Fangraphs Projections have the Mariners staff looking like AL West Champs in 2024

If you talk to any Mariners fan, they are going to inevitably bring up the fact that the Mariners have one of the best pitching staffs, if not THE BEST pitching staff, in all of baseball. It's a fair argument for any M's fan to bring up, right? That's the follow-up question that fans of other teams bring up whenever an argument comes up. Is it homerism, or is it truth?

In the Mariners case, it really does seem to be truth. You have three of your starting pitchers sitting in the top-10 of Cy Young odds. Seemingly every single team in baseball has been trying to acquire Gilbert, Woo, or Miller at some point this offseason. The Mariners are deep, young, and talented in their rotation. Well, at least from a 1-5 standpoint, as the depth past that can be iffy when Emerson Hancock is the answer.

The Mariners' pitching staff is, simply put, nasty

When it comes to the top 5 though, the Mariners aren't intimidated by anyone. Not the Dodgers, Braves, Phillies, or anyone else. It's the strength of the team.

Even with the trades that the Mariners have made thinning out their bullpen, they still seem to be in a pretty good spot after their recent acquisition of Gregory Santos. There is a chance that those 3 (Munoz, Brash, Santos) could be the top 3-headed monster in baseball.

#5 Mariners - 17.3 fWAR
#13 George Kirby - 3.5 fWAR
#15 Luis Castillo - 3.4 fWAR
#T-30 Logan Gilbert - 2.7 fWAR
#105 Bryan Woo - 1.5 fWAR
#124 Bryce Miller - 1.3 fWAR
#9 Andres Munoz - 0.9 fWAR
#23 Matt Brash - 0.7 fWAR

I have to get this out of the way before we get into it too far. They have Will Vest (remember him?) ahead of Gabe Speier and Gregory Santos. Sometimes, these things plain don't make sense. Let's focus on the positive for now, instead, and look at the Mariners are their projections here. I left Speier (0.5) and Santos (0.4) off, focusing on the starters and big names instead.

You can see that Kirby and Castillo are strong, projecting as top 15 fWARs in all of baseball. Even Gilbert arguably cracks #1 status at #T-30th. Woo and Miller are down there a bit, but they also have them with much lower innings. Give them a full season, and they launch up the leaderboard.

If the Mariners get these kinds of numbers from their pitchers this year, and really do finish as a top-5 team in fWAR, then the league is in trouble. It's going to push for the top mark in the American League, and when you pair it with an offense that looks much better, the Mariners are sitting pretty (on paper) heading into 2024.