4-seam was elite and his offspeed and breaking pitchers ranked average at best. He did learn a sinker as the season went on and did a lot of damage with it, painting corners and inducing weak contact. He allowed a .266 average on the sinker but his expected average was under the Mendoza Line. Unfortunately, this is a theme for Kirby as his .331 BABIP ranked 8th highest in baseball. A lot of this can be attributed to a very mediocre defense behind him when right handed hitters would pull the ball with J.P. Crawford having a -20 OAA, Jesse Winker having a -13 OAA, and Eugenio Suarez having a -5 OAA, all according to Baseball Savant. Hopefully this gets straightened out with a healthy J.P. and an improved defense in left field.

Lastly, let’s talk about Kirby’s playoff performance. Kirby did not crack the 3-man rotation that the Mariners were planning on using for the Wild Card Series in Toronto, so he was relegated to waiting. After an historic comeback in Game 2 of that series, Scott Servais called upon George Kirby to wrap it up and send them to Houston and he did just that while pumping elevated heaters against the Blue Jays lineup. Once the ALDS rolled around it was Robbie Ray who found himself in the bullpen and Kirby was selected to be the Game 3 starter in Seattle’s first home playoff game in over two decades. Unfortunately for the M’s, Ray could not emulate Kirby’s heroics from Toronto and surrendered a walk-off home run in Game 1. When Game 3 was upon us, Kirby didn’t falter, spamming fastballs up in the zone and making the Astros look silly through the entirety of his 7 brilliant innings of shutout baseball, punctuated by a strikeout to Jose Altuve. While they came up short in the end, Kirby proved to everyone in the baseball world that he was up for the task and he’s only going to get better with time.

Now, who caught that game? That would be Cal Raleigh, another cornerstone of this core. At the beginning of the year it seemed like Raleigh was on bust watch and after he got sent down (and recalled due to the season ending injury to Tom Murphy) he was a completely different player. Through May 22nd, in 53 plate appearances, Cal Raleigh had four hits. Four. Three of them were home runs. His slashline was .087/.208/.283 (.490 OPS). It was inexcusable and unplayable. Seattle didn’t have much of a choice with Murphy being out and no one being capable of winning the starting job (Luis Torrens was also having an awful start).

From May 23rd onward Raleigh slashed .228/.296/.519 (.814 OPS) with a 131 wRC+, 5th highest among catchers with at least 300 plate appearances during this timespan. The average and even the on-base are definitely lackluster but Raleigh’s power is legit and his defense is arguably top three at his position. In this timespan Raleigh’s 15.7 defensive fWAR is the highest among catchers, even ahead of Jonah Heim, Adley Rutschman, and J.T. Realmuto. Raleigh’s 4.1 fWAR ranks 4th among catchers trailing only Realmuto, Adley, and Sean Murphy. His 27 home runs led all catchers in baseball as well.

Unfortunately, Raleigh may not have too much more room to improve realistically. He’s always been prone to striking out and he walks around the league average amount. Despite that, I do think he can improve on those numbers, but I don’t think we’re seeing an Adley Rutschman type catcher from Cal Raleigh. Just having this version of Raleigh for 2023 is a huge improvement from early Cal, Luis Torrens, Curt Casali, and Andrew Knapp. That’s on both ends as well.

Raleigh’s main issue right now is that he struggles against LHP and even went hitless after August against them, albeit a small sample. Thankfully, we may have that covered, but I’ll get to that later. And of course, you think I was gonna talk about Cal Raleigh and not bring him up his infamous walk-off?

Relief pitchers are the easiest position to replace in baseball, but when you find an elite reliever you don’t let them go (unless you’re rebuilding then it’s fine). Thankfully, the Mariners have quite a few options for the bullpen in 2023 that shouldn’t involve dumpster diving before the season. The Mariners have the potential to have the best duo of relievers in all of baseball next season with Matt Brash and Andres Munoz. Let’s start with Brash.

After winning the final rotation spot over George Kirby, Brash showcased why the Mariners picked him, striking out 11 over 10.2 innings which included flirting with a no-hitter against the Astros. Unfortunately, things spiraled out of control for Brash quickly, both figuratively and literally. Over his next three starts Brash lasted just 9.1 innings and allowed 13 earned runs, walking more hitters than he struck out (10 walks to 8 strikeouts) and allowed 18 hits. Opponents had an OPS of 1.063 against Brash in these three starts. After his last start in Houston, Brash was sent to Triple-A to become a reliever. He just had too good of stuff to ignore.

