Gabe Speier gets his chance to go from spare Mariner to WBC hero for Team USA

Out of all the positive developments that resulted in the Seattle Mariners nearly making it to the World Series in 2025, probably the most overlooked was Gabe Speier's rise as a dominant force out of the bullpen.

And what an unlikely rise it was. Though Speier did solid work for Seattle in 2023, he entered the 2025 season with a career ERA+ of 98 and a veritable laundry list of unflattering transactions. He was a 19th-round draft pick in 2013, and he was still going back and forth between Tacoma and Seattle as recently as 2024.

Now, he's Gabe Speier… potential American hero?

Gabe Speier will get his chance to be a hero for Team USA in the World Baseball Classic

That's overselling it just a tad, but the point is that Speier is about to hit the international stage after joining Team USA for the World Baseball Classic on Wednesday:

It's certainly a well-deserved honor for Speier after the year he had for the Mariners in 2025. At the outset of the season, the 30-year-old was just another piece of the depth stew in the bullpen underneath Andrés Muñoz.

Then he made 76 appearances and ripped off a 2.61 ERA over 62.0 innings, racking up more fWAR than every lefty reliever in the American League this side of Aroldis Chapman.

Mariners fans who watched Speier's season unfold in real time will know that even those numbers don't do it justice. One of the amazing things was how flexible he was for Dan Wilson, who called on Speier to perform all sorts of duties. Tough lefty at the plate? Call Speier. Bulk in the middle innings? Call Speier. High-leverage work in the late innings? Call Speier.

There for all of it was Cal Raleigh, who will once again be doing the catching for Speier as Team USA's primary backstop for the World Baseball Classic. What could nonetheless change is Speier's role, which figures to be a lot more narrow than it was for the Mariners last season.

As he'll be rubbing shoulders with elite righties like Mason Miller, David Bednar, Griffin Jax and Garrett Whitlock, Speier doesn't figure to see as much left-on-right action. He and fellow lefty Garrett Cleavinger will almost certainly be used as specialists; in this case, hunter-killers for some of the best lefty hitters in the world.

The name that immediately springs to mind is Shohei Ohtani, who'll be looking to lead Team Japan to its second straight WBC title. As Tanner Scott and Cristopher Sánchez can vouch, a tough lefty pitcher is one of the only useful weapons an opposing team can deploy against Ohtani. Speier is one of those, specifically by way of a four-seam fastball that held lefties to a .095 average in 2025.

No matter what happens, you can't help but feel good for the guy. In just a year's time, Speier has risen from relatively anonymous reliever to key cog on a national All-Star team.