Mariners 40-Man Roster Primer
The club officially started their offseason this week with some roster moves.
The Seattle Mariners have been a decent-to-solid club the last four years, to the point of infuriation. Oh so close three times, just good enough once. For the third consecutive offseason, the goals are clear, or at least should be. Understanding what the strengths and weaknesses are means knowing the 40-man roster, among others thing.
Here’s where the club sits with that 40-man roster — sometimes refered to as the reserve roster — prior to any major additions or subtractions.
*Note: Clubs can clear 40-man roster space without much difficulty. The fringes of the roster are quite fluid throughout the year, and particularly over the offseason as teams retool for the coming season.
*Matt Brash may qualify for Super Two arbitration status. The league should be announcing the threshold this week.
*Luis Castillo’s contrtact has a vesting option for 2028.
**This is Logan Gilbert’s second of four arbitration years. He was a Super Two a year ago.
***Anres Munoz’s contract comes with three options years 2026-28.
The Mariners are obviously in a great place with their starting rotation, and have decent depth behind those five. The bullpen, however, has suffered key injuries (Brash, Santos, Speier) that impacted 2024 significantly.
Brash had UCL surgery in May and should return in 2025, but exactly when remains to be seen, and when he does get back on the mound there’s no guarantee he picks up where he left off in 2023.
Gregory Santos was relatively ineffective after returning from two IL stints (biceps) and pitched through a minor knee issue, but he made just eight appearances and covered merely 7.1 innings. Assuming Santos gets back to his 2023 form wouldn’t be wise, either.
Gabe Speier, Trent Thornton, Austin Voth, JT Chargois, and Tayler Saucedo are projected to about $6 million combined if the club chooses to tender and retain them for 2025. This is one way president of baseball operations Jerry Dipoto could create a bit more payroll flexibility. Voth and Thornton are expected to net around $2 million each, but the club got pretty good production from Voth a year ago on a $1.25 million free agent contract.
It’s conceivable the club could non-tender one ore more the three right-handers and start again, especially with the promising showing of right-hander Troy Taylor in the second half.
Speier’s numbers is below $1 million, Saucedo’s is right around that number. One or both are likely top be tendered, particularly Saucedo. Speier’s 2024 was a weird one, but his fastball lost two ticks and the club’s perception of his shoulder health will be key to that decision and Speier’s 2025.
There are a number of arms on the roster that may not be around when the season starts. These spots are tenuous, dependong on what else the club does between now and Opening Day.
Carlos Vargas, Blas Castano, Jackson Kowar, Austin Kitchen, and Jhonthan Diaz are among those without a stringhold on the roster, which currently sits at exactly 40 players.
George Kirby, by the way, is a Super Two this year, projected at around $5 million.
I expect Seattle to make a handful of small additions to the bullpen mix, mostly but not exclusively on minor league deals — this is how they found Snider last year. But considering the Santos, Speier, and Brash situations the Mariners need another true blue high-leverage option that brings some relative certainty to the group.
Cal Raleigh will be a fairly pricey first-year arbitration eligible, probably landing in the $5 million range. Mitch Garver should be the backup catcher, starting versus most lefties, and only asked to be more if he performs. Yes, it’s an expensive No. 2 backstop, but the DH spot is one of four precious opportunities for the club to get more offense and shouldn’t block that with a player who struggled so severely in 2024.
Garver, by the way, did hit lefties plenty this past season (124 wRC+), suggesting this could be a very good catching duo, a lot like the Raleigh-Tom Murphy ones a few years back.
The status of Leo Rivas, Josh Rojas, and Samad Taylor on the roster isn’t necessarily firm, and Rojas’ arbitration projection likely pushes the club to non-tender the 30-year-old lin the coming days, even after Luis Urias was removed from the roster and Jorge Polanco’s option was declined.
Ryan Bliss flashed enough for me this past season to serve as the worst-case scenario at second base this offseason — which only works if the club adds two hitters elsewhere (1B, 3B, DH are the other three open positions), allowing the thinning of the veteran heard on the infield, mostly for payroll purposes.
*Randy Arozarena will have one more year of arbitration after his Super Two status a few years ago.
**The club has an option on Victor Robles for 2027
This group may very well be set with Arozarena and Robles flanking Julio Rodriguez. All three are above-average hitters — if we’re buying at least some of Robles’ 2024, which I am — and two are above-average gloves.
Luke Raley could come into play at first base, depending on the additions, but is an ideal extra outfielder since his left-handed power compliments the right-handed heavy starters in the outfield.
Dylan Moore is also a a potential factor in the outfield for depth.
Sam Haggerty isn’t likely to be tendered after his Achilles injury in May forced to miss the rest of the season. His arbitration projection is in the $900,000 range — a repeat from a year ago — but with the outfield as set as it is Haggerty is further down the depth chart than he was last spring.
Dominic Canzone’s probably safe from DFA scenarios, but could be included as a small piece in a trade. Marlowe, however, is now closer to Haggerty territory following his regression in 2024, the acquisitions of Robles and Arozarena and the performance of Raley.
The only ways adding another full-time outfielder makes sense for Seattle is if they have a trade plan for Randy Arozarena that helps them fill another hole and/or carve out more payroll, or if the player is a significsnt upgrade. It’s highly unlikely we see this unfold, but if given the chance to add a true star, you don’t tell that player’s agent or current club “nah, we’re good in the outfield, do you have a much worse player that can play second or third? We’d be more interested in that.”