Matt Brash made his reliever debut on July 9th and he never looked back, putting together a 2.35 ERA, 1.97 FIP, 12.62 K/9, and 0.9 fWAR, all ranking in the top 30 of qualified relievers from July 9th to the end of the season. Brash still struggled with control as he had a 4.70 BB/9, but he didn’t allow a single home run as a reliever. His dominance continued into the postseason as well, throwing 3.1 scoreless innings with a FIP under 1.00, as he didn’t allow a single homer or walk. With the departure of Erik Swanson, the continued dominance of Matt Brash will be crucial to the bullpen.

Many in the Mariners fanbase, myself included, were excited to see the first season for flamethrowing Andres Munoz. After being acquired in 2020, Munoz was sidelined by injury and outside of an appearance that didn’t even last an inning in 2021, we hadn’t yet seen him. His first appearance in a Mariners uniform couldn’t have gone any worse, surrendering a go-ahead 2-run blast by Byron Buxton in the 8th. Thankfully, Seattle rebounded to win that game in the 9th. Munoz marched on and through his first 11 appearances he sat with a FIP of just 2.59, all was going well. Yet, just a calendar month later, his ERA and FIP both rose above 5.00 and many wanted him sent down. This rough patch included a walk-off grand slam in Boston in extra innings. What to do with Munoz?

The answer was to let him figure it out, and he did just that. From June 13th onward, Munoz was arguably the 2nd best reliever in the entire sport. His 2.4 fWAR was the most among relievers while his 1.21 ERA, 0.67 FIP, 1.53 xFIP, 14.3 K/9, and 1.30 SIERA all ranked in the top 5 of relievers. Just like Brash, he also didn’t allow a single home run during his stretch of brilliance. Unlike Brash, he surrendered one in the playoffs. The greatest part about Munoz’s stretch of dominance isn’t just how he performed, it’s who he was performing against.

Most managers save their best relievers for last, saving them for the 9th inning to close out a game. That isn’t how Seattle uses relievers. The Mariners knew Munoz was their best arm and they deployed him as such. Top of the lineup due up in the 7th? Munoz time. Meat of the lineup due in the 8th? Munoz time. Runners on base and they NEED a stop? Munoz time. There was a game in September at Cleveland where he was used in the 4th inning due to the fear of a rain shortened game. He was the ultimate stopper and his numbers reflect it. There’s absolutely no reason to believe Munoz can’t replicate his dominance in 2023.

For the most part everyone knows about the brilliance of this core, so why go over it? Because many of you forget that these guys started off pretty rough, aside from J.P. and Logan. We get full seasons (hopefully) of this core now which in itself is an upgrade. Speaking of full season upgrades…

The Workhorses

The 2023 Mariners will begin with someone the 2022 Mariners didn’t: Luis Castillo. After coming over to Seattle and absolutely dominating opposing teams (except the A’s in Oakland) Castillo will make the Opening Day start for 2023 and hopefully the 30–32 starts after that in the regular season. Castillo dropped his BB/9 to a career best 2.3 while with Seattle and his K/9 jumped from 9.5 in Cincinnati to 10.6 after the trade. He dominated opposing playoff teams, in the regular season and playoffs, as a member of the Mariners and a full season of his is an automatic upgrade over the 11–12 starts that otherwise would have gone to Chris Flexen, it’s that simple.

Regarding another workhorse we have, Robbie Ray, I went in depth about Ray’s 2022 season and what to expect going forward earlier in the offseason. Something I will add here is that Ray has averaged around 95 on his 4-seam this spring, whereas this time last spring he sat around 90–91. He’s also working on a splitter, so we’ll have to see how that turns out. Either way, promising start to the 2023 season for the former Cy Young winner.

Onto our last two workhorses: Marco Gonzales and Chris Flexen. Barring any injuries, there’s no way both of them make the Opening Day rotation. Both are competing for the final spot in the rotation this spring and the winner should be Flexen, but it’ll most likely be Marco that retains his spot. Neither are nothing more than a 5 starter but they’ll both eat innings. Flexen, from a statistical standpoint, is better than Marco at just about everything. Whoever wins the job should be able to eat a lot of innings.

