The Seattle Mariners are well known for being dumpster divers in free agency.
It’s a rare day when the team makes a significant addition through the free agency process.
Last winter, the team signed catcher/designated hitter Mitch Garver to a two-year deal, the largest free agent contract to an offensive player in the past 10 years.
However, this offseason, the Mariners have reached an entirely new level of dumpster diving. While the hot stove has been boiling over this offseason, the Mariners have been content to sit outside in the cold, unwilling to expend the effort to dive into the dumpster for other team’s castoffs. If something fell out of the dumpster when the trash truck picked it up, the effort and expense to pick up that scrap may even be too much for the team’s cheapskate owners.
The Mariners, who have never been to a World Series and have made the playoffs once in the past 25 years, have re-invented the art of the sports ownership con this offseason. The team arguably has the greatest starting rotation in major league history. It has a budding superstar in centerfielder Julio Rodriguez. Around them, the American League West is more winnable than any time in recent history. And yet, the Mariners have done nothing but sit on their hands this offseason.
When the team entered a rebuilding phase in 2018, its owners asked for patience as they shed payroll, promising to spend when the time was right.
When the team reached the playoffs in 2022, ending a two-decade-plus postseason drought, the owners pledged to make the team a regular contender.
When they missed the playoffs by one game in 2023, the front office said they were doing the fans a favor by not spending big and trying to win 54% of their games because they would have to pay some of the team’s young players in the near future.
When they missed the playoffs again by a game in 2024, the front office and ownership said nothing. Then they went and did nothing.
The team only has one significant salary of note, ace pitcher Luis Castillo, who has a full no-trade clause. The team has desperately been trying to find someone to trade for him all offseason. The pattern has become all too predictable over the course of the team’s history:
Step 1) Rebuild. Ask for fans’ patience.
Step 2) Begin to compete, ask for fans’ patience, and promise to spend when the time is right.
Step 3) Win a bit, sign a player or two while utilizing a cheap young core. Say you can’t spend money because you need to save it for that cheap young core.
Step 4) Trade players with significant salaries, usually while complaining about them being a bad investment. Then, trade players as they near free agency or no longer become cheap. Say that spending the money on only a few players doesn’t make sense when you could invest it in more young players.
Step 5) Rebuild again. Repeat.
To be fair, it’s not just the Mariners who pull this con. Team owners from Pittsburgh to Baltimore to Oakland to Chicago repeat the same cheap parlor trick over and over and over. However, the Mariners may be the best at it. They have mastered the art of doing the math to figure out exactly how much money they have to spend to build a team that can theoretically compete into September. Then they spend not a penny more. If the team happens to luck into the playoffs, that’s a bonus, and ownership will happily grab the credit. But if they don’t have ownership, they can sleep well knowing they cleared massive profits for the fans who came out to the ballpark during the summer while the team was still in the playoff race.
This year, the team figures to make even more money with the 30th anniversary of the 1995 team, which was the first group of Mariners to make the playoffs, set to be feted throughout the year. The team even hired 1995 icon Dan Wilson to manage the team, and there are plenty of giveaways and bobbleheads for Mariners fans, young and old, to acquire. With bobbleheads in hand, they can watch a team that currently doesn’t have a starting first baseman, second baseman, third baseman, or designated hitter take the field.
It’s possibly the most craven offseason in the team’s history. Knowing they have a built-in money maker coming up this year, the team’s ownership has gone into the offseason with a new bet: “Even if we don’t try to build it, they’ll still come.” The team is betting that the 1995 nostalgia will overcome their inaction. And sadly, they are probably right. T-Mobile Park is a beautiful stadium, and it’s filled every summer. If there is any solace, it’s that the team’s ownership has a history of making bad bets. They bet big on the Roots sports network, allowing them to make money hand over fist. At one point, the Sounders, Timbers, Kraken, Trail Blazers, and Mariners all had their games on the network. After being blasted by fans for terrible viewing options, all the other teams bailed, and now only the Mariners remain.
If there is anything right with the world, the teams bet that fans will fatten the owners’ pockets despite not even trying to win will be a bust.
If the team is unwilling to dive for scraps, fans should not be expected to tolerate receiving nothing but scraps from the team.
