Mariners Roundtable Part 1: What We Learned From the 2025 Season | Seattle Sports

Mariners Roundtable Part 1: What We Learned From the 2025 Season | Seattle Sports

Guys, it’s great to have you in the studio where we have a opportunity for a little bit of a longer conversation and we’ve got a full off season to get to everything that could be facing this Mariners team. But I thought, you know, as good a place to start as any would be just taking the smallest look back. I don’t really want to rehash, you know, anything that happened in the postseason that’s been done or um anything too specific, but I’m really curious in coming away from this season, what is something that you learned watching this team this year? You want me to start? Let’s go. Um, first of all, you know, it’s tough because it still hasn’t worn off from that, you know, that game seven for me and and for a lot of people too in regards to how close they were to get to the World Series for the first time. However, when you sort of you you zoom out a little bit and you look at the entire season and and going back to what they did in the winter leading into 2025 um and then what happened throughout the season obviously the magical year from Cal um Julio having more than just the second half in my opinion. I think it’s he started to get going a little bit earlier than that with all that being with all that being said and then get to the ALCS the way they did. It was just it was a magical year. It really was. And there was just, you know, I know we’re going to get into it in regards to some of the things that they can add um or or make sure they have, but I think the biggest thing I took away from this year is you cannot anticipate and that you are going to get the same starting pitching just because of what they did in 2024. And you know, Shannon, I remember talking to you about this going into uh 2025 and even down spring training. And you look at this going, well, just to expect that those five guys are going to repeat exactly what happened in 2024 is a ridic is a really tough expectation. And I think that when you go really back and you look and and say, well, Emerson Hancock, yeah, he he filled a gap there, but you know, Logan Evans having to fill some of those games. I think that was something that going into 2026 you can learn from and say maybe there’s a little bit of added depth or maybe you can get a little bit more flexible if you do want to start messing around with a trade here and there and and figuring things out to bolster your team in 2026. You just cannot simply think that your pitching is going to repeat because it’s I mean it’s it’s so volatile at the best of times and we’ll get into it in just a bit. But to me the Mariners starting pitching I think to everybody it was all built on that of course but with that group in particular you’re looking at the sum of the parts being the strength of that. It isn’t one two or three guys. I think something that I learned and suspected was you need all five. Yeah. Big time. or six or seven or what was it the wolfpack thing that Jerry said in the past. Yeah, it does take a village uh not just one or two guys to get you through a season for me. Um I don’t know if it was new, but it was certainly something we all forget, myself included, and it was drilled back into me, which is it really just doesn’t matter how it feels. You know, I I ended up writing about that a few weeks ago. Baseball doesn’t care how you feel. Oh, it feels like this has been a bad off season. Oh, it feels like they’re moving in the wrong direction. It feels like everything is over after getting swept in Yankee Stadium or Arizona or Philadelphia or all the other places they got swept over the course of the season only to turn right back around and reel off however many wins in a row. Your feeling doesn’t matter or how awful it feels after losing game four at home only to go back and win game five and then feel like you are right on the cusp of everything only to have that ripped back away. Like the feeling in baseball just doesn’t mean that much. The next day it can completely change. Ryan knows next day starting pitcher. Maybe it’s not even the next day starting pitcher. Maybe it’s the next pitch thrown by that pitcher or the next bullpen reliever that comes in. This game just changes so rapidly that every time we want to treat it like the other sports, not just football, but all the other sports of like, well, it’s going this way, so it’s going to continue to go this way. Is the moment it just rises back up and says, uh, no, that’s not how baseball works. Thanks again. Well, it’s hilarious because I kind of felt the other end of that. Like I try and be as analytical as I can, as as logical and pragmatic as I can for everything throughout a season because it is 162 games and then all of a sudden, oh no, these things matter. The feelings matter. It it it actually this is it. I mean how baseball accelerated in the month of September and then in the postseason totally different than any other season even 22 I thought where it was you know it was a first I don’t think it was as much of an expectation uh you were just kind of barreling towards it and hoping but this year you were expecting after you hit that winning streak and man the stakes just got raised like it was unbelievable I was almost going back earlier though and thinking