Picking 4 Mariners to end the team's most notable statistical drought

It's been a brutal start to the Seattle Mariners for their offense, with just 28 runs through their first nine games of the 2025 season. This is accentuated by ranking 24th in the Majors in batting average and 19th in OPS, while also being in the top 10 for strikeouts.

As much as it is still extremely early in the year, we've heard this record before. So until proven different, Mariners fans have every right to be concerned, especially after a disappointing offseason marked by minimal offensive additions.

Which brings us to an interesting article by Tyler Kepner of The Athletic (subscription required). He put together every MLB team’s hidden statistical drought heading into the 2025 season, and the Mariners' is linked to their struggles with hitting at T-Mobile Park. The team has yet to have a three-homer game by a player in Seattle since the team moved to their current home on July 15, 1999.

The drought actually extends back a little further to May 18 of that same year, which is when Hall of Famer Edgar Martínez hit three bombs versus the Minnesota Twins in the awful but beloved Kingdome. As a further fun fact to add to this courtesy of Mariners PR man Alex Mayer, during this drought the team has actually had a four-homer game on the road by Mike Cameron, in Chicago versus the White Sox back in 2002.

It might sound ridiculous to ask this given the Mariners' current offensive woes combined with continuing to play in the pitcher-friendly confines of T-Mobile Park, but when will the drought finally end? We take a look at four current M's players who have the best chance of overcoming the jinx, no matter how unlikely it might seem right now.

NB: Please note all statistics do not include the beginning of the 2025 season.

No. 1: Cal Raleigh

We assume most people will acknowledge it makes sense to mention Cal Raleigh, just by virtue of him leading the Mariners with a career-high 34 home runs last season. As if to further highlight just how prolific he is, he overtook Hall of Famer Mike Piazza to claim the record for most homers by a catcher in the first four seasons of their Major League career, with 93.

However, before anyone else points it out, we acknowledge that this article is related to ending a three-run home game drought at home specifically, as opposed to overall. This is where things get unsurprisingly more dicey for Raleigh, with a considerable 35-59 split when it comes to homers at home compared to on the road.

In addition, you of course have to get to two home runs before you can hit your third. (I knew my Math qualification would come in useful at some point.) In this respect, the 2024 Platinum Glove winner has so far had nine two-homer games in his Major League career, with three of them coming in Seattle at T-Mobile Park.

In our attempts to spin that slightly more positively, Raleigh's most recent two-homer game was at home, last season under the bright lights of Sunday Night Baseball in the 12-1 demolition of the New York Mets. He had a couple two-homer games in Seattle a year earlier. So as tough as it is, if anyone can break the drought, it's the Mariners' club house leader.

No. 2: Julio Rodríguez

Just from a pure talent perspective, you have to include Julio Rodríguez on this list, despite him so far failing to live up to his potential on a consistent enough basis. However, this doesn't take away from the reality that the five-tool ability is there, including having a deadly bat when he's on his game.

Rodríguez is second on the Mariners for most home runs since he debuted in the Majors back in 2022, with his 80 bombs only trailing Raleigh's 91 over the same time period. However, where it gets intriguing is when you compare J-Rod's home-road home runs split of 38-43.

Aside from being closer when compared to Raleigh's home-road split, the two-time Silver Slugger's is also noticeable for the fact he has hit more home runs at home compared to his teammate over the past three years. Further, Rodríguez's OPS at home is .777 as opposed to Raleigh's .665 at T-Mobile Park — not great, but still better.

One final positive to note for Rodríguez is that he did actually have more home runs at home compared to on the road one season with a 15-13 split in 2022. Ultimately, the biggest challenge is that he has yet to rediscover the heights of his rookie year, which is when he also had the only two-homer game of his career to date. (He has since had three two-home run games on the road.)

No. 3: A couple of long-shot but intriguing possibilities

The heading is self-explanatory and we begin with Luke Raley, who had a career-high 22 home runs last season one year after hitting 19, but does struggle mightily versus southpaws. In any event he had 15 of his 22 homers at home last season along with a .901 OPS, with him actually having a career .922 OPS at T-Mobile Park.

We felt compelled to include Randy Arozarena just because he is such a mercurial talent, in that he's entirely unpredictable but can cause major havoc on his day (in the positive sense). He's reached the 20 home run mark in four consecutive seasons, and he has a career .826 OPS in Seattle, including .811 last year.

Overall, as much as the four players we've selected do all strike us as varying degrees of genuine candidates, it really is going to be a tall task to expect anyone to finally end the three home run drought in Seattle at T-Mobile Park. However, someone has to end the drought eventually right?! ... Right?!?!

Recent Posts