Did Mariners actually improve roster after losing Eugenio Suárez, Jorge Polanco?

If Seattle Mariners fans weren't hyped for 2026 before, they are now. The glow of the Mariners' long-awaited trade for Brendan Donovan is still bright, and the official stance of SoDo Mojo is that the deal clinched an "A" grade for offseason.

It's always worth considering outside perspectives, however, and Max Mannis of Jomboy Media dropped a doozy in the aftermath of the Donovan trade. Basically, he dared to point out that the Mariners have replaced Eugenio Suárez and Jorge Polanco with Donovan and Rob Refsnyder:

This is one of those "Well, it's not wrong" sorts of takes.

The Mariners began the offseason with an explicit goal of running it back with the same team that reached Game 7 of the ALCS in 2025. Re-signing Josh Naylor was a good start, but the subsequent losses of Polanco and Suárez shattered the plan altogether. In its place is a familiar, yet still new plan featuring Donovan and Refsnyder.

Are the Mariners actually better at shaking up their roster?

Want to feel cynical about this new plan? All you have to do is compare a hypothetical offseason score of Naylor, Polanco and Suárez to the Mariners' actual score of Naylor, Donovan and Refsnyder. In 2025, one of these trios was not like the other:

• Naylor, Polanco and Suárez: 128 wRC+, 95 HR, 9.6 fWAR
• Naylor, Donovan and Refsnyder: 124 wRC+, 39 HR, 7.0 fWAR

The reality, of course, is more complicated.

Waaaaaay back when the offseason started, the Mariners said that their 2026 payroll was going to pick up where their 2025 payroll left off. That put their budget for new salaries at around $30-35 million, whereas the average salaries of the free-agent deals Naylor, Polanco and Suárez signed add up to $53.5 million. In retrospect, getting all three back was never feasible.

In pivoting to Donovan and Refsnyder — who will combine to earn a little over $12 million in 2026 — the idea was to stay on budget and to raise the floor of the roster. That's how Adam Jude of The Seattle Times framed it anyway, and there is something to that.

Though Polanco and Suárez have star credentials, both also have very real low floors as replacement-level contributors. The Mariners know all too well what that looks like. Polanco was an injured mess for them in 2024. And save for one great game in October, Suárez looked washed after returning to Seattle at the trade deadline last year.

Like Naylor, Donovan is an All-Star in his prime who promises to do two things neither Polanco nor Suárez was ever doing to do: fix the leadoff spot and upgrade the infield defense, both of which were major problems in 2025. Refsnyder's role will be more limited, but his proven ability to crush left-handed pitching is another thing Seattle lack last year.

All this sounds like a sales pitch for how the Mariners are better off for having improved in the aggregate, which is a meme precisely because it's a strategy that tends to work better on paper than it does in reality.

The Mariners are nonetheless the right kind of team to try it, as all they needed coming out of 2025 was a stronger foundation under the sheer star power of Cal Raleigh, Julio Rodríguez and one of the best starting rotations in the league. They have accomplished that, and whatever boosts they might get from prospects like Colt Emerson, Lazaro Montes and Kade Anderson don't even loom that large in playoff odds that have them as the favorite for the American League pennant.

Granted, it's always possible to build a better team in theory. But in practice, it's hard to quibble about whether the Mariners have built the best team they possibly could have for 2026.