2026 was the season that had the Seattle Mariners predicted to go to the World Series for the first time in franchise history. Being the lone team in the MLB that hasn't been, this was news that had not only Mariners fans excited, but the entire league. Last season finished with the team just 8 outs away from attending their first fall classic, but ended when Eduard Bazardo gave up a 3 run home run to Seattle's nemesis, George Springer.
On to this year, the team made some "impactful" moves to try and produce more traffic and generate more opportunity to score runs. Jerry DiPoto aquired one of his number one targets in Brendan Donovan to take over at 3rd base and made a move to sure up the bullpen, landing Jose Ferrer from the Washington Nationals. They also added the arms of Alex Hoppe and Cole Wilcox for added bullpen depth. The outfield also received some assurance in platoon help from Rob Refsnyder from the Boston Red Sox. Another peice that had been on DiPoto's radar for the last year prior to landing him last off-season.
Donovan took over 3rd base for fan favorite Eugenio Suarez who the Mariners declined to sign in the 2024 off-season due to his high strikeout rate but then traded for him at the trade deadline to help push the Mariners into the playoffs in 2025. Again, the Mariners were not willing to sign Eugenio to a contract at the end of the 2025 season and opted for Donovan instead. While Donovan came out of the gates strong in 2026, he was quickly injured and played just 39 games in two parts of the season.
Jose Ferrer, Alex Hoppe and Cole Wilcox provided little to no value in the pen. Ferrer being the prime addition in the pen did provide a 0.6 WAR while Wilcox had a 0.1 WAR and Hoppe threw for a -0.1 WAR on the year. The pen was thrashed with injuries throughout the year with the largest impact being Matt Brash who was out most of the season. Carlos Vargas was injured right out of the gate and played a large role in our entire pitching staff being pushed too hard through the majority of the season.
All this being said, the off-season trades were not the reason for the Mariners demise in 2026. In fact, neither were the injuries that piled up in all aspects of the roster. The main reason for the M's demise in 2026 was their offense. That is probably a no brainer to most Mariners fans, but to this Mariners fan, it comes down to 3 distinct reasons that our offense in Seattle specifically failed and those are the three that I will be diving into.
#1 - CONSTANT PUSH FOR HOME RUNS.
This has been a long standing push in the Mariners organization stemming all the way back to Howard Lincoln and Chuck Armstrong. Maybe even before that, but those two were the culprits that hit the baseball tabloids in the departure of Eric Wedge. Home runs sell tickets! Chuck and Howard pushed GM's, coaches and even went directly to players if they weren't seeing enough homers off the bats. Eric Wedge was forced to manage via the home run despite the impact it had on players overall results. We have seen this in multiple odd asks over the years. Ichiro, the base hitting machine was asked to hit for more power just because he could put on a show in batting practice. The latest of current players I have witnessed, JP Crawford. JP hit 19 homers in 2023 and followed that up with a season where he hit only 9 and hit 60+ points less in average as well. A result from trying to hit the ball too hard and over-swinging. Lots of infield pop ups and foul outs and getting under the ball. 2025, JP had a better year again hitting a respectable .265 with 14 homers only to regress again in 2026 hitting only .221 with 14 home runs and again, lots of infield pop fly's and lots of swinging out of his shoes.
It's been noted that the Mariners offense lives off of a strategy of working a walk, getting a bloop single and hitting the home run. I've heard it called a blip, a bloop and a blast around Mariners talks although that hasn't been tied to any executive that I can find, I know this strategy still remains. Other examples? Julio Rodriguez is highly touted for how hard he hits the ball. Hard hit rate is an advanced metric in baseball these days but it has lead to encouraging hitters to swing hard instead of simply making solid contact. I learned all the way back in Little League that you can't try and crush a baseball as it leads to the wrong results and yet, the Mariners are attracted to this hard hit rate in a way they have directly impacted the overall results of most of all their great hitters. Even more so, it is a direct result to why we are the worst team in baseball with runners in scoring position. THE WORST! The strategy, 2 men on, hit a homer. Trying too hard we end up rolling over on a ball and grounding into a double play or hitting the ball straight up in the air for an infield pop fly. ALWAYS.
Still don't believe it? How about from the mouth of Cal Raleigh. On August 11th, speaking to the press regarding the Mariners struggles in place of Dan Wilson, Cal said;
“We have to maybe focus a little more on the team aspect or hitting the ball the other way or trying to just take singles and not trying to go for the long ball every time. Because ultimately, when you rely on the long ball, you’re going to get a lot of off-balance swings and you’re going to be a little out front and stuff. And ultimately, the pitchers here are really good and you just got to take what they give you. And we’re just not doing that right now.”
This isn't just speaking about him, although he did admit to being the worst offender, that alone means that there are other offenders. He followed that up with saying;
“I don’t really believe in trying to hit a home run and you do hit a home run. I think home runs obviously are mistakes that pitchers make and ultimately they come when you have a good approach and your swing is in a good spot and you’re doing the right things and thinking the right things, which is driving the ball through the middle of field or using the whole field and try to stay inside the ball and being in a good position to hit. And it’s not ultimately trying to hit a home run or getting too big because that’s when you miss your pitch, and then you get into a bad count and then that’s when you see the nasty breaking stuff. You see pitchers take advantage in those counts ’cause you know you can’t hit when you’re behind every single time. Ultimately, sometimes you don’t lose the at-bats on the strikeout. You might lose it on the 2-0 pitch that you missed and you try to do too much with it and you go on down the heart of the plate and you just didn’t do anything with it because you weren’t in a good position to hit. You weren’t thinking the right things and ultimately that’s kind of what I see throughout the group and and with myself right now.”
