Cal Raleigh calling out Mariners' identity crisis could be his greatest 2026 gift

Pretty much nothing went right for the Seattle Mariners this year, and it's hard not to wonder if they could have made the playoffs if at least their backbone had held up. They're normally a pitching powerhouse, and they were… well, not that in 2026.

Two years ago, the Mariners co-led MLB with a 3.49 ERA. This year, they finished 19th with a 4.20 ERA. They also allowed 194 home runs, including a league-high 104 in the second half.

Heads could have rolled after this, but the Mariners chose to retain pitching coach Pete Woodworth and director of pitching strategy Trent Blank despite otherwise parting with Dan Wilson and several of his coaches. And while this may be the winter Jerry Dipoto finally trades a homegrown starter, the 2027 pitching staff is likely to look a lot like the 2026 pitching staff.

It follows that improvement on the mound must come via other means. A better defense would help, and better luck is always appreciated. Yet if the team is looking for the right diagnosis for what happened in 2026, it would be wise to listen to Cal Raleigh.

Cal Raleigh is right that Mariners pitchers have become too predictable

As part of a longer article by Adam Jude of The Seattle Times on all that went wrong with Seattle's pitching in 2026, Raleigh hit a very important nail on the head:

"When I’m watching the game back there, I’m seeing a lot of very aggressive teams — very aggressive teams, even teams that aren’t (typically) aggressive. When I look at that, it’s going to come down to (the pitcher’s) execution. It’s not necessarily all the time about winning your 0-0s your 1-1 (counts). It’s about executing a pitch and how can we get this guy out. I saw a lot of very aggressive hitters and guys that were ready to go from pitch one because that’s in our DNA."

Cal Raleigh

There are no lies detected here, starting with that last part about the team's DNA. It feels like we don't hear "Dominate the Zone" as much anymore, but going right at hitters in the strike zone is still the foundation of the Mariners' approach to pitching. At 49.5 percent, Seattle pitchers had the highest rate of in-zone pitches of any team in MLB this year. They also threw first-pitch strikes 66.0 percent of the time, breaking their own 2024 mark as the highest on record.

In concept, all of this is good. More strikes means fewer walks and fewer potential runs. More first-pitch strikes means more 0-1 counts. This year, batters had a .606 OPS after 0-1 counts and a .810 OPS after 1-0 counts.

Yet when a strategy is this obvious, it's just a matter of time before the counter-strategy also becomes obvious. Opposing hitters had a 68.9 in-zone swing rate against Seattle pitchers, the highest in the league. The same goes for their 36.5 swing percentage on first pitches.

So, Raleigh is right that opposing hitters were "aggressive" this year. And it paid off. Ultimately, the Mariners ranked 24th in Run Value in the zone and tied for 24th in Run Value on first pitches.

What can the Mariners do to change things for the better in 2027?

Raleigh had more to say about what went wrong in 2026, including a hint that the team should be rethinking its priorities: "At the end of the day, it’s about wins. It’s about execution. It’s not about chasing a stat."

Without putting words in his mouth, one wonders if he's specifically referring to first-pitch strikes. The last four Mariners teams all placed among the best in recorded history at getting strike one, yet the returns of that practice are clearly diminishing:

It makes sense, considering that a child could figure out the book on what Mariners pitchers are going to do when the count is 0-0. In such counts, 56.6 percent of their pitches were in the zone and 64.9 percent of their pitches were fastballs. It's no wonder that the league specifically hit .374 with a .608 slugging percentage against first-ball fastballs from Mariners hurlers.

So, maybe start pitching backwards? Or at least, spotting the occasional fastball outside the zone just to keep hitters honest? Whatever the solution ends up being, more of the same can't be it. That's when cliches come into play. Definition of insanity, etc. Fool me once, etc. You know, those.

All the Mariners have to do is listen to Raleigh. If they do, even a year that ended up being historically bad for him personally could lead to salvation for the team.

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