These teams having worse offseasons than the Mariners might help Seattle fans cope

The Mariners can't even win the race to the bottom.

Oakland Athletics v Seattle Mariners
Oakland Athletics v Seattle Mariners | Steph Chambers/GettyImages

Thanksgiving was two months ago but it's good to have gratitude year-round. When it comes to the Mariners, it can be understandably discouraging to see a lack of big moves from the front office this year. Despite recurring reports of the team being "interested" in a variety of players, the only major-league free agent they've signed thus far has the potential to be good but is still far from a game-changer. However, it may lift your spirits slightly to know that things could be much worse.

If Seattle were to take the field on Opening Day with no further roster moves made, they would probably be around the 85-90 win mark. FanGraphs Senior Writer Dan Szymborski published his annual ZiPS projections for the team all the way back in November, a few days before Josh Rojas and Luis Urías were removed from the roster. The write-up goes into excellent detail about the strengths and weaknesses of the team if you're interested in reading more.

If they were in a weaker division like the AL/NL Central, the quality of the roster as is would be enough to steal a few more wins from divisional opponents and sneak into the Wild Card. Unfortunately, they're in the AL West, one of the more competitive groups in baseball.

Because of the strength of their local peers, it makes them comparatively weaker but there are plenty of teams who are in stronger divisions with even weaker rosters. To get a high-level overview of who might be due for a downturn next year, we can start by taking a look at the current payroll changes from 2024 to 2025. This information was assembled by Jon Becker, a writer at FanGraphs who specializes in contracts and payroll.

Seattle Mariners Offseason: What's Seattle's outlook for 2025?

If we keep in mind that this list doesn't factor in deferrals (which are all the rage nowadays), we can point out a few teams that seem to be going in the wrong direction. Injuries held back the Braves last year, and after winning 89 games their postseason consisted of a single two-game sweep at the hands of the Padres. This offseason, they've done little to assuage fan concerns as they've only signed two players, both to one-year contracts. With the Mets reloading with Juan Soto and the Phillies retaining all of their core players and adding a new potential closer, the Braves will have to hope that their roster will be at full health if they want a chance at seizing the division once more.

The Giants are in a similar boat. They're in the dreaded NL West where the Dodgers seem unable to fail when it comes to signing free agents. Their latest acquisition makes the Giants' own starting pitching pickup in Justin Verlander seem inconsequential in comparison. They did manage to get their hands on Willy Adames, but lost Blake Snell to their SoCal rivals and haven't done much else since.

Perhaps the team with the saddest winter is the Toronto Blue Jays. It has become a running joke that they've ended up as finalists for various free agents like Roki Sasaki, Juan Soto, and even Shohei Ohtani last offseason. They've only managed to reacquire Yimi García and sign Jeff Hoffman thus far, but it's a poor consolation for what could've been. When it comes to their current core of young talent, it seems that they'll have trouble keeping them around too.

All that said, it still doesn't seem that the Marinres have done enough to compete. They've perfected the ability to be so close yet so far to the postseason, hovering around a winning percentage of just over 50% year in and year out. There are still a few big boppers left on the market, but if history has taught us anything, it's that the Mariners won't even show up to the race.

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