Mitch Garver leaves behind 1 good memory as Mariners turn the page to a new era

The Mitch Garver era in Seattle is over. The Mariners and the veteran catcher could have continued their partnership in 2026 for the price of $12 million, but it won't be happening. As reported by the MLB Players Association, he is headed to free agency after having his mutual option declined on Monday. He instead gets a $1 million buyout.

It's unclear whether it was Garver or the Mariners who said "no" to the mutual option, but we can take an educated guess that it was the latter. A $12 million salary is just a hair short of what they'll be paying Cal Raleigh in 2026, and Garver didn't do much in the last two years to prove he was the right guy to back up "Big Dumper."

The Mariners signed Garver for two years and $24 million when he was hot off a World Series-winning run with the Texas Rangers, in which he played a key role with the go-ahead hit in Game 5 of the Fall Classic. Until further notice, it remains the most that Jerry Dipoto has spent on a free-agent hitter.

The returns on the deal were... not great, to say the least. Garver did get into 201 games across the last two seasons, but produced just a .632 OPS and -0.2 rWAR.

Mitch Garver does leave behind 1 good memory for Mariners fans, who now await the Harry Ford era

But since there's little purpose in kicking a dead horse at this point, let's instead grant that Garver's time in Seattle wasn't a total waste.

He did christen his first month as a Mariner with a walk-off home run, after all, and it was only a couple weeks ago that he came through with an RBI that must not be forgotten. It came in Game 5 of the ALDS, when he followed a double and a stolen base by Josh Naylor with a sacrifice fly:

That wasn't the most important run the Mariners scored that night — or even the most likely, given that Leo Rivas later came off the bench and provided a game-tying RBI single. Nonetheless, it produced a run in a game where the Mariners required 15 innings to score the three they needed to move on to the American League Championship Series.

Even if it wasn't actually a hit, that was also a nice piece of hitting by Garver. It involved doing something with a two-strike fastball outside the zone from Tarik Skubal, which was typically a kiss of death in 2025. Between the regular season and the postseason, such pitches from Skubal produced a .018 average and a 40.9 whiff percentage.

To this end, at least, Garver deserves a salute on his way out of the Pacific Northwest. And it's not too soon to be excited about what figures to happen at the catching position now that he's gone.

At least according to current projections for 2026, it'll be Harry Ford who takes up Garver's mantle as Raleigh's partner in catching. Though he only has nine games and nine plate appearances to show for his major league career, it's a role that he might be over-qualified for on account of his standing as MLB Pipeline's No. 42 overall prospect. The 22-year-old is coming off a terrific season for Triple-A Tacoma, posting an .868 OPS with 16 home runs.

It will make for an interesting twist if the Mariners instead trade Ford and sign someone else to back up Raleigh. Yet this does not seem as likely as it did even as recently as July, and not just because Ford is officially the next man up with Garver out of the picture. Catching is hard to come by — so much so that Garver figures to be one of the better options on the upcoming free agent market.

In any case, we feel about as confident saying that Garver's career will continue as we do that Ford will take his place. And if his next visit to Seattle is as a visiting player, fans should remember his sac fly and give him a nice hand.