Passan on Seattle Mariners’ division: The AL West ‘stinks’

It’s been 24 years since the Seattle Mariners last won the AL West. And just 11 games into this season, the M’s find themselves looking up at most of the rest of the division.

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With a win on Monday night against Houston, the Mariners now share last place in the AL West with the Athletics at 4-7. They’re four games behind first-place Texas. Just two other teams in MLB currently face a larger deficit in their division.

There’s still 151 games left to play, so it’s far from time to panic. But that’s not the only reason for some optimism despite the slow start.

ESPN insider Jeff Passan shared why when he spoke about the AL West during a conversation with Seattle Sports’ Brock and Salk on Tuesday.

“It stinks,” he said. “It’s just not a good division.”

How bad has the division been? Well, the records don’t necessarily show it. The Rangers (8-3) are just one game behind the San Diego Padres’ MLB-best 9-3 pace, and the Los Angeles Angels are off to a surprising 6-3 start. But all five teams currently sport a negative run differential, with the Astros, A’s and Mariners all in the double digits. In terms of expected wins and losses, no team has a mark above .500.

AL West Standings

Passan shared an example of just how bleak the division looks thus far. He said ESPN.com is set to run an article with hot takes from its MLB writers this week, and one is picking the Angels to win the AL West.

“This is hot takes and we’re kind of trying to trend towards spicy in this situation,” Passan said. “… But I’ll say this, I feel like the Angels winning the American League West is like a ghost pepper-level of spicy. It’s like Carolina Reaper mad.”

Related: Why Passan says concerning Mariners stat should improve

Passan did pick Texas to win the World Series before the season started. The Rangers’ strong first two weeks has been buoyed by a 5-0 record in one-run games, but they’re also last in MLB with a .184 batting average and 28th with a .580 OPS.

“I think the Rangers are a good team,” Passan said. “They have been winning close games. Their offense hasn’t started going yet, but I look at that lineup and I just feel like it’s a matter of time before they start hitting. They’ve got pitching depth issues as well.”

As for the four-time defending division champion Astros? Passan feels that they just aren’t the same juggernaut they’ve been in the past.

“I look at the Astros and it’s like Yordan Alvarez hasn’t done anything so far, and I think he’s going to be fine,” Passan said. “But it had to be quite a harrowing thing for Astros fans for yesterday to go see Alex Bregman (now with the Red Sox) win American League Player of the Week and Kyle Tucker (now with the Cubs) win National League Player of the Week.

“It’s a different team, and these are not the Astros that were used to dominating the American League West division.”

Of course, the Mariners will need to right their own ship to capture an elusive division crown.

“In spite of the start the Mariners have had, they’re still in a perfectly good position,” Passan said. “It’s still way too early, and this is a division that I’m not sure it’s going to take a whole lot more than 86 to 88 wins to capture.”

Hear the full conversation at this link or in the audio player near the top of this story. Listen to Brock and Salk weekdays from 6-10 a.m. or find the podcast on the Seattle Sports app.

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