The Bullpen

We’ve discussed Matt Brash, Andres Munoz, and mentioned the departure of Erik Swanson, but there’s more to the bullpen than just them. Returning from the 2022 squad is Paul Sewald, Matthew Festa, Penn Murfee, and Diego Castillo, while Trevor Gott joins as a new face. Let’s quickly do a rundown of what each can bring to the table.

After a breakout 2021 season many expected Paul Sewald, who struggled mightily as a Met from 2017–2020, to regress. Instead, he actually got better. Normally you wouldn’t say that about a pitcher whose K/9 dropped by 4 strikeouts (14.5 to 10.1) and yet here we are. Despite maintaining an identical HR/9, Sewald dropped his BB/9 and H/9 by one each and finished with a WHIP of just 0.766 in 2022. His late season struggles from 2021 were not an anomaly as he also struggled down the stretch in 2022, having a meltdown against Atlanta in a thriller then blowing up in Game 2 of the Wild Card Series in Toronto and in Game 1 of the ALDS in Houston. It was a rough ending for Sewald but he should be just fine going into 2023.

Diego Castillo had an up and down season, but after a tumultuous start where his ERA sat at 9.00 on May 20th, Diego had an ERA of just 1.96 in 41.1 innings the rest of the way, which included a trip to the injured list. From May 23rd to July 23rd, his 0.77 ERA was 4th best among qualified relievers.

Once Penn Murfee settled into the big leagues in late April he was amazing, accumulating a 1.87 ERA and 2.31 FIP over 33.2 innings from 4/29 to 7/8. After a two outing hiccup where he allowed 4 earned runs, he went back to dominating and had a 2.03 ERA and 2.73 FIP from 7/15 to 9/29, before hitting another two outing hiccup in his final two appearances. His final tally still resulted with a 2.99 ERA and a reliever SIERA of 2.97, tied for 47th best in baseball.

Tied with Penn Murfee was Matthew Festa, whose journey to the 2022 Mariners was a lot different than Murfee’s. After he pitched in games for Seattle in 2018 and 2019, he never appeared in the big leagues in 2020 or 2021. While mostly pitching in games where Seattle trailed or were winning big, Festa had his stretches of struggles and success. From June 7th to September 7th, he accrued a 1.95 ERA and 2.25 FIP. His full season SIERA was still better than the likes of Jordan Romano, Rafael Montero, and Camilo Doval.

Lastly is Trevor Gott, who had his share of struggles in 2022. Before getting injured in early June and mostly struggling afterwards, Gott held a 3.15 ERA and 3.16 FIP while striking out an even 9 per 9 innings. He’ll most likely be one of our lower leverage arms, assuming everyone is healthy.

The Platoons

Wouldn’t be a Mariners team without a platoon or two. Right now the Mariners are planning on using platoons in left field (Jarred Kelenic and AJ Pollock/Sam Haggerty) and second base (Kolten Wong and Dylan Moore/Sam Haggerty). They could also technically platoon catcher while making sure Cal Raleigh gets some rest by using Tom Murphy against lefties.

This is most likely Jarred Kelenic’s final chance to prove that he can be a main contributor to the future of the Seattle Mariners. He has no minor league options after 2023. It’s now or never. The M’s are attempting to help Kelenic’s struggles by bringing in a platoon bat, AJ Pollock. In Kelenic’s last stay in 2022 against RHP he slashed .217/.357/.522 (.879 OPS) and a 155 wRC+ while his K% and BB% were identical at 17.9%. Admittedly the sample was small, but it shows improvement. The key part to this is that he didn’t completely change his swing coming into this spring. Kelenic has destroyed spring training so far, we’ll have to see if it translates.

Platooning with Kelenic is former All-Star AJ Pollock, who isn’t what he once was in Arizona or even Los Angeles, but he still hammers lefties. Even in Chicago, Pollock slashed .286/.316/.619 (.935 OPS) with a 161 wRC+ against left handed pitching. Given the options in free agency there wasn’t a better match to platoon with Kelenic.

