Mariners first quarter grades: A wild assortment of success and failure

Mariners Bullpen: 2024 1st Quarter Grade: B+

The bullpen, despite all the injuries that we have seen there, has been pretty darn good. Looking at all the subtractions that we have seen since the finish of 2023, you would think that the team would be struggling a bit. Isaiah Campbell, Justin Topa, Matt Brash, Gregory Santos, and Tayler Saucedo have all missed time, not pitched at all, or are no longer on the team.

You would think that means it's been a rough go, right?

Instead, the Mariners have the 10th best bullpen ERA in baseball at the time of this writing. If I would've written this exactly at the quarter mark, then it would've been a stronger number, as the Mariners had been sitting around 6th or 7th at that point in time.

Munoz has been a stud, and the core guys that the Mariners throw (Munoz, Thornton, Speier, Stanek, Saucedo, Bolton, and Voth) have a 3.04 ERA, which would be the 3rd best mark in baseball. Brash is out for the year, but Saucedo should be back soon, and Santos was reported to be playing full strength catch from flat ground up to 90 feet recently. So help and improvements could be on the way.

Overall: I think we have to give the Mariners a B- for the first quarter of the season. There is a lot that needs to be fixed with the team, but there are also a lot of talented players on this team. If they can figure it out, it's going to make for a dangerous team because of the ceiling of this pitching staff.