The Seattle Times' all-time Mariners team has 2 debatable, depressing snubs

This year marks the Mariners' 50th year as an MLB franchise. Over the course of the half century, the team hasn't had very much playoff success, but that doesn't mean it hasn't had its fair share of exceptional individual talent at times.

From Ichiro Suzuki to Ken Griffey Jr., Seattle has served as the home to some of the sport's best talent, which is why it's understandable that The Seattle Times was forced to make some tough decisions in their recent iteration of the all-time Mariners team.

Adrian Beltré and Robinson Canó were notably excluded from The Seattle Times' all-time Mariners team

Beltré, who was inducted into the Hall of Fame in 2024, may go down as one of the best third basemen ever. Unfortunately, his years in Seattle were some of his least productive. His five-year, $64 million contract signed in 2004 was one of several big swings the front office took that failed to live up to the hype. Nonetheless, he was still decent, accumulating 21.2 rWAR over five seasons with the Mariners.

Instead, The Seattle Times chose Kyle Seager at third base. He's seventh all-time in franchise rWAR (37.0) and exists just outside of the elite inner circle of players like Álex Rodríguez (38.1) and Randy Johnson (39.0). Other than Félix Hernández, he has the most rWAR of any player who spent his entire career with the Mariners.

He's as close to a homegrown talent as they get, being selected by the Mariners in the third round of the 2009 draft and spending his entire career with the organization before retiring in 2021. He didn't rack up a lot of accolades, but was consistently productive for the only team he ever knew.

Like Beltré, Robinson Canó had an impressive statistical career in MLB, but his best seasons were with a different team. Of his eight best seasons by rWAR, only two came with Seattle. His 10-year, $240 million contract with the Mariners is still the franchise's largest free agent deal to date and likely won't be surpassed for quite some time, especially given how it ended. Unlike Beltré, his legacy has been tarnished by two PED suspensions, the latter of which resulted in a 162-game suspension, a big reason his time as a Mariner isn't looked as fondly as some of his peers.

In his place, The Seattle Times chose Bret Boone. Many know him for his role in the historic 2001 season but he actually came up with the organization, being drafted in the fifth round out of USC in 1990 and playing two big-league seasons before being traded to the Reds after the 1993 season.

His 8.8 rWAR in 2001 arguably made him more deserving of the AL MVP than Ichiro Suzuki, but at the time, Ichiro's surface-level statistics were simply too good to overlook. He won the batting title while leading all of MLB in hits (242) and stolen bases (56). Regardless of his possible award snubs, his rWAR with the franchise (19.2) is the highest of any primary second basemen other than Canó.

Ranking players is always difficult, especially when looking across different eras of the game. When it comes to looking solely at contributions to the team, one can see why Beltré and Canó failed to make the list. Both were on a hall of fame trajectory but ultimately failed to carry their previous success into their tenures as Mariners. If nothing else, they serve as reminders of how marquee signings can often be disappointing.