3 Mariners hitters that could (and must) bounce back in 2025

With the offseason pretty much over and spring training games starting, it doesn't seem like the Seattle Mariners will start the season with any major upgrades to their lineup, so any improvements will have to be made internally.

Jerry Dipoto reiterated this week that he's confident in the current roster and that the organization expects some bounce-back campaigns offensively to better support the pitching staff. Though it's not necessarily an excuse not to spend, it's not wrong. The Mariners have talent. It just needs to come through.

3 Mariners hitters that could bounce back in 2025

J.P. Crawford

After a career year in 2023 where he posted career bests in on-base percentage (.380), slugging percentage (.438), OPS+ (133), and rWAR (5.1), 2024 seemed like it would be another promising season for J.P. Crawford.

Unfortunately, injuries, such as an oblique strain at the start of the season and a broken pinkie in July, limited his plate appearances and seemed to hamper his overall offensive abilities. He was still able to accumulate 2.7 rWAR over just 451 plate appearances, but he finished with a weak 86 OPS+. His walk rate dipped slightly year over year from 14.7% to 11.5% but the biggest decline was in his batting average, which decreased from .266 to .202.

Some might assume the recurring injuries may have reduced his power, but a closer look at his numbers show that's not the case. His average exit velocity of 87.5 mph in 2024 would be the third-highest single season mark in his career, and his maximum exit velocity of 110.7 was actually higher than it was in 2023. Instead, it seems that a decrease in launch angle may have affected his ability to get batted balls past opposing fielders. His line drive rate decreased by nearly 7% while his ground ball rate increased by roughly the same amount.

Fortunately, he has reunited with his friends at Driveline Baseball for a third year in a row this offseason. They were responsible for his big jump in performance from 2022 to 2023 and could help him reach his peak once more, assuming he's able to stay healthy all year.

Jorge Polanco

Polanco was already in the midst of an offensive resurgence at the end of last season. After a first-half OPS of .566, he took some time to recover over the All-Star break and ended what was an otherwise disappointing year in Seattle with a .740 second-half OPS. Last October, he had surgery to repair the patellar tendon in his left knee, an issue that had apparently been bothering him for quite some time before coming to a head in 2024. That potentially explained his uncharacteristically poor numbers at the plate.

After much hemming and hawing over how the Mariners were going to fill in their infield gaps, they ended up re-signing Polanco after they declined his original $12 million option. Along with coming at a discounted salary of just $7.75 million, a healthy Polanco could continue the upward trajectory he started on last July. If his knee issues were truly as persistent as they say, it wouldn't be out of the question for him to have a season similar to 2021, when he posted a 125 OPS+ with 4.9 rWAR.

He has struggled to consistently on the field since then, but this could the start of a new and exciting chapter in his career.

Mitch Garver

Garver arrived in Seattle with lofty expectations. He had just posted a 138 OPS+ over 344 plate appearances on the way to winning a World Series with the Rangers. He was signed primarily as a designated hitter with the abilities to serve as a backstop if need be, but the main expectation was that he would stabilize the lineup and fill what had been a big hole for Seattle in 2023. After a disappointing year during which he posted an 85 OPS+, fans began to wonder whether they'd ever see the old Mitch Garver ever again.

His offensive profile from last year is quite extreme. On one hand, he was in the bottom quartile for expected batting average and slugging percentage as well as for his whiff and strikeout rates. On the other, he had a 95th percentile chase rate and a 96th percentile walk rate.

At a high level, it means that he had great plate discipline but was beat in the zone far too much. His in-zone swing rate of 57% and in-zone contact rate of 78.6% were both noticeably worse than his figures in 2023. Although he was more aggressive on the first pitch than ever in his career, he was less aggressive in his at-bats overall, particularly suffering on pitches in the outer part (or "shadow") parts of the strike zone.

As a big leaguer with seven years of service time under his belt, Garver isn't unaware of how he has been perceived, and has dealt with his fair share of negativity from fans already. However, even at his lowest, there were some flashes of greatness. He still performed well against lefties, posting a .763 OPS over 156 plate appearances, and he had a great June (.779 OPS) and September (.773 OPS). A month-by-month analysis shows that his cumulative numbers were dragged down significantly by a few bad months, particularly July and August, but there are still elite aspects to his game.

If he can hone in on what made him great in Minnesota and Texas, he would win back the favor of Seattle fans in the final year with the team.