Free agent rankings by position for the Mariners in advance of the Winter Meetings

Mariners position of need #1: Corner Outfield

Far and away, this is the biggest need for the Mariners. Right now, you have Julio Rodriguez in center, and are more secure there than you are at any other position, arguably in baseball. You have Jarred Kelenic to play a corner spot, but the gap between his ceiling and floor is still so wide you want other legit options in case the worst happens.

It's why I don't think the Mariners need just one here, but two. Not to bench Kelenic, but to play splits for now, give rest, and fill that DH spot at the same time with someone who isn't just "a guy", but can legit hit the ball.

They could go low-end, focusing on defense and savings. Michael A Taylor and Harrison Bader or some sort of combination like that. Your defense would be insane, when healthy, but that lineup would be hard to look at a lot of the time. It's something that would be a lot more fun to use in a video game than it would in real life.

Move to middle of the road, and I think you look at like a Robbie Grossman, Tommy Pham, Andrew McCutchen, Adam Duvall set of players. Duvall might be a step ahead of all those guys, but you get the point. They're players who would make you think "oh nice, we got that guy, he should fit the bottom of the lineup really nice".

I want more though. Obviously, Ohtani is the wish, but he can't really play defense, would likely DH, and I'm not getting my hopes up that Seattle dishes out $55M a year for him. Thee is also Bellinger, but with the years associated with him, I don't see Seattle doing that either. To go from 1YR/$7M to 10 YR/200+M? Yeah, it isn't happening.

Instead, I look at Lourdes Gurriel Jr and Jorge Soler here. Could you imagine a quarter of Julio, Soler, Gurriel, and Kelenic? That would make me really happy, seems realistic, and wouldn't be insanely expensive. You would only be adding... $30M a year between the two of them? That would put the Mariners right around league average on payroll, and push to about their highest in team history back in 2018 when they spent $162M.

The Winter Meetings are here, and I just want the Mariners to finally do something on offense in free agency. Let's go Mariners!