An exact Prediction of all the Mariners statistics for the 2023 season
As I wrap this series up, I realize that pitchers and catchers are set to report to Spring Training. Baseball is literally right around the corner, and this season is right up there as the most excited I've ever been for the Mariners to start playing.
I'll never approach the same level as I did when I was a kid. There's something different about being in love with a team when you're little, especially when the team is good. I was 7 when the Mariners went to the playoffs. Who knows, without that, maybe my dad chooses another team to root for and I follow in his footsteps. It's why I'm not a Seahawks fan.
We've talked individually about nearly every player that is expected to spend time on the MLB roster this upcoming season. Some of the BN guys and bullpen guys were combined, as it can be hard to get into what to expect from them too much. As the team here at Sodo Mojo has been doing it, I've been grabbing all the predictions that have been coming out and compiling them to see just how the Mariners might stack up.
It can be hard to be realistic when doing this. For a handful of them, we did a bad/good/great listing, giving some different options on what to expect. It helps to tamper expectations and place us back into a realm of realism. You'll see a mix of good, some bad, and a bit of ugly.
Let's get to it. Here are the predictions for the 2023 Mariners, and we will start with the lineup. Be prepared, these are some big tables with a lot of information, and each one finishes with how those numbers would've ranked in 2022 for a little comparison to last year's team totals throughout the MLB.
I went ahead and tried to include the people that we think will fill out the Mariners roster throughout this year on offense. Sure, we might see someone like Cade Marlowe come up at some point, but that gets too hard to predict. I'm going off the now instead, which is why Hummel, Trammell, and La Stella are all on here.
2023 Mariners | G | PA | AB | H | 1B | 2B | 3B | HR | R | RBI | BB | SB | HBP | SF | BA | OBP | SLG |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Julio Rodriguez | 145 | 606 | 548 | 154 | 92 | 29 | 4 | 29 | 86 | 92 | 50 | 27 | 4 | 4 | .281 | .343 | .507 |
Ty France | 150 | 639 | 574 | 167 | 117 | 30 | 0 | 20 | 75 | 77 | 43 | 0 | 18 | 4 | .291 | .357 | .448 |
Teoscar Hern. | 144 | 591 | 540 | 153 | 82 | 35 | 1 | 35 | 77 | 94 | 45 | 7 | 5 | 1 | .283 | .343 | .546 |
Eugenio Suarez | 152 | 632 | 550 | 137 | 75 | 25 | 2 | 35 | 80 | 90 | 68 | 0 | 9 | 5 | .249 | .339 | .493 |
Cal Raleigh | 115 | 435 | 390 | 91 | 49 | 22 | 0 | 20 | 46 | 58 | 38 | 1 | 3 | 4 | .233 | .303 | .444 |
Kolten Wong | 120 | 458 | 400 | 106 | 73 | 20 | 1 | 12 | 65 | 50 | 42 | 17 | 12 | 4 | .265 | .349 | .410 |
Dylan Moore | 74 | 307 | 269 | 55 | 26 | 19 | 3 | 7 | 42 | 27 | 27 | 20 | 10 | 1 | .204 | .300 | .375 |
Jarred Kelenic | 115 | 450 | 408 | 79 | 36 | 20 | 4 | 19 | 44 | 42 | 36 | 11 | 4 | 2 | .194 | .264 | .402 |
JP Crawford | 146 | 600 | 532 | 138 | 97 | 32 | 1 | 8 | 60 | 45 | 56 | 5 | 8 | 4 | .259 | .337 | .368 |
Sam Haggerty | 92 | 277 | 240 | 58 | 37 | 13 | 4 | 4 | 44 | 24 | 31 | 22 | 4 | 2 | .242 | .336 | .379 |
Tom Murphy | 57 | 232 | 200 | 48 | 31 | 8 | 0 | 9 | 19 | 30 | 28 | 0 | 2 | 2 | .240 | .336 | .415 |
Taylor Trammell | 55 | 219 | 200 | 44 | 32 | 8 | 1 | 3 | 24 | 30 | 17 | 5 | 1 | 1 | .220 | .283 | .315 |
