Mariners just keep throwing stuff at the wall in search of bullpen stability

The 2025 MLB season is down to its final month, and the Seattle Mariners are still picking up whatever name-brand relievers they can get their hands on in hopes of striking gold.

The latest is Nick Anderson, who signed with Seattle on a minor league deal on Sunday. Adam Divish of the Seattle Times was on it, noting that the right-hander had to sign before Monday to be eligible for the postseason:

The 35-year-old Anderson was one of the best relievers in baseball once upon a time. Specifically across 2019 and 2020, he made 87 appearances for the Tampa Bay Rays and struck out 136 batters against only 21 walks in 81.1 innings.

That was a long time ago, however. Elbow trouble cost Anderson most of 2021 and all of the 2022 season. Further injury trouble found him in 2023 and 2024, and he had split this season between Triple-A and the majors for the Colorado Rockies. They optioned him to the minors on August 29, at which point he elected free agency.

Nick Anderson joins a parade of low-risk, low-reward signings for the Mariners

The Mariners' deal with Anderson should not come as a surprise. He is merely the latest in a long line of experienced relievers to join the organization on a minor league deal since Opening Day:

• April 16: Zach Pop
• April 29: Bryan Shaw
• June 3: Daniel Bard
• June 7: Trevor Gott
• August 19: Michael Fulmer
• August 21: Luke Jackson
• August 31: Nick Anderson

Only the last three are still with the Mariners, and Jackson even got called up on Monday when rosters expanded. But if the only question that matters is what the team has gotten out of these signings, the answer so far is a whole lot of nothing.

To be fair, signings like these are nothing out of the ordinary. There are a lot of players between the minors and majors at any given moment, and veteran guys like the ones above do tend to become nomadic at a certain point. There is never any harm whenever a team adds one for depth purposes.

What nonetheless makes this situation feel different is the sense that the Mariners have truly been trying to find hidden gems. Their bullpen has felt a man short pretty much all year, after all, and especially right now.

The pen is coming off its worst month by way of a 4.52 ERA and a 4-6 record for August. Some of those losses were truly agonizing to behold, like when Matt Brash and Andrés Muñoz let a gem by George Kirby go to waste in Cleveland on Friday.

If Jackson isn't up to the task of being an out-of-nowhere savior, then the Mariners will still have Fulmer and Anderson to call on. Yet the former sure seems washed, and the latter simply is not the pitcher he used to be.

At his peak, Anderson threw 96.0 mph with a whiff rate in the 98th percentile and a strikeout rate in the 100th percentile. He averaged 95.2 mph in the appearances he made for the Rockies this year, with a 19.0 Whiff% and 16.1 K% that would have been in the bottom quartile among MLB pitchers if he'd had seen enough action to qualify.

It could be that the Mariners' thinking is that Anderson merely needs to get away from elevation after pitching at Albuquerque and Denver. But given that he didn't have especially good home/road splits in either the minors or majors, it's merely a hope until proven otherwise.

Indeed, the same can be said about whether any of the last of these minor league reliever signings will work out. And to this end, both time and opportunities are going fast.