Morosi: Extending a pitcher should be Mariners’ spring priority

The Seattle Mariners have built something special with their stellar starting rotation that includes homegrown talents Logan Gilbert, Bryan Woo, George Kirby and Bryce Miller.

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Three of those four (Gilbert, Woo and Kirby) have already made an All-Star team and earned a top-10 finish in American League Cy Young voting. And nobody from the group is above the age of 28.

The M’s still have all of their homegrown arms under club control through the 2027 campaign, which will be Logan Gilbert’s final year of arbitration. Kirby’s final year will be 2028, while 2029 will be the last for Miller and Woo. But MLB Network’s Jon Morosi thinks the time for the team to start working out contract extensions with some of them is now.

“This does feel like a very important spring to hopefully get one of them locked up, because otherwise the more you wait, the more expensive it’s going to get, and also the closer you are to losing them for no return unless you trade them,” Morosi told Seattle Sports’ Wyman and Bob on Tuesday.

There is some recent precedent of the Mariners extending one of their homegrown stars during the spring. Slugging catcher Cal Raleigh signed a six-year extension with the team the day before the regular season opener last year.

One thing Morosi sees as good sign that a deal could get done with one of the four pitchers before the regular season begins is that they are all in camp rather than pitching in the World Baseball Classic. We know that Woo turned down an invitation to play for Team USA.

“I think this also might, in some way, circle back to why we have seen perfect attendance for the most part from the Mariners’ rotation in terms of the guys that are potential extension candidates,” he said. “They’re all in camp. Doesn’t surprise me because I think that if you’re going to negotiate some massive contract and you’re off pitching for your country and you’re not there to have the conversation or to just to be there every day and put in the work, I do think that becomes a little more challenging.

“So that might be a little clue. It would not surprise me if one of those four of the homegrown group signs before opening day.”

As for who it could be, Morosi sees Gilbert and Woo as the highest priorities.

“I think that when you look at the particulars, Woo and Gilbert, right now, they have the most value,” Morosi said. “They’re probably the ones the Mariners would most like to keep in the fold long-term.”

Hear the full conversation at this link or in the audio player near the top of this story. Listen to Wyman and Bob weekdays from 2-7 p.m. or find the podcast on the Seattle Sports app. 

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