The Mariners look powerless to fight against ESPN's brutal takedown

It doesn't take much to trigger the Seattle Mariners fanbase when you consider they've only been to the playoffs five times in their history, including just once since 2001. Entering the 2025 campaign, there was a lot of angst and frustration among fans, mainly due to the lack of moves made to add quality bats and compliment the elite rotation which resides in Seattle.

This has so far come back to haunt the Mariners, as evidenced by a lineup which ranks second-worst in team batting average and tied a lowly 22nd in OPS as of Thursday morning. They are just 21st in scoring, which has contributed greatly to being tied at the bottom in the AL West standings with a 5-8 record.

Keeping this in mind, ESPN has unveiled their hottest takes for the first two weeks of the MLB season and includes one which won't make Mariners fans feel particularly good. Jesse Rogers is predicting the M's will finish the season in last place in their division.

Rogers does admit they had to talk themselves into this take. But the more they thought about it, the more they believed it could actually happen. While it's easy enough to see both the Texas Rangers and Houston Astros finishing ahead of the Mariners, where the real hot take part of the prediction comes is in having both the Athletics and Los Angeles Angels also finishing higher in the AL West.

ESPN justifies putting the A's and Angels ahead of the Mariners

Rogers points towards the Athletics and Angels both having better hitting so far in comparison to the Mariners, which isn't much of a stretch based on recent history. Where things really become interesting, though, is when it comes to the respective pitching of all three teams.

Rogers argues that the A's and Los Angeles are both getting just enough out of the pitching to compliment their bats. Meanwhile, he also argues that Seattle's pitching staff while dominant at home, is only okay on the road.

Rogers' hot take is summed up by the claim that some in the industry already like the Athletics as much as the Mariners, leaving the Angels as the real leap of faith. In closing, the prediction is that if Los Angeles can remain healthy this season, then they will narrowly beat out Seattle for fourth place in the AL West.

Mariners lineups full of underachievers

Beginning with the lineup, things have started badly, especially when you consider the additions of Donovan Solano and Rowdy Tellez have been an outright disaster to date. Solano has just two hits in 18 at-bats, while Tellez is even worse with one solitary hit in 20 at-bats.

J.P. Crawford isn't showing signs of bouncing back from last season's career-worst year, with the same going for Mitch Garver. It also doesn't help that one of the Mariners' best offensive producers from last season is now injured, with Víctor Robles expected to be out for at least 12 weeks.

As for the Mariners pitching, we've also previously noted the disparity between home and road success last year, ranking first in ERA at T-Mobile Park and 19th on their travels. As for this season, the M's are ranked 15th overall in ERA so far, and keep in mind 10 of the team's first 13 games have been played in Seattle.

It's not ALL bad for the Mariners

However, we have to at least make some counter to all this talk of doom and gloom, even if things don't look too great right now. The first thing is to point out that the Angels are overperforming, whereas the Mariners are not as bad as they've shown thus far.

Secondly, for all the talk of the Angeles and Athletics getting just enough out of their pitching up to this point, they are ranked 23rd and 27th respectively in ERA at the time of writing. It's hard to believe this is part of some model for sustained success over the course of a full 162-game season.

As for the Mariners lineup, they have shown signs of life at times already this season, but they've been unfortunate to have some of their better performances count for nothing. The prime examples are the 9-6 loss to the Tigers and 10-9 extra innings defeat to the Giants, in games where they were let down by poor efforts from Emerson Hancock and Luis F. Castillo respectively.

A galvanizing point for the Mariners?

On the subject of Castillo, it appeared that another poor outing from him was going to cost the Mariners on Wednesday afternoon in the rubber match of a three-game set against the Astros. However, he was bailed out by a dramatic comeback from 5-0 down in the middle of the eighth, with Randy
Arozarena and Julio Rodriguez leading the charge to a 7-6 walk-off win.

Of course, it's easier for fans to feel more optimistic after beating the hated Astros and winning your first series of the year. At the same time though, the Mariners have not really taken advantage of a schedule which has them playing 13 of their first 16 games of the season at home, with a record of just 5-5 at T-Mobile Park.

It will be interesting to see how the Mariners perform in their next series, with three games at home to a Rangers team which is leading the AL West and sits 4.0 games ahead of them. Win that series and the positive vibes from the Astros three-game set will continue, but lose, and it could add slightly more validity to Rogers' hot take.

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