Do Mariners’ struggles warrant changes? ESPN’s Passan shares his view

Jul 23, 2024, 11:06 AM | Updated: 1:38 pm

Editor, Seattle Sports

The Seattle Mariners go into Tuesday clinging onto a share of the lead in the AL West, but the mood around the team doesn’t exactly feel like it.

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The Mariners have dropped three of their first four games since returning from the MLB All-Star break, and they have seen the 10-game lead they owned in the division evaporate into a tie with the Houston Astros by going 9-18 since June 18.

Offense has been an issue all season long for Seattle, and it’s seemingly only getting worse. The M’s have scored just nine runs in their four games since the break, with six of those coming in their lone win, and they rank near the bottom of the league in many offensive categories this season, including last in strikeouts and batting average.

Is it at the point where the Mariners could be considering big changes? ESPN MLB insider Jeff Passan was asked about that Tuesday during his weekly conversation with Seattle Sports’ Brock and Salk, and while he was blunt about the Mariners’ performance now, he provided some perspective about how the team is seen by those around the game.

“I think when you’re talking about jobs, you’re probably talking more like front office, managing, coaches. But I think Ty France illustrates that players’ jobs are on the line,” said Passan, referring to the Mariners placing their starting first baseman on waivers Sunday. “If you’re going to fold when it gets hard, there is no place, and there shouldn’t be a place.”

Although the Mariners’ offense is playing at a level comparable to the two worst teams in MLB, the Chicago White Sox and Miami Marlins, Passan highlighted why they’re an interesting team to watch before the July 30 MLB trade deadline next week due to two areas where Seattle’s brass has shined: a stellar starting rotation and highly-ranked farm system.

“One of the more fascinating things to me over the next week will be seeing how the Mariners reshape their roster, because I feel like that is what they need to do. And reshape, that’s a hard thing to do on the fly,” he said. “That is a hard thing to do when you have an eye on the future too, and recognize that you have a great farm system. And that’s why to me the criticism that’s levied at the Mariners’ front office for not putting together a representative offense is completely warranted, but this isn’t like a lot of other organizations that are trying to win and doing so at the expense of their farm system.

“If the Mariners’ farm system was a tire fire right now, then I think (it would warrant) training the eye on that front office and saying, ‘What you’ve done on the offensive side at the big league level is is not good enough, and we need to consider looking in another direction.’ But where they are with their farm system, where they are with pitching development, with the things that they have figured out how to do well, I don’t see how you can do that.”

Passan then pulled back to more of a big picture view of the Mariners as an organization.

“I think that it’s easy to get caught up in the right now and how bad it is, but when you look at the organization holistically compared to the vast majority of their peers, the Mariners are actually in a pretty good place long term,” he said. “And long term doesn’t solve today, but when we’re talking about jobs, long term is frankly the goal for every organization out there. It’s setting yourself up so that in future years you have opportunities, and the Mariners have a lot of opportunity to make noise in future years. It’s just the noise that they’re making right now is a whimper.”

Seattle’s trouble with finding bats

Passan wasn’t saying the Mariners should be left off the hook for their struggles to find hitters who can produce for them in the big leagues, however.

“Clearly the evaluation that they’ve had is through the prism of ‘We have ‘X’ amount of dollars and we’re going to go out and try to maximize that,'” he said. “… Listen, every team has to play in its financial sandbox, right? So some teams have done so better. Kansas City didn’t have an infinite budget this offseason, but what they did with their budget – beyond sign Bobby Witt Jr. to a long-term contract – is go out and get Seth Lugo, who’s been one of the five best pitchers in the American League this year. Go out and get Michael Wacha, who’s helped stabilize things in the rotation. And go out and get Hunter Renfroe, who’s been pretty good lately but had struggled likewise along with the Mariners’ hitters. That’s where I think it gets a little bit dangerous.

“If you don’t have the ability to go out with limited finance and put together the type of team that you need to, clearly you’re missing on some things, and that’s part of the job. You can’t sit here and blame everything on ownership. At some point it’s just a brass tack situation. The reality is that you have this much money, (and) it’s still incumbent on you to do something with it and to put together something worthy of this pitching staff, and they have failed at that.”

Listen to the full Brock and Salk conversation with ESPN MLB insider Jeff Passan in the podcast at this link or in the player near the top of this post. Catch Passan live at 8:30 a.m. Tuesdays on Brock and Salk, which airs from 6-10 a.m. weekdays on Seattle Sports.