Coming off the sting of a Game 7 loss, they know how good they are, and how good they can be, and they\u2019re embracing those expectations.<\/p>\n
3. Over or under 50 home run for Cal Raleigh in 2026? <\/p>\n
Divish: Let\u2019s be very clear here, Raleigh\u2019s 2025 season will never be replicated by anyone, himself included. It was a magical outlier performance from a unique player capable of doing more from baseball\u2019s most difficult position than his predecessors and current counterparts.<\/p>\n
Given how hard he hits the ball and the continued improvement in quality contact and his driven nature to try to improve, hitting 50 homers isn\u2019t an impossibility. It will be difficult and I think pitchers will work around him often. I think he will finish with 49 homers this season, but … he will raise his batting average from .247 last season to over .265 this season while reducing his strikeout rate from 26.7% to under 23%. That will also lead to his walk rate (13.8%) to increase and his on-base percentage to jump into the .380s for much of the season.<\/p>\n
4. What are reasonable projections for the Mariners starting rotation? <\/p>\n
Divish: The projections should be somewhere between the unbelievable 2024 season where it was the best rotation in baseball by every measure and last season\u2019s somewhat underwhelming performance. Given their age and the innings logged over the past three seasons, at least two of the starters will spend time on the injured list. We will see Cooper Criswell and Emerson Hancock make starts. But I think the rotation will be among the top three in the American League if they can get close to 140 starts from their core five. I think this is the year that George Kirby puts it all together and is a contender for the AL Cy Young.<\/p>\n
5. Does top prospect Colt Emerson have a chance to make the Opening Day roster? <\/p>\n
Jude: He has a chance, sure. Emerson is the most polished 20-year-old the Mariners have had this century \u2014 it\u2019s fair to say he\u2019s even a little more advanced than Julio was at this stage \u2014 and because he\u2019s such a well-rounded player he could force the M\u2019s brass to make some difficult roster decisions at the end of spring training.<\/p>\n
But the club remains bullish on 22-year-old second baseman Cole Young, and the acquisition of Donovan gives the M\u2019s both flexibility and the ability to be patient with Emerson\u2019s development \u2014 they certainly don\u2019t need to rush him.<\/p>\n
The most likely scenario is Emerson opens the season as the shortstop at Triple-A Tacoma, with a chance to make his way up to Seattle at some point in the first half of the season.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Coming off the sting of a Game 7 loss, they know how good they are, and how good…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":572285,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2392],"tags":[5,620,33675,4,619,65,3235],"class_list":{"0":"post-572284","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-seattle-mariners","8":"tag-baseball","9":"tag-mariners","10":"tag-mariners-baseball","11":"tag-mlb","12":"tag-seattle","13":"tag-seattle-mariners","14":"tag-seattlemariners"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/116069499138499483","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/572284","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=572284"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/572284\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/572285"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=572284"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=572284"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=572284"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}