Cooper Hummel | 42 | 175 | 150 | 30 | 22 | 6 | 0 | 2 | 16 | 20 | 22 | 2 | 2 | 1 | .200 | .309 | .280 |
AJ Pollock | 55 | 225 | 200 | 51 | 38 | 10 | 0 | 3 | 28 | 18 | 22 | 1 | 2 | 1 | .255 | .333 | .350 |
Tommy La Stella | 50 | 194 | 180 | 39 | 30 | 6 | 0 | 3 | 14 | 21 | 10 | 0 | 1 | 3 | .217 | .258 | .300 |
Totals | 6040 | 5381 | 1350 | 837 | 283 | 21 | 209 | 720 | 718 | 535 | 118 | 85 | 39 | .251 | .326 | .428 | |
2022 Rank | 13th | 8rg | 13th | 6th | 10th | 8th | 7th | 4th | 5th | 18th | 11th | 5th | 5th |
The Mariners offense has definitely gotten better. I don't think you can argue against that too much. Sure, a healthy Mitch Haniger has a high ceiling, but that isn't anything you can predict with any amount of certainty. Teoscar takes his place, and he is a hard-hitting machine who has been pretty consistent throughout his career.
Frazier struggled at second, and if Kolten Wong is healthy, that's going to be a big upgrade as well. Of course, it could instead be a sign of his decline, but I'm holding out optimism there. A lot is going to fall to Kelenic, Pollock, Moore, and Haggerty to hold up the end of the lineup, but I think we are going to see a decent showing from them. Personally, I think Kelenic is going to have a good year. That's not reflected above, as this was a team effort from a bunch of contributors here at Sodo Mojo.
I do think we are going to have a fun battle between Teoscar, Julio, and Geno for the HR title on the Mariners. Teo and Geno pull away from Julio in late August, and with a strong final series, Teoscar pulls even to tie Geno for the team lead.
I'm really not sure what to do with stolen bases, as it's hard to predict how many more are going to be swiped with the bags getting larger. Could people run wild? Possibly. I tried to refrain from going crazy, but bumped some guys up a bit. That's where they would've finished in last year's rankings, but I fully expect a team total of 118 to finish in the 10-12 range instead. If Moore or Haggerty play a ton, I think they could snag it from Julio, but he eventually ends up leading the team in steals.
MLB is a great site to go to for checking out player and team stats, which is where i pulled the totals from to compare how I expect the 2023 Mariners pitching staff to do, and where they would've ranked in 2022 with these numbers.
2023 Mariners | GS | IP | K/9 | K | BB/9 | BB | H | WHIP | ER | ERA | BAA | HR |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Luis Castillo | 32 | 192 | 10.27 | 219 | 2.95 | 63 | 149 | 1.104 | 62 | 2.91 | .219 | 16 |
George Kirby | 32 | 180 | 8.30 | 166 | 1.80 | 36 | 166 | 1.122 | 65 | 3.25 | .254 | 13 |
Logan Gilbert | 32 | 192 | 8.91 | 190 | 2.34 | 50 | 183 | 1.214 | 79 | 3.70 | .247 | 22 |
Robbie Ray | 32 | 190 | 10.42 | 220 | 2.98 | 63 | 150 | 1.121 | 71 | 3.36 | .228 | 35 |
Marco Gonzales | 9 | 88 | 6.44 | 63 | 2.25 | 22 | 94 | 1.318 | 42 | 4.30 | .266 | 15 |
Chris Flexen | 9 | 73 | 6.29 | 51 | 2.47 | 20 | 72 | 1.260 | 28 | 3.45 | .257 | 6 |
Bryce Miller | 16 | 81 | 9.33 | 84 | 3.11 | 28 | 73 | 1.247 | 36 | 4.00 | .246 | 12 |
Andres Munoz | 0 | 59 | 13.58 | 89 | 1.98 | 13 | 37 | 0.847 | 14 | 2.14 | .184 | 4 |
Paul Sewald | 0 | 67 | 12.22 | 91 | 2.82 | 21 | 39 | 0.896 | 21 | 2.82 | .171 | 10 |
Matt Brash | 0 | 56 | 13.18 | 82 | 4.18 | 26 | 40 | 1.179 | 15 | 2.41 | .233 | 2 |
