When it's all said and done, are the Mariners better as they head into 2024 season?

Ok so like… are the Mariners better this year or not?

For every statement this off-season about how Mariner brass has refused to spend on big names, there should be an accompanying statement about how sneaky good Dipoto and Hollander have been at, oh let’s call it coloring inside the lines shall we?

Working with what you’ve got and targeting one aspect of this offense to improve that raises the floor. It almost feels like low-hanging fruit but striking out significantly less is just an obvious way to suck less severely. When you’ve got the best pitching in the league that only stands to improve from last year, that one way to stop sucking might just result in a double-digit win total gain year over year.

Brant Brown’s approach alone seemingly made the Marlins competitive in 14 more games, and that was with no roster construction focus on K rate. When you look at this Mariner team position by position it’s difficult to say that they’ll be significantly better or worse than last year offensively. It’s only when you look at the intention behind the overall roster and approach that a vision starts to emerge.

That vision is what will lead to more consistent offense one through nine for Scott Servais and Co. I nearly threw up in my mouth when I heard that Seattle had removed itself from the race for Shohei. All was lost and the sky was falling in the emerald city. Until I looked up and it wasn’t.

It’s far from obvious but this Mariner fan believes that there has been marked improvement and reason for optimism. Lots of love, and Go Mariners.