Five things I’m watching with Mariners spring training
There isn’t a lot of meaning in the ball played down in the desert, but here are a few things I’m curious about.
I have a complicated relationship with spring training. Well, the last couple years I do. I don’t make the trip down there anymore. I say that like this isn’t just the second consecutive spring of such a stance. Or that I haven, this week, glanced at the Cactus League slate and weighed what weekend trio—or quad!—of games would theoretically be the best to pop in and out for.
It isn’t happening, though. Probably not. While I’ve written before that I haven’t significantly changed my viewing habits around the Mariners, spring training is the one spot I’ve culled consumption.
I love spring training. I love that, because it doesn’t really matter, it’s kind of baseball in its purest form. It’s just baseball at its most romantic, just the silly pageantry of the game and nothing more.
Oh and you mix in a little golf while you’re down there? Get out to the backfields for practice once or twice? Too good.
Now though, with this organization and how insufficiently they seem to genuinely care—as displayed, or not, by their actions—it just feels dumb to throw a grand or more at a vacation centered around them.
This isn’t a boycott. It’s not supposed to be.
I feel like enough of a mark the way it is already, so packing up a suitcase full of all my best M’s apparel and going down to watch the crew doesn’t hit quite like it did in the first couple years after the Robbie signing. My wife and I can go do something else, and so we do.
If you go, I don’t blame you. Spring training rocks and I’m jealous every time a distant photo or grainy video floats down the timeline.
The biggest thing is—the guys we root for actively playing the game we watch them play is back in our lives. The M’s got a ballgame today. Life could be worse.
Here’s a few things I’m keeping an eye on.
For the love of God, please let the rotation stay healthy
It is the single most important story this spring training. By a mile. Nothing comes close to touching it.
We are looking for the most boring spring training possible for Logan, Luis, George, Bryce and Bryan.
New pitches? More polish? Early velo? Good, great, wonderful. That’s fine. That’ll be cool. We love it. There will be Pitching Ninja social clips and everything.
Just stay healthy. Be healthy.
It’s the biggest thing I’m focused on because this is just when this type of stuff pops up, especially the serious ailments.
Pitchers may have had something bothering them a smidge at the tail end of a long season, they assume a winter of rest will get them back to neutral and when it comes to ramping back up, woof, it just ain’t happening.
We saw a version of that with Matt Brash last year.
Every time this spring the Mariners make it through a turn of the rotation without some random funkiness, they’re one step closer to having the season we hope they can have.
Whaddya got, Cole Young?
Whereas the item above is the most important story of the spring, this is the most interesting.
Robinson Canó produced 20.6 fWAR in his five seasons with the Mariners. Only two teams got more production from the keystone position over that span.
In the five+ seasons (COVID the “+”) since Canó left, Mariners second basemen have produced 7.1 fWAR. That’s sixth-worst in the game.
And for the second time in that grim latter stretch, Dylan More heads into camp as the favorite at the position. Cole Young, among others, has the chance to do something about that.
I’ve mentioned before, I like narratives. I like stories. That’s why we love this game. And there’s something to the 21-year-old kid rolling into camp trying to win an Opening Day gig with a mustache he’s sure to get shit for.
Aura? That’s aura.
By nature of being the older and more advanced of the Cole/Colt combo, I kind of forget Young is still, well, young.
The left-handed hitting second baseman (swoon) played his age-20 season at Double-A; that’s where, the year after they’re drafted, you’d plop down your most advanced 22-year-old hitting prospects taken out of college. He played and played well two years younger than that, posting a .271/.369/.390 (119 wRC+) line in a league and especially park that’s tough to hit in.
He’s been ahead of the curve ever since being drafted. Why stop now?
This is the guy whose ABs I’ll be keeping an eye out for. Does he look overmatched or does the disciplined approach at the plate (12.1 percent BB%, 15.8 percent K% last year) allow his tools to play up above where they might otherwise be?
For that matter, who knows where those tools are at right now. Young’s never had an offseason where he was so close to the Majors he could smell the grilled onions of Al’s Seattle Dogs. How hard’s he been working? How much is the kid still physically developing at 21?
It will be interesting to see.
Obviously, Mariners fans would rather have Young up in the Majors later and better than early and worse—but if he were to have a long and illustrious career as a Mariner, snagging the second base job during the first camp he could legally drink a beer and not letting it go for a decade would a fun arc.