about so the two two of the three most successful seasons in in this team’s history are 2001 and 2025 now. And I think before both of those seasons, there was not a like, hey, this team’s going to be really good. Well, that’s what I was going to say like going into this season, you think about it. The biggest acquisition was Palanco at $6 million really, right in the winter. And and that’s I wasn’t I’m not sitting here saying that you went into 2025 thinking, well, we’ll see how we go. But it wasn’t this, hey, look, we’ve just added this and we’ve added that and all of a sudden this is the expectation. small step back potentially, right? That big 84 wins. No. No. I mean, because if they had if that had happened, would everybody still be here right now? No, but I’m not sure I expected everybody to still be here. Well, that was the expectation. It was a fair playoffs were very much a fair expectation, not just playoffs. After everything playoffs, I did not have that level of expectation. Well, you should have. I mean, from everything that they were trying to build. I mean, as far as, you know, when you talk about, oh, this was promised or that, nothing’s really promised, but there are expectations that at this point last year in where this Mariners were after the tear down and after the step back and all that, it was well beyond time. And the expectation, it’s very fair that fans have that this team makes the postseason and goes further than they’ve gone before. And then it was, I think, probably a little bit shocking when you didn’t see the moves that were made. I guess that’s yeah heading into last offseason I would have had that but then by the time the offseason was done and and we were at spring training my I remember my take at spring training was going from 83 84 wins to all right maybe 87 wins somewhere in that range you kind of get there and around them and you pick up some of that hope the point I was making is that going into the actual season not the off seasonason in 2001 2025 I don’t know that anybody thought those Mariners teams were going to be the two best we’ve ever And I almost think back of Ryan’s poor I don’t mean to bring up the bad memory of the 2010 team. I know how much you love to talk about it, but believing big and thinking that that team was really about to go somewhere and the expectations and the weight of them just seemed to completely crumble that team from the inside out. Maybe there was a little something to not having the highest expectations fored on this team at the beginning that allowed them to go out and exceed what everybody else felt that. I do think they felt the players themselves had an expectation to get to the postseason. Yeah. Not from the outside though. To me, I just think the put in winning totals. It was a situation where you looked at this team, especially once you got to spring training and say, “All right, you’re going to be in the mid 80s. Win win total. That’s not going to get it done regardless of what the Houston Astros were doing at that point.” And obviously they were um they created this giant window for the Mariners this year. They really did. And somehow they hung around for as long as they did with everything they had going on. But they had dominated that division for so long. And you looked at this team going into spring training. They get Palano late and you look and go, “Okay, hm, you’re going to project in the 85 to 86 win total.” And to me, I was like, man, like you are really banking and back to the pitching point, you’re banking so heavily on pitching centric, get a little bit of a upgrade and not striking out a whole lot offensively. But and that’s that’s going back to once you finish 2025 and look back, man, what what a year. And just even the fact the Mariners were willing to the front office were willing to go with Josh Naylor and Gino Suarez. This wasn’t this, hey, let’s justify these moves and this is someone we got under team control at the trade deadline. This is why we’re No, it’s just flat out. No, no. This right now, this team, this core of players we have, we’re going to add this these two essentially rental players. hopefully Josh Naylor everyone’s you know obviously he’s a priority this year to that was really the first time they’ done that but they had gotten to that point in above expectations to me of that caliber% and and it also should just to add on to your point I totally agree with that is they didn’t take anything off the roster at the same time when they added those two guys it wasn’t well we need to move on from so and so in order to make it balance make it work you know they just added It was just a flatout addition. There was no balancing act in order to make it happen. I don’t think And Shannon, you’re in the clubhouse, Ryan. You’re around them a lot more than I am, both of you guys. You would have a better sense as to the effect that had on the clubhouse and on the players. But my experience of being around teams is that when you flat out add at the deadline and they feel believed in, they’re like, “All right, let’s go. This this management believes we’ve got it. now it’s up to us to go, you know, pay them back for what they’ve done for us and we have the confidence to go do it. So, I would imagine that had an effect on it as well. Oh, I I have no doubt that it did. But I want to take it back to a little bit