The Seattle Mariners have two very different paths in front of them, and the comparisons are impossible to miss.
One version is the encouraging one: a team that takes one ugly season, resets the room, and turns things around fast enough to matter again by 2027. The other is the cautionary tale, where a talented group misses its moment, stumbles through the fallout, and never quite finds its footing again.
Seattle is coming off a 76-86 season, a year that ended with the Mariners out of the playoffs after a run of expectations that never came close to matching the results. That was a sharp fall from 2024, when the Mariners won the American League West, beat the Detroit Tigers in a dramatic five-game American League Divisional Series, and then lost to the Toronto Blue Jays in the American League Championship Series.
This season, though, the whole thing unraveled. The Mariners finished third in the American League West despite the American League being wide open, and the organization has already moved on from several members of the coaching staff, including manager Dan Wilson.
From there, the story splits depending on your temperament. The optimistic read is simple: fresh start, clean slate, and a chance to get back on track. The pessimistic view is harsher, especially after the comments Jerry Dipoto made this week, which some will take as a sign that the Mariners may not be able to fix things quickly enough to make a real impact by 2027.
There’s a reason the Blue Jays are being used as the hopeful example here. Toronto finished last in 2024 at 74-88 and looked broken in a lot of the same ways Seattle does now.
The offense was one of the worst in baseball, scoring 671 runs, the eighth-fewest in the sport. Bo Bichette was limited to 81 games, George Springer hit just .220 with a .303 on-base percentage, and Bichette managed only a .225 average with four home runs.
Then 2025 happened. The Jays exploded to 798 runs, fourth-most in baseball, got a 32-homer rebound from Springer, and saw Vladimir Guerrero Jr. finish 13th in MVP voting. Add in breakouts from Addison Barger and Nathan Lukes, plus a playoff surge from Ernie Clement, and Toronto went from 74 wins to 94, won the American League East, and reached the World Series.
Seattle has some of the same ingredients. Cal Raleigh and Julio Rodriguez both regressed this year, and injuries hit the roster in a bunch of other places.
Brendan Donovan played just 39 games. Matt Brash missed half the season.
Several other important players also spent significant time on the injured list.
That’s where the optimistic case for 2027 comes from. Rodriguez and Raleigh could return to form, Donovan could stay healthy, and there’s room for another step from Dominic Canzone along with further growth from Cole Young and Colt Emerson.
Is that the most likely outcome? The source material leaves that open. But it is possible, and Toronto shows how quickly a season can flip.
The darker comparison comes from Baltimore. The Orioles were never as bad as some truly bottoming-out teams, but they spent 2018 through 2021 piling up losses before finally cashing in on a wave of young talent. They went 47-115 in 2018, won 54 games in 2019, then 52 in the pandemic-shortened 2021 season, which gave them high draft picks and a real foundation.
By the end of 2022, Baltimore was trending up with Adley Rutschman and Gunnar Henderson. The Orioles won 101 games and the American League East in 2023, and more young talent was either already there or on the way, including Jackson Holliday, Colton Cowser, Grayson Rodriguez, Kyle Bradish and Jordan Westburg.
That group was supposed to define the next decade. Instead, the Orioles won 93 games in 2024 but got swept in the American League wild card round and finished 0-5 in playoff games across 2023 and 2024. The decline kept going in 2025 at 75-87, Brandon Hyde was fired during the season, and Baltimore was only marginally better in 2026 at 79-82.
If there’s a warning sign for Seattle in that example, it’s this: a young team can have a real window, miss it, and then never quite regain the momentum. The Orioles even traded Rutschman this past season, and while some of that core remains, the group never really got the full chance it seemed poised to have beyond 2024.
In Other News...
Mariners Just Caught A Break In Their Manager Search
The Mariners managerial hunt has already been shaping up as one of the more expansive searches in the sport, with the club working through a long list of candidates as it looks to replace Dan Wilson. Seattle has reportedly cast a wide net, and the process has included familiar names such as Joe Espada, Rocco Baldelli, Brandon Hyde and David Ross, along with coaches whose seasons are still alive in the postseason.
One little bit of clarity arrived on the other side of the league as the Phillies opted to keep Don Mattingly in place rather than open up a broader search of their own. For Seattle, it does not solve anything directly, but it does remove one more possible wrinkle from a market already full of moving parts, leaving the Mariners to continue sorting through a crowded field while other clubs settle their decisions. [Read more 🡒]
Mariners Search Just Got Bigger Than Joe Espada Alone
The Mariners managerial search may now need to stretch beyond Joe Espada himself. Houston announced it will not renew Espadas contract after three seasons as manager, a move that also swept up six coaching roles around him and underscored how much turnover is already tied to his exit. For Seattle, that means any serious look at Espada is not just about the name on the dugout door, but about the kind of staff structure he would want behind him.
That makes the next step in the Mariners process a little more complicated and a lot more telling. If Espada is a candidate, Seattle will likely want to know who he would bring into the room and how he would want to shape the day-to-day operation, especially with Houston making so many changes around him. The fit is still there to be explored, but the staff conversation may wind up being just as important as the manager conversation. [Read more 🡒]
Mariners Prospect Jarvis Gomez Suddenly Looks Like A Name To Watch
Jarvis Gomez has moved onto the radar in a hurry after a strong summer in the Dominican Summer League gave the 17-year-old outfielder from San Isidro a real foothold in the Mariners system. His combination of plate discipline, power and speed has made him easy to notice, and the organization recently brought him to Seattle to accept its MiLB Hitter of the Year honor, a sign of how much progress he made in a short time.
For Seattle, the next step is less about the award and more about what comes next for a player still early in his development. Gomez is focused on getting stronger and improving his conditioning, and the Mariners are keeping him close to that process with another key stop on his calendar later this month. It is the sort of developmental path that can turn a promising summer into something more lasting, which is why he suddenly feels like a name worth filing away. [Read more 🡒]