Mariners fans were not exactly lining up to celebrate the idea of another year with Mitch Garver as the backup catcher. That\u2019s not personal. It\u2019s just the reality of what the last two seasons looked like. When Seattle had a chance to go a different direction behind Cal Raleigh, it sounds like the club decided to stick with the safer, more familiar option instead. And honestly, that\u2019s the part that makes this feel so Mariners.<\/p>\n
Two things can be true here. First, if Cal Raleigh gives the Mariners anything close to what he gave them in 2025, <\/a>the backup catcher probably won\u2019t decide the season. That much is fair. But second, backup catcher still matters, especially if Seattle wants to manage Raleigh\u2019s workload more carefully and get him off his feet a little more often. If that\u2019s the plan, then this stops being a small roster footnote and starts becoming a real conversation about whether the Mariners are actually helping themselves.<\/p>\n Mariners Run It Back With Mitch Garver In Backup Catcher\u00a0<\/p>\n Garver\u2019s two years in Seattle never really gave fans much reason to want a sequel. In 2024, he hit just .172 with a .341 slugging percentage and struck out 133 times across 114 games. In 2025, the average climbed to .209, but the overall production still felt light, with nine home runs and around thirty RBI in 87 games. This is a veteran brought in as an experienced bat with some versatility between designated hitter and catcher. Sorry, that\u2019s just not enough. The power didn\u2019t consistently show up, the contact issues never really calmed down, and the offensive floor was lower than anybody wanted to admit for way too long.<\/p>\n And that\u2019s why this decision lands the way it does. It\u2019s not really about acting like Andrew Knizner was some franchise-changing answer. He most definitely isn’t. But there was at least an argument for trying something different. Knizner brings legitimate defensive value, <\/a>has a strong reputation behind the plate, and would\u2019ve offered Seattle a cleaner glove-first complement to Raleigh. At a minimum, it would\u2019ve been a change of scenery and a different look at a spot<\/a> that hasn\u2019t given the Mariners much lately.<\/p>\n Instead, this feels like Seattle talking itself back into familiarity. Garver knows the staff. Garver knows the organization. Garver is the veteran. Garver is the comfortable answer. That all makes sense. But \u201ccomfortable\u201d has also become one of those words when the Mariners talk themselves into running back something fans already know didn\u2019t work well enough the first or second time.<\/a><\/p>\n Nobody\u2019s trying to dump on Garver as a person here. By all accounts, he\u2019s respected, he works hard, and he\u2019s been a good presence in the room. But this is still a production business, and the production just hasn\u2019t been there in Seattle. If the Mariners are serious about squeezing every edge out of this roster, they should be looking for spots where they can get better, not just spots where they can feel safer.<\/p>\n Maybe this ends up being a non-story. Maybe Garver gives them better at-bats in a smaller role and this looks smarter than it feels right now. That\u2019s possible. But from where fans sit today, this doesn\u2019t feel like an inspiring decision. It feels like a familiar one.<\/p>\n And if this is supposed to be exciting, that\u2019s a pretty low bar.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Mariners fans were not exactly lining up to celebrate the idea of another year with Mitch Garver as…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":638860,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[2392],"tags":[5,620,4,619,65,3235],"class_list":{"0":"post-638859","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-mlb","11":"tag-seattle","12":"tag-seattle-mariners","13":"tag-seattlemariners"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/638859","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=638859"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/638859\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/638860"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=638859"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=638859"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=638859"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}