about what Ryan was just saying because I think it kind of it kind of blends into the next topic here very well. If you look back at this time last year, a lot of the national pundits were talking about, well, the Mariners missed their window with the pitching. And this year is going to be the bridge year to get to the new group of talent. And we’re talking the Montes, we’re talking about the Stangers, we’re talking, you know, the Emersons in that group and whatnot. to which case I mean that was kind of a bitter pill to swallow if that was something that you bought into especially taking into consideration is how long is it going to take to get these players up and going to where you know they can go again and were they slamming the door okay it was going to be one and done for this group with the postseason and thankfully that’s not happened. So seeing where they have ended up and seeing where they ended the season and what they did in the postseason and where they’re at right now general health of the organization when you look at it today what do you see one year two year three year out I think this team and you know Jeff Pass I’m glad on your show I’m glad he said it um for multiple reasons because it’s it’s very true you talk about the general health they leave in that physical just A+, right? Like, and the reason I say that is because, all right, who is, you know, we know Palano, that was the biggest one, obviously declined his option, which he kind of anticipated, but you’re coming off a situation where he did have a bounceback year. They have built a little bit of rapport with him that maybe they can figure something out. Beyond that, what are you really losing, right? And and you look at some of these other teams, these top 10 teams in the American League, and especially the Astros, too. The Astros have got to figure out their rotation even after this just after Frra Valdez and everything else they pieced it together with in the AO West. I just think you’re you’re the most stacked when it comes to the top 100. We know about that in the prospect list. All those prospects that you were rattling off now have gone from Aball couple years. We’ll see what happens to now they’re on the doorstep which is massive. Um but the core of this team is under team control. I mean you’ve got Brian Woo who’s not even arbitration eligible yet. You’ve got Bryce Miller who’s going to make no more than $3 million. The the biggest cost you’re going to have as an R player is Logan Gilbert around 10 million bucks. And I think too, just back to that point of this point last year you made in regards to not giving up on that pitching. Now I feel like maybe there is a little bit more room to be maybe a little bit more flexible with how they they structure what they do with this rotation. Um I just think man they’re in a great spot because this isn’t a situation you lose that ALCS now you’re losing four key players key role players to um to free agency. You already knew Josh Naylor the situation that’s a priority obviously but when you compare it to some of these other teams the way they’re not being dismantled but losing some key players I think it’s funny I don’t know that I fully see it the same way overall I would say the health of the organization is tremendous. I mean, obviously the farm system they have to have that farm system coming off of the year they just did is ideal. So overall health is an A. It’s an A. I mean like if you’re giving it a grade, it’s an A. But you just said like, hey, they’re not about to lose three or four role players. Yeah, they are. I mean, as of right now today, Josh Naylor, Auo Suarez, and Jorge Palano are not on the Mariners. And we’ll see. They may end up there. And I’m not saying that the health of the organization wouldn’t be right back to an A with at least one or two of those guys, but until we know what’s happening, this this this this lineup was really six deep during the postseason. The three guys at the end were kind of up and down, but you the threat was first six guys in this lineup are all a threat. Well, half of those six guys are now free agents. So with that when you look at how they’ve they when you see Garver leave right you look at that and you say what what are they roughly sitting at right now payroll wise 140 something 140 something million right and Jerry doto talked about what you know what they’re at at the end of last year he made some comments in regards to that so you look at that and say all right if now again I’m not if I’m Josh Naylor in this situation man he has built some serious leverage against his team because the fans want him back he said he loves playing here. He had a really good year, really strong postseason. The first base market is not exactly blooming with options, right? So, that that’s a big one. That’s obviously a priority. Nor is this organization. But the my point is you have room there with him um to say, “All right, you’re going to be around the $20 million. We’re willing to overpay a little bit. If you want to come back, we’re willing to overpay maybe an extra year or extra couple million.” And then you’ve got a situation with Palano. If you can somehow get him at what’s he around 10 to 12 million a year or something like that, right? I think so. If you come back to me in a couple weeks, Ryan, and say, “Hey, they’ve gotten those two deals done.” I’m