The Seattle Mariners made their first acquisition of the offseason earlier this week when they brought back infielder Austin Shenton, but they have yet to make a significant splash to improve their roster for 2025.
The club was recently linked to a former Mariners first baseman who could help hold down the position and provide key veteran leadership next year. That former Mariner also just took home some hardware as he won the American League Gold Glove at first base.
That former Mariner is none other than Carlos Santana. In the recent article from Adam Jude at The Seattle Times, it was also revealed the Mariners are interested in bringing back Justin Turner, who spent the last two months of the 2024 with Seattle.
The Mariners should certainly be interested in bringing one of these two players back because they have both been in MLB for a long time and have been key producers as members of winning organizations. Also, the two best stretches of Mariners baseball in the last three seasons came when the Mariners had Santana on the club in 2022 (they reached the playoffs) while Turner arrived after this year's trade deadline and helped improve the offense.
What was interesting was that the article included designated hitter in the title and not first base. Many players play first base and DH frequently around the league, but the Mariners current first base options would be Luke Raley and Tyler Locklear. Santana might be the best defender of the bunch at first coming off of his Gold Glove 2024 season, so that might give him an edge over the rest.
Overall, the veteran leadership that Santana brought to the Mariners clubhouse in 2022 was crucial to the team's playoff appearance, in addition to the 15 home runs he hit in just 79 games with the team that year. Hopefully the Mariners can get something done with the veteran soon so that the first base position can be addressed and they can spend the majority of the offseason focused on other areas to improve the team.