MLB Offseason Preview - Seattle Mariners

Seattle Mariners

American League	West Division
86-76	9.0 GB of Division Lead
Manager: Scott Servais	GM: Jerry Depoto
AAA Affiliate Tacoma Rainiers	AA Affiliate Arkansas Travelers

2016 Rankings

Hitting	AVG – 10th	OPS – 8th	Runs – 6th	HR – 3rd	SB – 24th
Starting Pitching	ERA – 9th	K/9 – 22nd	H/9 – 17th
Relief Pitching	ERA – 7th	K/9 – 7th	H/9 – 9th

Top Hitters

POS.	Name	AVG	OBP	Slug	HR	RBIs	SB	WAR
2B	Robinson Cano	.298	.350	.533	39	103	0	7.3
3B	Kyle Seager	.278	.359	.499	30	99	3	6.9
DH	Nelson Cruz	.287	.360	.555	43	105	2	4.7

Top Pitchers

POS.	Name	G/GS	Record	IP/Saves	ERA	K	BB	ERA+	WAR
SP	Hisashi Iwakuma	33 GS	16-12	199.0 IP	4.12	147	46	98	2.6
CP	Steve Cishek	62 G	4-6	25 saves	2.81	76	21	144	1.6
SP	Felix Hernandez	25 GS	11-8	153.1 IP	3.82	122	65	106	1.6

Trades That Occurred During the Season

• Traded P Vidal Nuno to the Dodgers for C Carlos Ruiz
• Traded P Wade Miley to Baltimore for P Amel Miranda
• Traded P Paul Blackburn to Oakland for UT Danny Valencia
• Traded SP Taijuan Walker and SS Ketel Marte to Arizona for SS Jean Segura, OF Mitch Haniger, and P Zac Curtis

Impending Free Agents

• RP Drew Storen
• 1B Adam Lind
• C Chris Iannetta
• RP Charlie Furbush
• CF Franklin Gutierrez
• 1B Dae-ho Lee
• C Steve Clevenger

Top Prospects

POS.	Name	Level
OF	Kyle Lewis	A-
OF	Tyler O’neill	AA

Team MVP

• Robinson Cano was the Mariners best player last season, rebounding from the two down years he had to start his tenure in Seattle.  He led the team in batting average and hit a career high in home runs, all in a season that earned him MVP votes.  Cano also played excellent defense, creating 11 defensive runs saved, second most among second basemen in baseball.  This season, Cano proved that he is able to be the great threat in the middle of the batting order that the Mariners thought they were getting when they signed him to a 10 year, $240 million in December 2013.

Success/Failure

• Failure - With every move the Mariners made last offseason, the team was attempting to reach the playoffs and appeared to have the roster to be a potential candidate to reach the World Series.  Their offense and relief pitching came through and performed well enough to make the goal possible, but their starting rotation had problems all season long.  Ace Felix Hernandez didn't have a great year with an era above 3.50, Taijuan Walker still hasn't developed into the front of the rotation pitcher that it looked like he could be, and Hisashi Iwakuma was their best pitcher.  

Offseason Outlook

• The Mariners have already gone out and made two smaller moves to better their team in 2017. They acquired veteran Carlos Ruiz to address their need at catcher, which has been a position of issue in recent seasons, and they traded for utility player Danny Valencia, who looks to be their regular first baseman next season.  They also acquired SS Jean Segura from the Diamondbacks for Ketel Marte and Taijuan Walker after Segura hd the best season of his career. They still need to figure something out for a late-inning lefty in their bullpen and have been linked to Pirates' closer Tony Watson.  They have also been involved in rumors for Reds' shortstop Zach Cozart who would bring a quality bat and solid defense to their lineup.  I think that they should try and acquire another outfielder to replace Seth Smith or Nori Aoki and I believe that Jose Bautista would fit in well for them.  They are absolutely going all-in for the immediate future with the current core they have and the fact that their roster is older.  They will have to compete, however, in a very difficult division, with the Rangers and Astros returning very strong and competitive rosters.

*All stats and information come from baseball-reference.com, fangraphs.com, rosterresource.com, baseballamerica.com, and spotrac.com