The Mariners' current roster is hiding a potentially huge 2026 advantage

After finishing one win shy of the World Series, Mariners fans have spent this offseason asking the only question that matters: who are they adding to keep the chase alive? It’s fair, and even Ryan Divish’s latest “they’re still motivated” pulse-check basically reinforces that the front office doesn’t view the roster as finished yet. 

But the more interesting question might be the one nobody wants to say out loud because it sounds like tempting fate: What if Seattle’s biggest 2026 upgrade is already in the building?

Not in the corny “internal options!” way. In the real way, the kind where a good team with a high floor adds wins simply by getting back to normal.

The Mariners’ 2026 breakthrough might be less about shopping than stability

Take Victor Robles. MLB.com’s bounceback list basically reads like a superhero origin story — the shoulder fracture on that foul-territory netting catch in San Francisco (April 7), the “how is he back already?” return by Aug. 23, and then the game-sealing catch in Houston on Sept. 20 that helped Seattle lock up the division. And the part that hits hardest: Robles also revealed he unexpectedly lost his mother during the summer. 

If you’re looking for the 2026 advantage, start there. When Robles is right, he changes how Seattle can stack innings: better pressure at the top, more traffic for the thunder in the middle, less “please don’t waste another Cal Raleigh nuke” energy.

And that matters because 2025 showed what happens when Seattle’s plan gets wrecked early and the team has to improvise. Zachary Rymer’s breakdown of the leadoff carousel is the kind of thing that makes you wince because you watched it in real time: once Randy Arozarena got shoved into the leadoff spot, his production cratered. It wasn’t that Arozarena became a bad player overnight. It was that Seattle asked him to be a different player while the lineup was already searching for oxygen.

Now add Luke Raley as the other sneaky reason this roster may be significantly improved. His 2025 was basically two separate IL stints stitched together due to his oblique strain, which made it impossible for him to find a rhythm, followed by another back spasm IL stint. He only appeared in 73 regular season games. If you have seen how off he looked at times during the season, that isn’t a mystery; that is a year where he did not get into a rhythm.

The same “back to normal” logic applies to the rotation, and it’s not just one guy. George Kirby, Logan Gilbert, Bryce Miller, and Bryan Woo all dealt with injuries in some form or fashion in 2025, which is basically the one thing that can make Seattle’s biggest strength feel human. Kirby lost time with shoulder inflammation. Gilbert had his season disrupted by the elbow/flexor issue. Miller was fighting elbow inflammation and the bone-spur situation that sent him to the IL twice. Woo wasn’t immune either, dealing with a pec strain in mid-September. You don’t have to play doctor to understand the ripple effect: timing, feel, command, recovery between starts, workload planning all get weird.

So yes: Seattle can still add. They probably should. But the roster advantage hiding in plain sight is simpler — and honestly more encouraging. The Mariners don’t need five miracles in 2026. They need three or four good players to stop playing through a year from hell at the same time.

Teams don’t usually get a gift like this: a roster that underperformed, survived, and still got to the doorstep. That’s why 2026 could be sneaky — not because Seattle’s done shopping, but because the baseline might be way higher than people realize. And if the Mariners raise the floor and add one more real difference-maker? That’s how you go from almost to inevitable.