Better spring data than ever before…maybe
The reason narratives tend to dominate when the games don’t count is because, usually, that’s all we have. No matter what, it’s a small sample scattered across varying levels of competitiveness.
Oh you went 2-for-3 against a starter working on a new pitch and a reliever looking for a bounceback year in his second go at the Carolina League? That’s great, sweetie.
For a lot of stats, you need to do what you do over a long period for it to be meaningfully predictive. But, for some stats, it can be helpful to know what a player is capable of. Basically, what’s their max rep?
Take Cole Young for example. Unless I’m just totally missing something in how I use Baseball Savant’s Minor League Search and other tools available, we don’t have a single tracked batted ball event from him with publicly-available exit velocity.
Maybe he hits .209 with a 25 percent K-rate but he lines a couple gappers 110 miles an hour. The latter would probably be the more meaningful item, just because it’s not something every middle infielder can even do. At all.
The thought is, since the Arizona Fall League was testing automatic check-swing calls—in addition to balls and strikes—then Peoria Sports Complex should, for the first time, have full Statcast data.
And, since they were doing check swing testing, they should have Statcast’s new bat-tracking data. You’d think. That would be big for checking in on where the Major League guys are at compared to last year.
Whether or not that’s the case, we’ll see. But if it is, it will give us more meaningful data than we’ve ever had in February and March.
It’s still not that meaningful. But hey, it’s better than what we’ve had to date.
Can they pull another elite reliever out of thin air?
This whole operation, at least the way it’s been run for a few years now, doesn’t work without a good bullpen. Last year, the Mariners didn’t have a good bullpen.
They didn’t have enough elite relievers and the one they did have was being asked to carry a lot of the load.
This was on display especially in extra innings and similar situations, where they needed a non-Muñoz guy who could consistently miss bats and just not having him. In previous years, that was Matt Brash.
It wouldn’t be fair to Brash, already eying an aggressive return from Tommy John, to expect him to, at any point during the 2025 season, be the guy he was in 2023. Maybe he is. But you can’t count on it.
Gregory Santos, perhaps? That was the idea when the Mariners acquired him from the White Sox after an electric 2023. Given the health issues since the move, maybe there’s a reason the headliner going the other way was Zach DeLoach—since DFA’d and outrighted off one of the worst rosters in the sport’s history.
Ideally, they have one more guy emerge in addition to the hopeful bounce backs of Santos and Brash.
There are the already-here candidates like Eduard Bazardo and, once he’s healthy, Troy Taylor—but that’s not who I’m talking about.
Could it be an upcycled Shintaro Fujinami, a dude who’s big on stuff and less-so on knowing there it’s going? Why not.
Maybe it’s Jackson Kowar, who himself is looking to bounce back from Tommy John—and maybe give the Mariners more than dumping Marco’s salary for sending Jarred Kelenic out.
Speaking of relievers acquired in salary dumps (Eugenio Suárez), Carlos Vargas was the hotness last spring. Maybe he shows why during this one.
Hell, it could be Neftalí Feliz, four years out of baseball and 15 since he was an All-Star.
Did you know Drew Pomeranz is, kind of, a Mariner right now? Spring training is so weird.
But so are relievers. And good ones can come from anywhere.
The Mariners could use another one of those.
Good vibes in the outfield
Just go out and have fun, boys. That’s all I’m looking for. Play loose—but focused—and confident. Find and feel the good vibes you’ve all had before and combine to provide us with a triumvirate of positivity capable of producing outfield dances and celebrations we can’t even comprehend.
All these guys have some level of pressure on them.
Randy Arozarena, to be the All-Star-level player he’s capable of, the guy the Mariners traded for to be their big add for the last half of 2024 and, I guess, the first half of 2025.
Julio Rodríguez, to play a full season at the the MVP-type ceiling he’s thus far only grazed.
Victor Robles, to continue to be the entirely different—and supremely good—player he started being 516 games into a 607-game career.
Put that way, they all kind of have a lot of pressure on them.
That doesn’t need to start in spring.
Play your game. Play the game you’re capable of playing and let’s get to Opening Day feeling good about 2025.
Yeah that’s kind of a throwaway section but four is a weird number of things to write about, you know?
Hey, there’s baseball on in five hours. We made it. Kind of.
Obviously, there will be a lot more to talk about than only these five items and hopefully most of it’s good.
Let’s get it.
Go M’s.
Great article. I agree there are positives this spring, if we're lucky. Hope spring eternal, doesn't it? I don't see the point of hating your team every year. Pick another team or another sport.