In many years of Seattle Mariners history, the front office, coaches and players have typically been prepping for the offseason and the next campaign by season’s end.

But it’s a different story for the 2025 Mariners, who are in the playoffs for just second time since 2002 and division champs for the first time in 24 years.

‘Ready to compete’: Julio looks forward to Seattle Mariners’ playoff run

This year’s Mariners club is spending its first days post-regular season waiting to see who its American League Division Series opponent will be while getting ready for what they hope will be a deep playoff run that takes the franchise to levels its never reached before: first, an appearance in the Fall Classic, and second, a World Series title.

President of baseball operations Jerry Dipoto and general manager Justin Hollander hope to help get them there with the choices they’ll have a heavy hand in making for postseason personnel.

Rosters shrink from 28 players back down to 26 for the postseason, and teams have to submit who be on the roster prior to the start of each series. They can choose to have up to 13 pitchers but no more than that. However, they can opt to roll with more than 13 position players.

Before Sunday’s regular-season finale against the Dodgers, Dipoto said the Mariners are leaning towards going with more position players than pitchers in the best-of-five games ALDS.

“While we haven’t made the final decisions on those last spots, the great likelihood is we’ll go position-player heavy because of the nature of the short series,” he said, “and the fact that, at some point, one of our starters will be positioned in the bullpen, which we feel really helps that group out there.”

Dipoto didn’t name which starter will eventually move to the bullpen. The top candidate for that role would seemingly be right-hander Bryce Miller, who pitched out of the bullpen for two seasons in college at Texas A&M and has a repertoire that could play up in a shorter role where he can throw max effort on every pitch.

After making the start in Sunday’s series finale, Miller said he hadn’t had any specific conversations about coming out of the bullpen, but he was told to be “ready to go early in the series.”

“I don’t think I’ll have any issue getting ready and being able to do that,” Miller said. “I’ll be ready however they want me to.”

As for the final spots for position players, versatility is something the Mariners are coveting. Dipoto named Leo Rivas, Miles Mastrobuoni and Cole Young all as roster candidates with abilities to play multiple positions.

“We’ve already had a fair number of discussions regarding (the roster), and versatility is really valuable,” Dipoto said.

But the biggest topic of debate for Dipoto and the Mariners on the position player side is whether or not they will carry rookie Harry Ford as a third catcher.

Ford was called up when rosters expanded to 28 players on Sept. 1. He played sparingly in September, getting into a handful of games as a pinch-hitter or defensive replacement late. In Saturday’s penultimate game of the regular season, he got his first career start.

While Ford hasn’t had a regular role during his time in the majors, the Mariners’ roster construction makes his presence valuable even if he’s getting much action.

“Through the course of September, one of the benefits of bringing Harry was that (Mitch Garver) can DH against lefties, and we would have the ability to pinch-hit for him and still maintain a backup catcher, which is a pretty critical thing,” Dipoto said.

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