Seattle Mariners president of baseball operations Jerry Dipoto said Thursday that he anticipates the club’s 2026 season-opening payroll to be roughly on par with their 2025 end-of-season payroll.
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According to Spotrac.com, the Mariners finished the 2025 season with a payroll of roughly $164 million, which ranked 15th in the major leagues. That was an increase from their 2024 season-ending payroll of $149 million, which ranked 16th.
The Mariners took on nearly $10 million of additional payroll with their aggressive moves at the trade deadline to acquire third baseman Eugenio Suárez, first baseman Josh Naylor and reliver Caleb Ferguson.
“I would say similar to where we ended the year as a starting point,” Dipoto told reporters during an end-of-season press conference just days after Seattle’s Game 7 loss to the Toronto Blue Jays in the American League Championship Series.
“We ended the season, I think, with the second-highest or highest payroll that we’ve ever had as a franchise. And this was always the goal – to methodically build toward what we were doing.”
According to Spotrac, the Mariners’ payroll was around $161 million in both 2017 and 2018 before they began their rebuild. Their payroll dipped below $100 million in 2020 and 2021 before steadily increasing each of the past four seasons.
“I’m comfortable that the resources that we’re given, we’re going to have every ability to go out and put together a championship-quality team,” Dipoto said. “And like we have in recent years, when we get into the right position, I’m certain that we will be aggressive in doing the next thing.”
The Mariners are coming off a historic season that included their first AL West title since 2001 and their first trip to the ALCS since 2001. They fell one win short of their first-ever World Series – or eight outs, to be exact – which was the closest they’ve ever come to the Fall Classic in their 49-year history.
The Mariners’ postseason run included six home playoff games in front of electric crowds that at times had T-Mobile Park sounding like a Seattle Seahawks game across the street at Lumen Field.
And the M’s delivered with some instantly iconic moments, including Jorge Polanco’s 15th-inning walkoff single in the winner-take-all Game 5 of the AL Division Series and Suárez’s tiebreaking eighth-inning grand slam in Game 5 of the ALCS.
Dipoto was asked whether all the October magic might compel ownership to feel more comfortable expanding the team’s budget.
“I don’t know the answer,” Dipoto said. “You’ll have to ask somebody else. I can’t answer but to say that the resources we’ve been given put us right about in the middle from a league perspective in payroll.
“We’ve been very aggressive at trade deadlines to push in when it’s our time. … We have star power. We pay our stars. We keep our players. I’m very comfortable with the resources that we’ve been given, and we’re not in a contest to see if we can outspend somebody. Just make smart moves that put the best team on the field.”
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