No Mariners player needs the World Baseball Classic more than Josh Naylor

Even allowing for the trepidation surrounding potential injuries, there has to be plenty of pride within the Mariners organization that no other MLB team is sending more players to the 2026 World Baseball Classic. At the time of writing, both they and the Mets will have 18 representatives for the sixth edition of the international tournament, which takes place between Mar. 5-17.

Highlighting the quality of a Mariners team picked to be one the top World Series contenders this coming season, elite talent such as Cal Raleigh, Julio Rodríguez, Andrés Muñoz will be taking part in the WBC. Another top player who will be in attendance is Josh Naylor, and you can make the case that no one needs this tournament more than him.

As much as Raleigh, Rodríguez and Muñoz starred for the Mariners last season, the reality is that it was Naylor who provided the spark after he arrived from Arizona in a late-July trade. The 2024 All-Star proved to be a galvanizing force for a team which was 55-48 when he got to Seattle, helping them go 35-24 the rest of the way to win their first AL West title since 2001 and then make it to Game 7 of the ALCS.

Josh Naylor not at his best in spring training

Now though, it's Naylor himself who needs a fire lit under him following a dismal showing in Cactus League play. Before departing to join Team Canada, he only managed to go 1-for-17 in six games which, even allowing for spring training being a time to get warmed up and work on some things, isn't the most inspiring of stat lines.

Delve into it a bit more and it gets even more dismal, with the 28-year-old being struck out five times. Making it worse still he also has horrendous contact quality with just a 16.7 hard hit percentage, which is effectively around half of the hard-hit rate in the majors.

This makes for barely believable reading about a player who had a .998 OPS last spring and, as per Baseball Savant, went on to have the best overall Batting Run Value of his seven years in the majors. And as much as there's no need to start ringing any alarm bells, it seems apparent that Naylor needs some adrenaline from somewhere.

What better way to achieve this than by taking part in the WBC and getting the juices flowing by playing for your country, with few people more patriotic than the Mississauga, Ontario native. As if this isn't enough, he's also Team Canada's captain, which can only help drive him even more to get himself going and by extension motivate his teammates.

Naylor had the best overall form as his career last year with the Mariners, but that was only over 54 regular season games (and 12 playoff contests). As long as playing in the WBC gives him the necessary jolt, this must have fans salivating to think just what he can achieve over the course of a full campaign in Seattle.