Ben Williamson's minor league brilliance must have Mariners rethinking roster

No matter how you break it down, it's been a rough start to the 2025 season for a Seattle Mariners team which entered the campaign with huge hopes. The lineup is mostly looking as poor as it did last season, while the pitching has yet to recapture the magic that made it arguably the best staff in all of baseball during 2024.

Helping to sum up the whole situation is the injury Víctor Robles suffered while making a spectacular diving catch during Sunday's series finale in San Francisco versus the Giants. He's expected to miss around 12 weeks, which is a crushing blow for the Mariners.

However, as the Mariners consider their options to replace Robles — both internally and externally — perhaps the front office can use this as an excuse to rethink their roster options further than just the outfield. One such example is the situation with Jorge Polanco and potentially calling up Ben Williamson for his Major League debut.

Polanco a rousing success with his bat, but...

Beginning with Polanco, there's no denying he's been a revelation for the Mariners at the plate, with it seeming clear for all to see that he is mostly over the knee issues with plagued him for such a long time. He easily leads the way with a .370 batting average and .985 OPS through the team's first 13 games, though he has personally appeared in only eight games.

Not quite as successful has been the Mariners' decision to move Polanco from second to third base, which was done to theoretically help in respect of his lingering knee issues. However, there is at least some cause for concern when the 2019 All-Star makes throws like this:

In fairness to Polanco, there is an explanation for this courtesy of some fantastic insight from Ryan Divish, who is presently on a sabbatical from The Seattle Times. The brief outline is that infield coach Perry Hill essentially teaches the players to throw a bounce pass, but here is Divish's full explanation:

Even allowing for this, the Mariners are at least considering what to do with Polanco defensively, with him also having already spent some time this season at first and second base and DH. With second base specifically, as per Brady Farkas of Sports Illustrated, manager Dan Wilson explained it is more natural to play the 31-year-old there while combining with continuing to give him reps at third.

Williamson can give the Mariners an elite defender

At what point do the Mariners decide to give Williamson an opportunity at third base and have Polanco play elsewhere more regularly, whether it be at second base, first or DH? Williamson is rated as a 65 defender by MLB pipeline, making him an elite prospect defensively due to the combination of his excellent instincts and strong arm.

Williamson has been phenomenal in the field for the Rainiers in Triple-A, making plays including this one and this one. However, for the ultimate example of his defensive prowess, we present the following "Wow" moment:

No matter how well Williamson is doing defensively, it won't matter if he can't help offensively with a Mariners team which is desperate for another productive bat. Known as a hit-over-power player, he's actually not been doing too badly in this area so far in 2025.

This is not to say Williamson still doesn't have a lot of work to do at the plate, as highlighted by a .550 OPS through 11 games. However, this is his first action at the Triple-A level and he does have at least one hit in all but two of his 11 games to date.

We'd also like to add in the 24-year-old's performance at the plate during spring training, when he appeared in 11 Cactus League games. In 16 at-bats for the Mariners he produced a .375 batting average and .974 OPS which incorporated four RBI and two walks.

Opportunities all around in the Mariners infield

We appreciate that if Williamson were to be brought up and effectively move Polanco back to second, this could impact others such as Ryan Bliss, who wouldn't be able to return to a starting job upon healing from a torn biceps. However, aside from the fact he doesn't have the best bat in the world, we still think opportunities would be available.

This is due to the lack of stability with the infield in general and chances being available all around, especially with Luke Raley now being needed more in the outfield to replace Robles. There's also Donovan Solano and Rowdy Tellez's awful hitting from first base and the aforementioned possibility of Polanco being used more as a DH.

Overall, the projection was that Williamson was going to making it to the Majors at some point this year anyway. Now, due to an almost perfect storm of sorts, we believe it's in the best interests of the Mariners to give the 2023 second round draft pick his opportunity sooner than later.

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