For second base our platoon begins with newly acquired Kolten Wong. This move always felt inevitable, or at least to me. The former Gold Glove winner has redefined his offensive game and is not the second coming of Adam Frazier, but we’ll get to that later. What Wong can do is hit righties and he did it very well in 2022, tallying an OPS of .845 and a wRC+ of 135, both very strong numbers. Unfortunately his numbers against LHP completely fell off a cliff, tallying a miserable 37 wRC+. Even at Wong’s best he still couldn’t figure out left handed pitching. However, there’s a bit more to find with Kolten. After having an OPS of .436 through April 25th, Wong finished the rest of the season with an .817 OPS and more importantly, a .291/.375/.515 (.890 OPS) and 148 wRC+ vs righties during this stretch. This isn’t the slap hitting Kolten Wong that many were used to in St. Louis.

Platooning with Kolten will most likely be Dylan Moore, with a hint of Sam Haggerty. Starting with Hags, he slashed .364/.449/.652 (1.100 OPS) with a 211 wRC+ against lefties. Is that sustainable? Absolutely not. It is something to keep an eye out for, though. Back to Dylan Moore, the main platoon partner with Kolten Wong. While D-Mo has shown that he can hit a righty, he should fit this platoon just fine as he slashed .247/.393/.402 (.796 OPS) and a 137 wRC+. His walk rate of 15.6% is fantastic but his 29.5% strikeout rate remains concerning, on top of his .356 BABIP. While Wong/Moore/Hags isn’t the second base solution that many were hoping for this season, it’s still going to be a productive platoon.

Lastly, we have our unofficial platoon of Cal Raleigh and Tom Murphy. We covered Raleigh’s emergence earlier so we won’t do that again but using the same timespan of 5/23–10/5 like we used before, Raleigh’s numbers against RHP were similar to Moore’s against LHP, but trading the high BABIP and BB% for slugging. Raleigh slashed .227/.286/.542 (.828 OPS) with a 135 wRC+ against RHP during his emergence.

Tom Murphy, however, is a little more complicated. He barely played in 2022 due to an injury to his shoulder and he didn’t play at all in 2020 due to the pandemic. Something Murphy has always done as a member of the Mariners is crush lefties. Dating back to 2019, Murphy is slashing .286/.383/.546 (.930 OPS) with a 154 wRC+ against left handed pitching. Is that going back too far? Probably, but it really helps the sample size. If you exclude 2019, he still carries a 128 wRC+ vs LHP since 2021. While his hot start to 2022 probably won’t be replicated, it’s going to be really nice to have Tom Murphy back as a backup catcher in 2023.

The Corners

Going into 2022 no one knew what to expect from third base for Seattle. Long time third basemen Kyle Seager had just retired, Seattle traded for Eugenio Suarez and still had Abraham Toro from the 2021 trade deadline. 2023 is a much clearer picture as Eugenio has taken the job and run with it, even becoming an incredibly productive player. At first base resides 2022 All-Star Ty France and his incredible bat to ball skills. It was an up and down season for France, being selected to his first All-Star Game then following it up with the worst 2 months of his Mariners career. Let’s dive into the corners.

Ty France can be an incredibly frustrating player to watch and that’s for one reason: he plays injured. He tries to help the team win but you can easily tell when he’s playing injured and Ty even admitted it this spring. Let’s look at Ty’s timeline of performances since arriving in Seattle.

9/4/2020–4/19/2021: .306/.383/.483 (.866 OPS) 144 wRC+ (18th best in MLB).

April 19th, 2021: Gets drilled by Dustin May, suffers wrist inflammation.

4/20/2021–5/13/2021: .157/.263/.229 (.491 OPS) 47 wRC+.

May 14th, 2021: Finally gets placed on IL, reinstated on May 24th, 2021.

5/24/2021–6/23/2022: .312/.383/.471 (.854 OPS) 145 wRC+ (14th best in MLB).

June 23rd, 2022: Gets run over at 1st base, suffers left elbow strain.

June 25th, 2022: Placed on IL, reinstated on July 7th, 2022.

7/7/2022-End of 2022: .232/.285/.395 (.680 OPS) 95 wRC+.

People forget just how good Ty France is when he’s not playing injured. Sure, he’s not a first basemen that is going to push for 40 homers but he’s one of the best pure hitters in baseball when he’s healthy and the stats back it up. France appears healthy now and hopefully he stays that way for 2023.

