Another question mark just got added to Mariners' $95M gamble on Colt Emerson

The Seattle Mariners' season ends next Sunday, but today could be the day they're officially eliminated from playoff contention. Eyes are already on 2027 either way, and one of the conversations the team must have is whether Colt Emerson will be their Opening Day shortstop.

There's a lot to unpack in the latest from Adam Jude of The Seattle Times, which basically functions as a postmortem for the Mariners' season as a whole. Jude notes it's "unlikely" that Dan Wilson will return as manager, though that hardly feels like news. Jerry Dipoto and Justin Hollander, on the other hand, are seemingly safer in the front office.

As to the roster, the part of Jude's report that catches the eye comes right after he posits that the M's will need to add a right-handed hitter this winter. There's also the shortstop question, and Jude writes that "it’s likely they’ll want to bring in a veteran shortstop to help shore up one of baseball’s worst defenses."

The Mariners are at -53 Outs Above Average for the season, the worst of any team in the league. J.P. Crawford is the main offender, having posted -11 OAA at shortstop. To this end, the prospect of him leaving as a free agent smacks of potential addition by subtraction.

The Mariners are right to have doubts about Colt Emerson as their de facto shortstop

On paper, Emerson is the perfect guy to inherit shortstop from Crawford. The Mariners indeed made this determination in late March when they placed a $95 million bet on the idea, setting a new record for a player who had yet to make his major league debut.

Emerson earned only $2 million this year, and will make just $3 million in 2027 before his salaries escalate into the eight-figure range in 2028. The picture is that of a low-pressure onramp to the star power the Mariners will eventually need from the former top prospect, which looked like a wise play even at the time.

Now? Even more so, given how things have changed for the worse for Emerson. Whatever the Mariners anticipated from him in March, it probably wasn't -0.1 rWAR and a 67 OPS+ in 69 games as a rookie, culminating in an August demotion that turned into season-ending surgery on his left wrist.

Emerson is going to have limitations on his offseason workouts, including a stipulation that he not swing a bat for potentially the whole winter. If there is a lockout, the team won't be able to communicate with him on his recovery. The signs point to Emerson arriving for spring training next year as a question mark.

As such, going out and getting a veteran shortstop is a good idea. Yet it raises the question of what kind of veteran.

A free agent on a short-term deal makes sense in the abstract, but the idea clashes with the reality of this winter's market. Re-upping with Crawford would mean running headlong into more bad defense at short. There's otherwise Ha-Seong Kim or Jorge Mateo, neither of whom is remotely viable as a regular at this point.

A trade is a possibility, and targets could hypothetically include Gunnar Henderson, CJ Abrams, Zach Neto, Otto Lopez, Masyn Winn, Dansby Swanson and our go-get-'em pick for a splash, Elly De La Cruz. But if the Mariners go get any of those guys, they're effectively committing to sidelining Emerson from shortstop for the foreseeable future.

It's presumably not what they want to do, given that he's still only 21 and just one year into his eight-year deal. It's also not as if downgrading him to a third baseman would be a can't-miss plan. He's less experienced at the hot corner, and he didn't look comfortable when he did play there this season.

If you're expecting us to arrive at the right answer for what to do with Emerson, well, sorry. Throwing caution to the wind and planning around him at shortstop doesn't sound any better than sidelining him. If there's a tightrope between these two outcomes that the team can walk, it's hard to see it.

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