The Biggest Free-Agent Mistake the Mariners Must Avoid This Winter

The Mariners cannot spend another winter shopping for power with a bargain attached to the cost. We know the type they’ve gone after. A guy with some pop and a marketable skill. He probably has just enough recent decline to make the contract feel “low risk.” The Mariners sign him for a year or two, talk about the favorable splits and hope T-Mobile Park won’t expose the flaws that are already poking through his game.

Sometimes the gamble works. Far too often, it hasn’t. The biggest mistake the Mariners must avoid in free-agency this winter is the bargain-bin hitter with glaring limitations.

We’re not going to argue about home runs, platoons or depth. Every contender needs all three. But confusing that value with what’s dependable has ruined the Mariners lineup on countless occasions.

Mitch Garver arrived after helping Texas win a World Series and received a two-year, $24 million contract. He looked like a reasonable bet. Not a star, but an experienced hitter with patience and pop to stabilize the DH position. Instead, he hit .172 with a .627 OPS during his first season in Seattle and eventually lost the DH job and was moved to a backup catcher.

Rowdy Tellez was an even cheaper version of the same wager. Seattle gave him a $1.5 million opportunity, hoping his power from the left side could cover the holes elsewhere in his offensive game. He hit 11 home runs, but his .249 OBP made those occasional homers hard to justify. By June, he had been DFA’d.

Then came Rob Refsnyder, the newest reminder that bargains don’t have to be especially cheap to produce the same result.

Seattle guaranteed Refsnyder $6.25 million on a one-year contract because of his track record against left-handed pitching. The idea sounded good. But we know that didn’t work out either.

Refsnyder hit .140 with a .465 OPS over 53 games. Even the skill Seattle purchased disappeared, as he produced a .458 OPS against lefties before landing on the IL with knee trouble. The Mariners released him on August 4, ending another short-term experiment before the season had concluded.

That failure in particular hurts because Refsnyder wasn’t signed to rediscover anything. He was a specialist required to perform one job.

Go back to 2023 and the pattern is the same. AJ Pollock was signed for one year and $7 million to handle a carefully defined platoon role. Tommy La Stella was another inexpensive veteran patch. Neither lasted through the summer.

None of the moves were indefensible in isolation. But that’s also the problem. The Mariners keep assembling an offense out of transactions that can be individually explained but collectively leave the lineup starving.

A contender can carry maybe one reclamation project. It cannot keep asking three or four of them to become something they are no longer.

Mariners Must Stop Chasing Short-Term Fixes and Make A Real Offensive Commitment

Seattle’s obsession with limiting long-term risk has created another liability. They find themselves with a lineup that must be reconstructed every winter, and occasionally rebuilt again during the season.

Short contracts preserve their favorite word: flexibility. They also create churn. If the hitter succeeds, he reaches free agency or becomes more expensive. If he fails, the Mariners are back in the market searching for the same temporary answer. Either way, the lineup never develops the same stability the rotation has enjoyed.

Teoscar Hernández is the perfect warning against making this argument too simple. He struck out 211 times while hitting 26 home runs for Seattle in 2023. Then he left, joined the Dodgers and produced a career-high 33 homers with an .840 OPS during their 2024 championship season.

Hernández was not a flawed hitter who couldn’t get the job done. He was a talented hitter whose worst tendencies became more exposed in Seattle — and who improved after leaving. That should force the organization to examine more than just the player. It’s also about the fit, the offensive environment and the club’s ability to help established hitters adjust.

They don’t need to put together a list of banned hitters they shouldn’t put in a Mariners uniform. Maybe it’s to stop acquiring bats whose entire value disappears when their one preferred matchup or carrying tool disappears.

Prioritizing hitters who control the strike zone, make plenty of contact to be able to survive power droughts. Josh Naylor is a great example. Sure, we need more than 10 home runs from him. But he still managed to slash .261/.317/.350 with a bad shoulder and a wrist that needed surgery.

The Mariners need to make a meaningful commitment to a hitter who is more than a platoon piece, rebound candidate or bridge to someone else. Payroll flexibility only works when a team actually uses it.

Seattle has spent years protecting itself from the wrong contract. But they must focus on protecting itself from another incomplete lineup. If they don’t, 2026 could happen all over again.

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