going to I’m going to say to you like you want you’ve had an unbelievable offseason. Now you can go do whatever you want. You want to talk about shortstop, you want to talk about bringing in some of the young guys to start to fill some of those spots, and I think it’s important to find ways to blend them in. you want to talk about trading for Terk Scubble, like, hey, if you’re really in go for it mode and you’ve got Naylor back and Palano back, like, okay, I think there’s a really good conversation. My point isn’t to say that the Mariners aren’t in good shape. They are. But with those three guys as of today, unsigned, you have to look at them, at least I do, as unknowns. I don’t know what they’re going to do at first base next year. If Josh Naylor decides, hey, I want to be in New York. I don’t know what the Mariners’s next option is. There’s a guy from Japan who strikes out 50% of the time. there’s a a guy from, you know, it’s Ryan Mount Castle in a trade. It’s uh, you know, they’re not gonna get Pete Alonzo. So, like, is it Palano every day and now you have to have a different conversation about DH and second base? I’m not saying those things can’t be worked out. Of course, they can. There’s a million options and Josh Naylor wasn’t even one of them until two months left in this season. But you got to start working through some of those things cuz if it if the if the if the season starts today and it doesn’t, you’re looking at what uh Ben Williamson and Colt Emerson competing at third, Cole Young playing second, and Luke playing first. All right, I’m in a situation where I have this stacked farm system. Now I am not looking at the team and saying um and this back to the Jeff Passen comment. I’m not looking at this going oh hey look we have to keep this um you know keep this level of expectation and go just deplete a farm system to go and get whatever they but all I’m saying is at the end they weren’t willing to give up any of their starting pitching last year and that was their that was their their healthiest stock right there. Now all of a sudden you have this farm system as they didn’t give up anything at the trade deadline. Now all of a sudden you their biggest acquisition in my opinion is not going to come via free agency. It’s going to come with if they are willing to get a controllable player for the next three to five years out there whether they can fill some of those gaps. But but that that I was about to bring that up. The third base to me that’s a that’s that’s a big hole right now when I’m looking at at this at this team. And nothing against Ben Williamson. I’m not and I think you can have a hole like that by the way. Like I’m not I’m not sitting here saying you can’t go into the year with a question mark at third base with Williamson and Colt Emerson and maybe somebody else that you’ve brought in as possibilities. You know, I think if you learn anything from the Blue Jays, it is, hey, Addison Barger, they had to give him space to turn into the player he was. He might have been, well, other than Vlad, the best player in the series against the Mariners. They had to give space for Ernie Clement. They had to give space for some of those young guys to take the spot. And the Mariners may need to do that with Cole Young and or Colt Emerson and or Ben Williamson. Yeah. But I don’t know that you want to do it with all of them. Like you want to make sure that you’re limiting some of that exposure so that you can put those guys in a good position to succeed. Not having four of them in a row. Harry Ford would be another guy that you probably put in that category. I want to see some of those guys this year. I just don’t know that I want to be counting on them at four different positions. Maybe one or or two. And Justin and Jerry talked about that at the end of the year. I mean, obviously you’ve got these prospects coming and all of a sudden it’s a little bit more of a challenge to work them in and this isn’t a year where you’re going to and how many times have we seen we’re going to go wholesale young guys and let the young guys run with it and see what happens. They can’t do that right now. Do you think Shannon that the that Cole Young was the blueprint for how they’d like to do that moving forward? I think that um probably although I think that the the grade for that is still out because he did fade very much and you did the smart thing. You pulled him back. You didn’t put him in the tough situations. Hey, we’re not going to lean on you in this situation. We’re just not even going to play you in the postseason. You know, go ahead, watch, learn everything else at this point. Uh I I think that had he had to be sent back down perhaps that should have been fine and maybe that would have helped if he had been. In fact, that probably would have helped if he had been when they stopped playing him. I hope there’s not an aversion to that. That’s part of the process for so many of them. Um, but yeah, I I do think that we could see that a little bit, but it kind of lends itself to what I think the Mariners, I’m not going to say, have stumbled because now I think they actively plan for it. And what they do is they are and and a lot of teams do that and they do it in different ways. The Dodgers do it, but they do it in a different way with a bigger budget. First half and a second half team. And I I think that this, you