Over to the hot corner with Eugenio Suarez and, honestly, we have one of the few players that almost everyone can agree on is going to be fine. Outside of Julio, almost everyone is a question mark to certain people but even with Eugenio’s strikeout issues and low average, everyone knows what we’re going to get from him. From June 5th to the end of the season Geno had an OPS of .809 and hit 21 homers, translating to 35 over the course of a full 162 games. This is in tune with what many are expecting from Geno. However, after making a tweak to his swing to begin August, Geno had an OPS of .893 over the course of the last two months while hitting 15 homers in just 48 games. Is there even more that Geno can do over a full season?

The Upgrades

Nearly 6,000 words later and we are finally at the point I wanted to mainly get across. Going over how nearly everyone was finishing the season on a fantastic note and how that can carry over into 2023 is one thing, but upgrading with a player from the outside is where people seemed to have conflicting thoughts about the offseason (outside of payroll conversations). Teoscar Hernandez and Kolten Wong (and his platoon) will be an improvement from the right field and second base production of 2022.

Starting with right field: no, Mitch Haniger is not better than Teoscar Hernandez nor are they on the same level. It’s easy to be nostalgic about what Haniger did during his time in Seattle, but it’s time to realize just how good Teoscar Hernandez is. Let’s start by just comparing their 2021 and 2022 seasons with each other.

Mitch Haniger 2021–22: .251/.316/.470 (.786 OPS)

Teoscar Hernandez 2021–22: .282/.332/.508 (.840 OPS)

That comparison may seem a bit unfair since Haniger was injured for more than half of 2022, but even if you just look at 2021, a season where Haniger popped 39 homers and had an .804 OPS, it still wasn’t better than Teo’s stats. It wasn’t even better than Teo’s 2021 from a comparison standpoint. Teo in 2021 finished with an .870 OPS and 4.3 fWAR whereas Mitch only had 2.5 fWAR. There’s also the fact that Mitch Haniger has only played at least 100 games twice in his major league career and he didn’t even play in 2020 due to injuries. For comparison sake, Teoscar has played 100+ in 4 seasons while also playing in 50 of the 60 games in 2020.

Another issue people have with Teoscar is that his overall numbers took a dip from his 2020 and 2021 numbers in 2022, but there’s more to it than that. Teo pulled a “Ty France” and played mostly injured for the first two months, including an IL visit in April, and sat on May 30th with an OPS of just .501 as his average was well below the Mendoza Line. From May 31st onwards he slashed .287/.333/.540 (.873 OPS) with a team high 147 wRC+. That carried into the playoffs, as we all saw, smashing two homers off Robbie Ray in the Wild Card Series. His biggest appeal is his ability to absolutely crush left handed pitching, like Ray, as he had a 1.052 OPS with a 194 wRC+ vs LHP from May 31st onwards. These numbers didn’t inflate his hot stretch as he still had an .832 OPS and a 137 wRC+ against righties.

Last thing to cover with Teoscar is that many are worried Teo’s production declining after coming to Seattle, mostly due to previous stars joining the Mariners only to regress due to their struggles to adjust to T-Mobile Park (Adrian Beltre and Jesse Winker specifically). Something tells me this won’t be an issue. In 16 games at T-Mobile Park, Teoscar carries an OPS of 1.079, his highest at any American League ballpark. When you hit the ball as hard as Teoscar does, there’s only so much the Marine Layer can do to stop it.

Our other key upgrade we made through the trade market is at second base with the acquisition of Kolten Wong. We covered Wong for the most part in the platoons section but some things will be repeated as we compare Wong and the main second basemen of the 2022 Mariners, Adam Frazier.

The biggest misconception from the fanbase this offseason is that Kolten Wong is Adam Frazier 2.0 and that couldn’t be further from the truth. Keep in mind, it wasn’t just Frazier who manned second base in 2022. Another portion of playing time went to Abraham Toro, who was just as bad as Frazier. Seattle second basemen combined for a 74 wRC+ and a miniscule 0.4 fWAR, both ranking in the bottom five in all of baseball. Milwaukee, largely thanks to Kolten Wong, placed in the top ten of both wRC+ and fWAR for second basemen. Not even using Wong’s platoon splits, Wong collectively had a wRC+ higher than Frazier by 34(!) points. That’s the same difference between Alex Bregman (136 wRC+) and Carlos Santana (102 wRC+).

