Ranking the Seattle Mariners greatest seasons ever by Hitters

Mariners: Greatest Hitters — Seattle Mariners’ Edgar Martinez(C) grimaces after he is congratulated by teammates Ken Griffey, Jr.(L) and Alex Rodriguez(R) after Martinez hit a first inning, three-run homer, against the New York Yankees in Seattle 26 May. Seattle defeated New York, 4-3. AFP PHOTO (Photo by DAN LEVINE / AFP) (Photo by DAN LEVINE/AFP via Getty Images)

If you’re reading this, there are two likely reasons I can think of as to why you would be here. One, you’re a Mariners fan, or two, you think I’m dumb and are here to make fun of me in the comments. Either way… Welcome, and thank you for reading!

I wanted to talk about the best seasons of all time by Mariners hitters. I’ve been hemming and hawing for a while on how to format this. I always knew that I wasn’t going to go solely based on oWAR. It would be kind of boring, and if you wanted that list, you could just go pull it up on Baseball-Reference.

It’s going to play a part in the list, as it’s a good stat that can help you look at things across time, and get a general idea of how players did. However, the fan feeling comes into it as well. If there is a season where, either good or bad, fans have strong opinions on a player, then it is going to affect how we think of them and remember them.

Let’s rank the greatest individual offensive seasons in Mariners history

Here’s how I’m going to do it. I’m going to talk about each hitter in Mariners history that’s put together a season of 5.0 oWAR or higher for the team, and I’m going to rank them as I go. If a player had more than one season, it’ll all be on their slide. Otherwise, the list would just be…

A-Rod
A-Rod
Griffey
A-Rod
Boone
Griffey
Edgar
Edgar
Griffey
Griffey

Yeah, it would be fun to go through and rank those top 10 oWAR seasons, but when 9 of 10 come from 3 guys it’s just not as fun. Maybe I’ll do that another day. There are 34 seasons where a Mariners player has had a 5.0 oWAR or better, but it has only been done by 11 players.

I do wanna shout out Tom Paciorek for his 1981 season, in which he hit .326/.379/.509 with 14/13 HR/SB and a 151 OPS+. If not for the strike, he would have a shot at making the list. Unfortunately, he only played 104 games, and ended with a 3.5 oWAR.

If you’re thinking “Hey, what about pitchers?” Don’t worry, that will come out in the next week or so as well. I’m a bigger fan of pitching than I am of hitting, so it’s why I saved the best for last.

Let’s get started. There are a handful of players who had a single season at 5.0 oWAR or higher, and we’re going to break it into two sections. The old and the new. Here we go.

Let’s rank the greatest individual offensive seasons in Mariners history

Schedule