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...
Josh Naylor's Honest Mariners Take Puts Focus On What Still Lingers
Josh Naylors first weeks with the Mariners have already given the club a clearer sense of how he views the game, and his honesty comes through in the little things as much as the big ones. The conversation around the Division Series only sharpens that lens, because in a five-game format, an early hole can feel a lot deeper than it does over a longer playoff round, and every detail starts to matter when teams are trying to keep pace.
The Mariners have been looking at those margins closely, from the baserunning basics to the kind of plays that can swing a night, including the one involving Austin Wells against the Yankees. Naylors assessment also lands in a wider baseball conversation that keeps circling back to market perceptions, including the buzz around Munetaka Murakami, but for Seattle the lingering question is simpler and more immediate: whether the club can turn those small corrections into something sturdier before the postseason pressure rises again. [Read more 🡒]
Astros Offseason Could Open A Massive Door For The Mariners
Houstons abrupt playoff exit has only sharpened the sense that a familiar power structure in the American League West could be on the verge of shifting. Even after finishing 81-81, the Astros still won the division, but the season also underscored how much of the roster is built around an aging core and a wave of looming contract questions. For the Mariners, who finished 76-86, that matters because the gap between the two clubs looked smaller in stretches than the standings suggested.
Seattles path back into the race has long depended on more than just improving its own roster. It also depends on whether the teams ahead of it stay sturdy, and the Astros now face an offseason that could force some hard organizational choices. The Mariners had their moments against Houston this year, and if the divisions most established club starts to turn over key pieces, Seattle suddenly finds itself staring at a much more open lane than it had a month ago. [Read more 🡒]
Mariners Prospects Just Hit A Test That Could Change The Conversation
Jonny Farmelo and Felnin Celesten earned a move from High-A Everett to Double-A Arkansas after strong early performances, a promotion that usually signals a prospect is closing in on the next conversation around big-league value. For the Mariners, the jump mattered because both players had been drawing real attention inside the system, and each still sits among the organizations top-100 prospects even after the latest MLB Pipeline update.
The first taste of Double-A, though, has been less forgiving. Their rankings slid in the latest top 100 refresh as the level of pitching sharpened and the offense backed up, with more strikeouts and less production than they showed before the move. For Seattle, the question now is less about whether the talent is still there and more about how quickly Farmelo and Celesten can adjust to the test that often separates promising names from the ones who stay on track. [Read more 🡒]