know, could start out and you could see two, would you see three of them in the lineup? I don’t think so. But you’re going to have that time in April, May, and June by design. Worked for them this year. It’s worked for them in the past. Get to the deadline. Be in it at the deadline. Make the big impact move because like what you were just talking about, hey, if you can go out and find that guy that’s got three, four years of club control, uh that guy wasn’t findable last year on an offensive level. And we’re seeing it less and less. And there wasn’t interest in the Mariners young prospects last year in trade at this time. So, I I think that maybe you can get better mileage out of those prospects if you do actually play them. And you’re going to have to take some lumps at that point. You know what was crazy, too? Just back to the deadline, you think about like those relief arms and and you call it, you know, all I’m caring about in this situation is is August and September was that was way more competitive than getting a dude who hit 49 home runs. You notice that? like the Mariners were really and Justin Holland has said this to me, you know, during um right after the deadline. He goes, “Man, we were just down to the wire calling call trying to get that last bullpen piece. They couldn’t quite get it.” I’m sitting there going, “Hold on a minute. You gave up like virtually not a whole lot at all to get a Josh Naylor and a Gino Suarez. Yet trying to get that bullpen piece at the deadline wasn’t so easy. I just think and and again that there was times it’s always going to cost you especially if you’re on the the losing part of the of a series that cost them big in the playoffs too. It really did not having that extra arm in that bullpen massively. I just think with that like I look at that and say all right you’ve got this core group of players and then you can go hard at the deadline. However, it’s not that I don’t think it’s I think every year it’s going to get more and more competitive. You’re going to have to give up more and more just to get that one bull piece. There’s that risk thing, right, where, you know, if you go back and they thought they had their bullpen piece, they thought they offered something that was a better package than what Philadelphia did for Duran, but you can’t account for what some other team values. And if at the end of the day, the Twins or whoever it is next year who’s in that position says, “Yeah, I appreciate the offer. I just like what these guys are offering more,” that that’s the risk you put yourself in with the first and second half thing. I I like the idea behind it. I’m not, again, I’m not opposed to that. But I I think you do have to give some of your young players room to grow into it. But you are taking a risk if you if you were counting on, you know, purchasing at the deadline, you need to tango in all of those things. But I think it’s paid off the last few years for numerous teams. I think the bigger impact players have been available and with the way that baseball is built right now and so many teams thinking they’re in it early or going into the season, you’re seeing less of it. It’ll be interesting to see that plays into it. You know, put Luis Castillo into it a few years before that. they have made impact moves at the deadline and they weren’t shy about it this year. Another thing you can do with the bullpen in particular is you can grow that piece from within. What’s to say that you know you don’t have SA running out as a starter for most of the year this year getting ready for next year or late and perhaps you put him into a bullpen role in August in September and bring him in to be that guy you know in the postseason and and be shouldn’t be too far away either. Yeah, I think he’ll probably I wouldn’t be surprised if he’s in the rotation at some point next year. But you have those guys. Ryan Sloan at that point. You could, you know, bring him in as a big power arm, too. So hopefully the help is there. But yeah, I I agree with you. That is, you know, one piece that could have made a lot of impact. Uh this is a really good place to break, and we’re going to get into in our next uh conversation what this is going to look like as far as what they need to go after. We’ve talked, we’ve hit on it a little bit on the starting pitching and the state of the starting pitching. How does that play into do they need to go find another starter? Can you trade a starter right now? And what could these next few weeks look like for the Mariners as free agency begins and we start to see more trades? You’ve got the general managers meeting or the general meetings coming up, the baseball meetings, everything. We’re getting close right now. So, want to get your thoughts on that coming up next.

Mariners Insider Shannon Drayer, Mike Salk (Brock & Salk) and Mariners Broadcaster Ryan Rowland-Smith sit down to reflect on the 2025 season and how impact moves shaped the season.

Catch Part 2 here: https://youtu.be/cF441Tn9XGo?si=r8huZCiutfwJ5oGi

Complete coverage & more interviews at SeattleSports.com.

—-

0:00 – What we learned this season
5:00 – What were expectations this season?
8:30 – Impact of Trade Deadline Acquisitions
10:50 – Mariners future outlook
12:30 – Josh Naylor and Jorge Polanco’s free agency
16:45 – Which prospects will we see soon?
19:45 – 1st Half vs 2nd Half rosters

—