Olney: What MLB front offices are saying about Mariners’ Josh Naylor deal

Nov 20, 2025, 5:00 PM | Updated: 5:14 pm

Seattle Sports

The first big domino of the MLB offseason has already fallen, and the Seattle Mariners were the ones to push it over.

The Mariners re-signed first baseman Josh Naylor to a five-year contract reportedly worth $92.5 million on Monday, marking the first major signing of the winter.

How Josh Naylor left Mariners GM ‘blown away’ in meeting

After being the prized piece of Seattle’s trade deadline haul, Naylor exceeded expectations with his all-around impact on the field and in the clubhouse while helping the club clinch its first American League West title and AL Championship Series appearance in 24 years.

Naylor hit .299 with an .831 OPS, 10 doubles, nine homers and 19 stolen bases in 19 attempts in 54 regular season games with Seattle. And he added a scorching run in the postseason, batting .340 with a .966 OPS, team-high 16 hits and three homers.

The Mississauga, Ont., native became a free agent at the end of the season, and the M’s made it clear he was their top priority with not just their words, but a contract that will keep Naylor in the Pacific Northwest through his age-33 season.

Locally, the Naylor re-signing brought much celebration. But what is the perception of the deal across the league? Longtime ESPN MLB insider Buster Olney shared what he’s heard from league executives about the Naylor deal during a conversation with Seattle Sports’ Brock and Salk on Thursday.

“It doesn’t matter if they bring in a lefty, a righty who throws hard, he’s gonna find a way to hit a line drive someplace,” Olney said of Naylor. “And I do think he’s gotten better defensively (and) certainly on the bases. His time in Arizona seems to have been instructive. He’s a smart player. He can look for opportunities to run.

“And after this deal went down, I reached out to executives with the other teams and asked, ‘Hey, what do you think about this?’ And across the board, everyone was saying, good deal for a good player, and they thought it was a good move by the Mariners.”

ESPN’s Jeff Passan reported the Pittsburgh Pirates were also in on Naylor.

Brock and Salk asked Olney what the market for Naylor would have been had the M’s not locked him up so early.

“Let’s face it, first baseman are probably – it’s one of the positions that typically gets left behind in this era of analytics. Teams, generally speaking, don’t wanna pay for that position,” Olney said. “Pete Alonso (who has hit the third-most home runs in baseball since 2019) is finding that out firsthand. He did last winter when he wound up settling for what turned out to be a one-year deal with the Mets.

“But Naylor is such a unique player in this era of such big swing and miss. I think that if it had played out fully, yeah, you could see other teams as their winters are sort of play out jumping into that and saying, yeah, we’re interested in that guy. And I think that’s probably part of the Mariners’ thinking on this.”

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