Looking at the Mariners’ payroll situation

The Mariners made the postseason in 2022, breaking the longest active drought in the majors as they hadn’t been to the postseason since 2001. Many expected the club to be extremely active this offseason to keep the good times going but they have been fairly quiet so far, making a few trades while their only free agent signing has been reliever Trevor Gott, who secured a modest $1.2M guarantee. Ryan Divish of The Seattle Times recently took a look at the club’s offseason and reports that president of baseball operations Jerry Dipoto and general manager Justin Hollander might not have as much money to work with as had been expected.

It’s not as though the Mariners have been inactive. Their primary moves have been on the trade front, as they acquired Teoscar Hernández from the Blue Jays and Kolten Wong from the Brewers. Put together, the club’s various moves have put their payroll at $135M, per Roster Resource. That’s a notable jump from last year’s $104M Opening Day figure, per Cot’s Baseball Contracts, but it’s still well shy of the club’s previous competitive window. From 2016 through 2019, the Mariners opened the season between $143M and $158M. Given a few years of inflation and some extra league revenues coming into play since then, it was thought that Seattle could approach and even go beyond those previous spending levels. The reporting from Divish indicates they will approach that range in the future but it doesn’t seem like this will be the winter.

That would explain the seeming lack of aggression from the team, but it’s surely frustrating for the fans who hoped that the 2022 success would lead to some kind of splash this winter. Instead, many of the big splashes have been happening around them in the division. The reigning World Series champion Astros have signed José Abreu while re-signing Michael Brantley and Rafael Montero. The Rangers completely overhauled their rotation by signing Jacob deGrom, Andrew Heaney, and Nathan Eovaldi, in addition to re-signing Martín Pérez and acquiring Jake Odorizzi. The Angels have signed Tyler Anderson, Brandon Drury, and Carlos Estévez while trading for Hunter Renfroe and Gio Urshela.

There are still about six weeks until Spring Training begins, meaning there’s time for the club to pull something out of its sleeve. But it seems like they believe in their incumbent players enough to have mostly steered clear of this offseason’s free-agent spending frenzy. Most of the top free agents are already attached to new teams at this point, with Jurickson Profar and Michael Wacha among the top names still out there.

Hernández and Wong will effectively replace Mitch Haniger and Adam Frazier, two of the club’s most significant free-agent departures alongside Carlos Santana. Barring some huge trade coming together in the next few weeks, it seems the Mariners will go into 2023 with a fairly similar roster to the one they had in 2022. It’s possible they could see improvement from within, as young players like Julio Rodríguez, Logan Gilbert, and George Kirby could take steps forward in their development. A full season of Luis Castillo, acquired at last year’s trade deadline, will surely be a boon as well. The Hernández/Wong duo could certainly outproduce Haniger/Frazier, but it doesn’t look like any eight-figure free-agent deals will be part of their additions. Whether that faith in the core is justified or not will be determined as the upcoming season plays out. Then again, Dipoto has a reputation for being the most trade-happy executive in the sport and could still shake things up in the next few weeks.