Pivotal Seattle Mariners choice flying under the radar

After one month, the Seattle Mariners are the class of the AL West.

The M’s enter May atop the division at 18-12, and they’re doing so as winners of seven straight series and 14 of their past 18 games. A huge factor for that success has surprisingly been the team’s offense, which as of Thursday ranks seventh in baseball at 5.1 runs per game and tied for third with 45 home runs.

How Jorge Polanco’s fixed knee resulted in important adjustment

The decision to re-sign Jorge Polanco over the offseason has proven to be a major boon for the lineup. He’s hitting an eye-popping .384 with a 1.226 OPS and a team-high 25 RBIs, and he is one home run off the MLB lead with nine.

There was also a move right before the season that Seattle Sports’ Mike Salk said has flown under the radar and proven to be helpful for the Mariners – the decision to cut veteran outfielder Mitch Haniger. He discussed why that was so important Thursday on Brock and Salk.

“Maybe it wasn’t the most important move the Mariners made this offseason, but it’s probably the most underrated, really important move,” Salk said. “And I would say it’s the one move they made this offseason that we have talked about the least so far through the first month.”

The fit wasn’t it

Under manager Dan Wilson, the Mariners are taking on the identity of a team that always wants to apply pressure on its opponents, and that rings especially true when it comes to what they’re doing on the basepaths.

Seattle is first in the American League and third in MLB with 37 stolen bases and 49 attempts. Twelve different players have swiped at least one bag, including some names that aren’t associated with speed. Cal Raleigh already has four stolen bases (tied for the most among MLB catchers) and Mitch Garver has two (the same amount he had in 564 career games entering 2025). The M’s even had the rare oddity of both catchers on the roster stealing a base in Wednesday’s 9-3 win over the Angels.

“Twenty-five-year-old Mitch Haniger would have been a really good fit for that – athletic, running around, getting on base, playing right field, big arm. All of the things Mitch Haniger could do at that age would have been a tremendous fit for this roster,” Salk said. “The Mitch Haniger that unfortunately – and it’s not his fault – has just been kind of broken down over the years through all of the injuries and was last year just a totally different player than we watched during his prime in Seattle, that guy is not a fit for this roster.”

Another reason why Haniger wouldn’t be a fit on the roster is what is going on with Polanco. Despite being the hottest hitter on the team, Polanco has been limited with an oblique injury, and the M’s have also been cautious about pushing the knee he had surgery on during the offseason. That’s led to him serving as the designated hitter full-time against right-handed starters, which would have been one Haniger’s main avenues to at-bats.

“Just in a whole bunch of different ways, it would not have in any way worked to have had Mitch Haniger just from a standpoint of, who do you play and when?” Salk said. “Especially once (right fielder Victor) Robles got hurt, especially once Polanco needed to play DH, it just doesn’t work.”

Tough sell for clubhouse

Salk also feels the message that releasing Haniger sent to the clubhouse was important, showing the organization was focused on winning even though the offense remained mostly unchanged over the offseason. Haniger hit just .208 with a .620 OPS and 85 wRC+ (100 league average) last season, and he was was 36th among 42 right fielders with minus-five outs above average in the field. However, there was belief he could still break spring training with the team do to his $15.5 million salary.

“I think that would have been a tough sell to the players,” Salk said. “… If you keep Haniger on the roster, I think you run the risk of the players looking around and going, come on, what are we doing? Are we trying to win or not?”

Hear the full conversation at this link or in the audio player near the top of this story. Listen to Brock and Salk weekdays from 6-10 a.m. or find the podcast on the Seattle Sports app.

Pivotal Seattle Mariners choice flying under the radar

Tags: