Mariners fans won't be surprised by team's leading 2025 Cy Young Award candidate

On a pitching staff featuring more aces than a 52-card deck, Logan Gilbert is the king. 

At least, according to MLB.com in its list of 15 pitchers who could win a Cy Young Award in 2025. The list ranks Gilbert as the fifth-most likely pitcher – and No. 1 Mariner – to win the American League Cy Young in 2025. 

Overall, Gilbert is slotted behind just reigning winner Tarik Skubal of the Detroit Tigers, Kansas City Royals’ ace Cole Ragans, the Texas Rangers’ Jacob DeGrom, and Boston Red Sox lefty Garrett Crochet.

Hype for Gilbert's 2025 season is well-deserved

Gilbert's ranking shouldn’t come as a surprise. In 2024, he finished 6th in the AL Cy Young Award voting thanks to league-bests in WHIP (.887) and innings pitched (208.2). He also posted a 3.23 ERA to go alongside 220 strikeouts. 

Still entering the peak of his career, Gilbert has the chance to go from elite to invincible in 2025, and is in prime position to become the first Mariner to win the award since 2010.  

But Gilbert hopes not to get the Félix Hernández treatment this season; his 9-12 record in 2024 certainly draws cringe-inducing parallels to the lack of run support King Félix received in his prime. Luckily for the Mariners, Gilbert will have no shortage of supplements in the pitching rotation. All five Seattle starters can be found in the top 20 of AL Cy Young odds, including Gilbert, Luis Castillo, Bryan Woo, George Kirby – who is expected to start the season on the injured list – and Bryce Miller. 

Any of the Mariners’ maestros could take home baseball’s highest pitching honor in 2025, and join Hernández, as well as Randy Johnson, as the only winners of the award in Seattle’s history. 

With Opening Day approaching on March 27, manager Dan Wilson has yet to name the Mariners’ Opening Day starting pitcher. The skipper has a plethora of choices, but Gilbert may stand alone.