After being in the wild card race right down to the last week of the 2016 season, will the Seattle Mariners be legitimate contenders in 2017?
The Seattle Mariners haven’t been to the playoffs since 2001, but are coming off a season in which they were in contention in the final week of the season. They also have a general manager who is more than willing to make moves to try to improve the team. Jerry Dipoto took over as Mariners GM in September 2015 and has made 34 trades since then, the most in baseball. The Atlanta Braves’ 25 trades are second-most during that time.
Recently, the Mariners made two separate trades that essentially swapped platoon outfielder Seth Smith for platoon outfielder Jarrod Dyson and pitcher Nate Karns for pitcher Yovani Gallardo. After the trades Dipoto said, “We feel we have five legitimate center fielders” in Dyson, Leonys Martin, Mitch Haniger, Ben Gamel, and Guillermo Heredia. He also explained the acquisition of Gallardo, a pitcher with a declining fastball who had a 5.42 ERA in an injury-shortened season last year.
So, as the team is currently constructed, are the Seattle Mariners contenders in 2017? With the caveat that much can happen between now and Opening Day, the American League appears to have two co-favorites on the top tier in Boston and Cleveland, with the Astros right below them. As it happens, those three teams are in separate divisions. I would say they are the favorites to win the AL East, Central, and West, respectively.
This puts the Mariners in with a mix of teams vying for the two wild card spots. FanGraphs has the American League projected like this (as of January 7):
93-69 Red Sox
91-71 Indians
90-72 Astros
84-78 Angels
83-79 Yankees
83-79 Tigers
82-80 Mariners
82-80 Rangers
82-80 Blue Jays
82-80 Rays
78-84 Royals
78-84 Athletics
78-84 Orioles
75-87 Twins
71-91 White Sox
You can quibble with the specifics. I’m sure most people would not expect the Los Angeles Angels to be the fourth-best team in the AL and the Orioles and Royals have done better than expected in recent years. Some teams haven’t finished their off-season moves, but with Dipoto at the helm the Mariners are probably still looking to make moves. In general, though, the Mariners look to be in the mix.
On the following slides are the main players expected to play each position with the combined projected Wins Above Replacement (WAR) for that position, according to FanGraphs. As a reminder, this is a guide to WAR:
0-1 WAR: Scrub
0-2 WAR: Role player
2-3 WAR: Solid Starter (2 WAR is league average)
3-4 WAR: Good Player
4-5 WAR: All-Star
5-6 WAR: Superstar
6+ WAR: MVP
Let’s take a look at the Mariners hitting, starting pitching, and relief pitching.