Rest of the American League is giving the Mariners a can't-miss opportunity

No matter what happens between now and Opening Day, the Seattle Mariners are going to begin 2026 as a World Series contender. Write it down in pen and jump for joy. It's not an exaggeration. It's simply the truth.

If anything, it's outside Seattle where the Mariners hype is strongest. They're getting extraordinary love in early Power Rankings for the 2026 season, and now there's a piece from Will Leitch of MLB.com which has the Mariners in second place among his top 10 most likely World Series winners for the next decade.

The Mariners have themselves to credit for this. Long one of the laughingstock franchises of the American League, they're now a star-powered team with one of the best front offices in all of MLB. Even in falling eight outs shy of the World Series in 2025, the vibe in the immediate aftermath was, "We'll be back."

Then there's the other thing working in the Mariners' favor right now: As they speed up, the rest of the American League seems stuck in neutral.

Silence elsewhere in the AL is a huge opportunity for the Mariners

Not the Toronto Blue Jays, of course. After beating the Mariners in the ALCS last year, they have strayed even further into "worthy enemy" territory. They've sunk $336 million into free agents, and there could still be room for Kyle Tucker or Bo Bichette.

On the other hand, the other four AL playoff teams from last year haven't done a whole lot.

In the AL Central, the Cleveland Guardians have sat out the free-agent and trade markets, while the Detroit Tigers have mostly focused on their bullpen. Both still have time to save their winters, but the Tigers might not have the bandwidth if their looming arbitration fight with Tarik Skubal takes it all up.

In the AL East, the New York Yankees are struggling to even run it back with the same team that couldn't keep pace with Toronto. They have yet to make any major additions, and even their talks with Cody Bellinger are at an impasse, according to Buster Olney of ESPN. The Boston Red Sox have been more proactive making changes, but all anyone cares about right now is that they didn't find a way to bring Alex Bregman back.

These clubs also still have time to salvage things, but both have to reckon with the cost of going all-in. Any big move the Yankees make could put them in the third tier for luxury tax penalties for a fourth straight season. For their part, the Red Sox are less than $4 million in average value from the first threshold.

The smaller picture concerning the Mariners' competition in the AL West isn't much different. The two Texas teams are their only real threat in 2026, and both have been content to merely reshape their rosters. Even the Astros' splash on Tatsuya Imai only provided them with a replacement for Framber Valdez, whose time in Houston seems to be over. The Rangers' biggest move was the trade that swapped out Marcus Semien for Brandon Nimmo, which could ultimately be a downgrade.

Early WAR projections for the 2026 season highlight the Mariners as the team to beat in the AL West, with only the Blue Jays and Yankees ahead of them in the broader AL race. If that sounds unreasonable, it's only because those projections are probably overestimating New York — just as an example, 2.2 WAR for Anthony Volpe is laughable after the experience he had in 2025.

If anything, it's a new bully that the Mariners and Blue Jays should be mindful of. The Baltimore Orioles were a playoff team in 2023 and 2024, and have responded to a down year in 2025 with a noisy offseason.

For now, though, the Mariners have every reason to not believe their luck. The rest of the AL could have closed ranks after they had their best season in decades (heck, maybe ever), and that just hasn't happened.