The last key comparisons between the two that need to be made are the style of play between the two. Frazier was an All-Star in 2021 then was traded to Seattle and fell off, many blaming T-Mobile Park for that. In reality it was just that Frazier’s All-Star first half was flukey thanks to an incredibly high BABIP, which is why Frazier regressed after being traded to San Diego. Many believe Wong will suffer the same fate and while the Marine Layer will definitely affect some of Wong’s power that he enjoyed in the hitters park in Milwaukee, he isn’t the slap hitter that Frazier is. Not anymore, at least.

In 2022, Kolten Wong had a higher average exit velocity (87.0 MPH to 85.1 MPH), max exit velocity (109.7 MPH to 105.1 MPH), Barrel% (5.4% to 1.5%), HardHit% (35.2% to 23.8%), and wOBA (.336 to .274). Now what were Frazier’s numbers from his All-Star season you might ask? They were largely in line with what he did in 2021, so he didn’t just regress because of the park he played in, he regressed because he simply wasn’t getting as lucky as he did in 2021. To add some perspective, if you put Frazier’s 2021 and 2022 hard hit percentages and gave them to Kolten Wong, they would automatically become career worsts for Wong. These two are not the same player and that narrative needs to end.

Potential Help

Last but not least we have players who might be able to help us in the 2023 season, even if they don’t make the Opening Day roster. Just a quick rundown of each player that can help, no need for three paragraphs of each, you’ve been reading long enough.

Prelander Berroa: Acquired during the 2022 season from San Francisco, Berroa has quickly turned heads thanks to his devastating slider and electric fastball, gaining comparisons to Andres Munoz. Oddly enough if you compare Berroa’s 2022 season to Munoz’s minor league stats, Berroa has actually been slightly better. Berroa could be a huge piece for the bullpen down the stretch.

Bryce Miller: Despite just one full season in the minors since being drafted in 2021, Miller has already become a top two prospect in the Mariners system. Armed with a high 90’s fastball and two sliders, Miller has gained a lot of hype throughout the offseason and now the spring as he continues his speedrun of the minors. If he can’t crack the M’s rotation look for him to take the Matt Brash route and head to the bullpen, just like Prelander Berroa.

Evan White: The former first basemen of the future is now on the outside looking in after back to back seasons of injuries derailing his career. It wasn’t just injuries causing that as he also struggled mightily in the majors (.544 OPS in 306 PA). White appears to be healthy and with a revamped swing could prove to be Ty France’s insurance should he get injured.

Casey Sadler: A shoulder injury caused Sadler to lose the entire 2022 season and is now competing for a spot in M’s bullpen, but he’s only a season removed from having a microscopic 0.67 ERA and 2.48 FIP in 40.1 innings in 2021 as the M’s made a late playoff push. Sadler was just as important to that bullpen as Sewald or Steckenrider was and he could be needed again in 2023, but he has his work cut out for him.

Cade Marlowe: Brought along the taxi squad during the playoffs, Marlowe was never activated but it was clear that the Mariners valued his skillset and for good reason. The outfielder has collected consecutive 20HR-20SB seasons, including 42 steals between AA and AAA in 2022. His great defense also is a major key to his game and with Taylor Trammell already sidelined and Jarred Kelenic on his last leg, Marlowe may get a shot sooner than you think.

Cooper Hummel: Last but not least is the return from the Kyle Lewis trade in November of 2022 from the Diamondbacks. Hummel’s versatility is one that isn’t seen often, being able to roam the outfield and be able to catch behind the dish. Hummel’s big attraction is his walk rates, but outside that he has struggled in his short stint in the bigs. Hummel could easily be used as a deep bench piece thanks to his unique versatility.

The Long Awaited Conclusion

Over 7,000 words later and now we are finally here. Sure, baseball is impossible to predict and there’s a chance when October rolls around this will have all been for nothing, but there was simply too many doubting that we truly got better, and I hope after reading this you can understand why many do believe that we got better. There definitely was a shorter way to put all of this, but having all of the in-depth statistics and the specific statistical successes from certain players during certain times were too much to ignore. There’s a lot of positive signs with this team, especially with how most played down the stretch of 2022. It’s going to be a fun year.

If you made it this far and read this entire article, I thank you. I spent weeks putting this together and enjoy writing Mariners related articles in my spare time. Hopefully you enjoyed this article as much as I do.