Surging Mariners' 2025 playoff odds have soared into jinx territory

The Seattle Mariners are on a roll right now, winning six of seven since the trade deadline. Although you can make the case that the convincing road sweep of the at-the-time MLB-best Detroit Tigers provided the genesis for a run which has seen the M's go 15-8 in their past 23 games.

In any event the Mariners enter their weekend home series versus the Tampa Bay Rays sitting pretty in the standings. The M's are just 1.5 games back of the Houston Astros at the AL West summit, while also holding a 3.0 game advantage when it comes to securing a wild card spot.

In terms of actually securing a playoff spot, fans in Seattle will be delighted to know that FanGraphs seems to have the utmost faith in the Mariners right now. In fact, to such an extent that the baseball website gives Dan Wilson's team better odds of making the postseason when compared to the Astros?!

Mariners over the Astros in every way except one

Yes, you did read that previous sentence correctly, with FanGraphs giving the Mariners a 85.9 percent chance of qualifying for the playoffs, whereas their main divisional rivals are at 84.9 percent. While appreciating that we're only talking about a difference of one percent, it still speaks volumes about how well-regarded the M's are at this time, undoubtedly boosted by the trade deadline acquisitions of Eugenio Suárez and Josh Naylor.

This confidence in the Mariners extends to them also having the best odds out of all five AL West teams to make the World Series at 17.6 percent, with the Astros at 13.0 percent. And as for winning it all, the M's are at 8.2 percent compared to 5.5 percent for their foes in Houston.

Bizarrely, in terms of the AL West title FanGraphs still has the Astros as favorites with odds of 49.2 percent compared to 44.2 percent for the Mariners. It's worth noting the teams are tied 5-5 in the season head-to-head series with one more three-game set remaining in Houston, but perhaps the M's history of not winning their division since 2001 is being held against them in some way.

Almost too good to be true for the Mariners

For the most part this all sounds extremely promising, but let's be honest — we've been here before with the Mariners often displaying an ability to somehow snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. The 2001 season remains the prime example of this, but there is a much more recent case of this from just a year ago.

With apologies to any Seattle fans out there with a penchant for an ongoing sense of impending doom, at one point in 2024 the Mariners were runaway favorites to win the AL West. On June 18 they had a season-high 91.7 percent odds to make the playoffs, while sitting with a 44-31 record and 10.0 game advantage over both the Astros and Texas Rangers in the division.

Well, we all know how that panned out as the Mariners went 41-46 the rest of the way and finished one agonizing game back of a playoff position in the AL. Meanwhile, the Astros went from 29.3 percent odds of making the postseason on June 18 to eventually winning the AL West for the seventh time in eight years.

Plenty of baseball experts genuinely believe it's going to be a different story this time around, due to this particular incarnation of the Mariners lineup being stacked, combined with the Astros seemingly representing an inferior version of their previous selves. But rational or not, it's going to be a case of seeing is believing, just because of the history of a franchise in Seattle which has witnessed far too much heartbreak over the years and not anywhere near enough success.