So, the approach is, the majority of the group is over swinging trying to hit home runs and it is a part of the approach. Cal himself does not agree with the approach, but he is still doing it. So when Cal had an opportunity to discuss the Mariners struggles, many heard that they have to fix things that were broken, but what he really said, without saying it, was that the entire approach and what they are being asked to do is completely wrong.
#2 - CAN'T FORCE A PITCHING STAFF TO BE PERFECT EVERY GAME.
I get by with a little help from my friends. A constant problem for the Mariners over the years. Poor King Felix. The guy with the worst run support year over year and undoubtably kept him from winning multiple Cy Young Awards as it was solely based off wins for decades. Felix wasn't getting 20+ wins a season because he wasn't getting run support. His best season was a 19 win season and he had an 18 win season. Apart from those 2, he never amassed more than 15 wins and he was one of the best pitchers in the league. Think about that. It's the same thing happening today. We don't score runs.
Woo, Miller, Kirby, Hancock, and Gilbert. Every single one of our pitchers started off the season really strong with the exception of Miller who got hurt out of the gate and Hancock who came in a little later in the season. Strong starts started wavering in the middle of the season for a couple of reasons. One was due to our over-worked bullpen that caused starters to try and get into the late innings of games which ultimately is always what they try and do but it's not a forced ask from management. It's their job. All of our starters were trying to be so fine with their pitches and wound up allowing more walks than ever as well as allowing more hits as innings went on. On many occassions after giving up a walk or a hit instead of closing out an inning I watched as our starters would just hurl a fastball as hard as they could only to have it hit over the fence for a home run. Frustration was running deep in each of our starters. Pitching 6 strong innings giving up 3 or less runs and not being able to close out an inning meant also not getting a decision in a game. This happened time and time again. There is no way that pitchers don't get frustrated when there is a lack of support night after night. Not to mention, if any of the pitchers gave up 4 runs, they already could count on getting a loss.
Mariners offense is not the only reason for their struggles, it was also their terrible defense this year. One of the worst defensive teams that we've watched in a long time. Errors also lead to frustration for pitchers and we had a ton of them.
#3 - TEAM CULTURE
Lastly, this is something that we heard Dan Wilson and Jerry DiPoto speak on in the last few days. From Jerry's perspective, it seemed as if it was Wilson's lack of experience and leadership as a whole on the team. Here is where there needs to be an outside perspective and an internal investigation of sorts. Let's examine the things we know can impact culture.
How about consistantly telling players to do things a certain way when the results of said things are causing them and the team to fail. The Mariners approach as spoken about above in the blip, the bloop and the blast, but also the entire approach being pushed from Edgar on letting the ball travel. I understand where Edgar is coming from and what he is trying to get across to players and I know his heart is in the right place trying to get everyone to become better hitters as Edgar himself was, but players got to the Major League's by doing things a way that made them great. Sometimes certain things work for one player and they don't work for the next. Look how many different stances there are across the MLB. Players all do things differently and we have to allow players to evolve. The Mariners have been very stringent on their approach(es) and in turn, I really believe that it has had the greatest negative impact on our hitting.
There were things going on behind the scenes that we may never hear about, but I really believe that all our players were not playing for eachother. Great teams are always reported as playing for one another as a team and not solely for their own stats. There were things noticed by all fans that simply should never be tolerated on a Major League diamond and to our knowledge, nothing was ever done about them that we know of. Speaking of the lack of hustle from Randy or the multiple gafs from Julio or awful baserunning mistakes. Maybe they were talked about. However, if they weren't and a blind eye was turned to each of these issues, that could really upset a culture.
How about the aggregious use of the platoon. There were many times I watched a player with a 2 for 3 game with a home run and a double and a couple RBI that would get lifted in the 6th inning for a pinch hitter. That's the reward for having a great day? How does one explain that to a player? I know you're having a great day and seeing the ball well, but now they have a lefty up so, you're out! These are the types of decisions that would rip culture to shreds in my opinion. The greatest thing I heard in the past couple of weeks was a description of Joe Maddon, former MLB manager. A baseball guy that understood and used advanced baseball metrics better than anyone but also understood situational baseball and when to trust his gut. This is what was missing in 2026. We didn't have a manager that said, "Forget the data! This guys is hotter than Hades right now and he's staying in the game!" It wasn't there. EVER.
Lastly, the bullpen. We put together the worst bullpen this year. A far cry from last year. Ultimately, starters watching a game get blown when they left with a comfortable lead, it hurts. Our offense, when finally scoring enough runs to get a win just to watch it get squandered in the final two innings, it hurts. Having a front office that ultimately does nothing about it but pick up scraps from other teams and doesn't make a true investment, it hurts. We got Seranthony Dominguez at the trade deadline who Chicago had all but given up on and that was our signature move to secure an awful bullpen to help us win the Division? It didn't work, it wasn't enough. Players see this too, not just the fans. If your organization doesn't want to help the team win, don't you think that would in turn impact the culture of the team? It sure was the case at the end of the 2024 season. That was abundantly clear. This season was much of the same.
Taylor Ward and Seranthony Dominguez. That was going to change everything!
There it is. I hope that Jerry DiPoto will read this. I really do. You want to know where we went wrong in 2026? We screwed up our hitters focusing on the wrong things. We had an awful approach to managing our pitching staff and ultimately are giving them no support due to the poor approach offensively. We created a poor culture by not promoting great results and over using a platoon just for the sake of platooning and ignoring a hot bat for a cold off the bench bat to watch guys K on three pitches. Our team did that. Not because of Dan Wilson, but due to organizational strategy that ignores over 100 years of baseball culture.
In 2027, let's get back to baseball!