Penn Murfee | 0 | 65 | 9.97 | 72 | 2.63 | 19 | 54 | 1.123 | 23 | 3.18 | .208 | 5 |
Diego Castillo | 0 | 58 | 9.00 | 58 | 3.10 | 20 | 52 | 1.241 | 20 | 3.10 | .222 | 5 |
Matt Festa | 0 | 57 | 10.26 | 65 | 3.16 | 20 | 55 | 1.316 | 25 | 3.95 | .249 | 8 |
Rest of Bullpen | 0 | 85 | 8.26 | 78 | 3.71 | 35 | 80 | 1.353 | 40 | 4.24 | .251 | 8 |
Totals | 162 | 1443 | 9.53 | 1528 | 2.77 | 444 | 1244 | 1.170 | 541 | 3.37 | 0.234 | 161 |
2022 Rank | 3rd | 4th | 7th | 7th | 7th | 6th | 4th | 4th | 9th | 8th |
I did something a bit differently here at the back end of the Mariners bullpen. It's too hard to predict who is going to be there, so I just threw in innings to round it out and gave rough numbers. It could be Isaiah Campbell, Travis Kuhn, Sadler, Gott, Clarke, or who knows who else. Los Bomberos could look a bit different this year, but I think the heart of it looks pretty similar.
I also just gave the top 4 guys all their starts. It's more fun to look at a full-season prediction than guessing that a couple of them get hurt at some point. I did that with the final spot in the rotation and didn't want to go any further with predicting that Kirby would miss 7 games, Gilbert 4, Castillo 3, and Ray 9. It's just not a fun exercise.
Ray does well, Kirby and Castillo also, but Gilbert takes a minor step back. The bullpen looks good again, and there really isn't a weak spot anywhere in there. Lots of strikeouts all over the place, a similar walk rate to last year, but it is a good year overall.
It's a bit aggressive to put them this high, but that top 4 does seem like they have a real chance to be a special group, and one of the best quartet's in baseball. It's going to come down to the 5th spot, and I think they end up being just fine there.
Where does this put the Mariners when things are said and done? I posited this earlier on in the weekend, and think that there are a wide range of outcomes for the Mariners, but the % of hypothetical simulations of their season ends up good a lot more often than it ends up bad.
Mariners | Wins | Losses | Outcome | Result |
---|---|---|---|---|
2022 | 90 | 72 | WC #2 | Lost ALDS 3-0 |
2023 - Bad | 78 | 84 | 25 GB | 14th Pick |
2023 - Good | 91 | 71 | WC #1 | Lost ALCS 4-2 |
2023 - Great | 99 | 63 | Win Division | Lose WS 4-2 |
If I had to make a real prediction, I'm going somewhere in between the Good and Great options. I think that pending the acquisition of another bat to really push them into a top 5 lineup in baseball, they're still gonna be a bit short.
The hitting is definitely getting better. Those role players are finally guys who should be role players, instead of having to fill in way too often while being asked to be the 5th best hitter on the team. Not only that, but the star of the team is also one of the youngest in all of baseball, and only looks to get better.
As for pitching, it really could carry the team. It almost did last year if not for the boneheaded mistake in the playoffs by Servais. A hot rotation is like a hot goalie, and it can carry you to the Finals. I think we are still a year away there, as that would be asking a lot of Kirby and Gilbert this early in their careers. I think we see another step this year though and get a lot more playoff games in Seattle.
94-68. WC #1. Losing in the ALCS in six games. To the Yankees (Bleh).
2023 is going to be a fun year, and I can't wait. Go Mariners!