As a whole, here is how the Mariners did in fWAR in 2023

Starting Pitching: 14.4 fWAR - 5th

Two sides to this ranking. You would think that it would be high when you are running Castillo, Kirby, and Gilbert out there for ~95 starts. However, that still leaves ~65 to dole out between Marco, Flexen, Miller, Woo, and whoever else needed to fill in. Leaving Ray out, since he made a part of one start. The fact that they still ranked this high shows you how good Miller and Woo were able to do, and should be a big warning sign to the rest of baseball in 2024... Especially if Trader Jerry strikes (Blake Snell is a Sodo Mojo Wishlist favorite).

Relief Pitching: 5.7 fWAR - 6th

The bullpen was still nasty this season, even with the trade of Paul Sewald. Sure, they had some rough patches and blips, but who doesn't? Diego Castillo got sent down, Murfee was out after 16 appearances, no Sadler, and Festa only threw 9 innings. Yet, the Mariners still put out one of the best bullpens in all of baseball.

Pitching combined: 20.1 fWAR 3rd

It makes sense, right? Having good pitching in all aspects leads to one of the best all-around staffs in the game in 2023. It's no shock that the Mariners had such a good season despite some down years or truly awful stretches from their hitters when you are backed by those guys on the mound.

Mariners Team fWAR as a whole... what did we learn?

When you add everything up, you get to 46.7 fWAR. Well I did, but Fangraphs has it at 46.3. Maybe I missed something along the way, but let's go with that number. The Mariners ranked 5th in baseball in fWAR as a team. Atlanta, Tampa, Dodgers, Rangers, Mariners. This makes a bit of sense as well when you see that the Mariners were 4 games under their pythagorean win total, and should've had 92 wins this season.

How does that compare? Well, in 2022, the Mariners had a 36.3 fWAR total, and in 2022 it was even lower at 26.2. That's much better this season, at least from a WAR totality standpoint. However, they had a rough start, a rough finish, and bad luck in close games. All of those combined lead to a worse season than you should've had, and show a bit more about how the Mariners compared to the last couple of years. Yes, the win total was lower, but the team was better as a whole.

If they can fix that gap at RF and DH, then things are going to look amazing in 2024.