As spring training rapidly approaches, the 2024-25 MLB offseason nears an end. The Dodgers and Mets are again leaders in roster activity and team payroll, and the chasm between them and teams such as the Pirates, Rays, and Marlins is immense. To compound the issue, a changing media rights landscape has impacted the bottom line for many teams with Diamond Sports Group emerging from bankruptcy as a broadcaster for the Braves, Tigers, Angels, Marlins, Cardinals, Royals, Brewers, and Rays. MLB has stepped in with plans to alleviate the situation long-term by taking over digital and linear rights for teams.
Against this backdrop, the Seattle Mariners are navigating another offseason trying to add hitters to a roster that boasts historic starting pitching. After a deep rebuild “step back” season in 2019, the team has slowly evolved into one with a strong, young core of pitchers and some cornerstone hitters. Mariners then-GM Jerry Dipoto starts by identifying the “step back” strategy for the Mariners back in 2018.
What is most intriguing about Dipoto’s explanation center’s around drafting, trading, and free agent signings. He continues by talking about the Chicago Cubs recent rebuild and World Series run:
“… by putting one of the top payrolls in baseball out there on the field when it was their time. And by picking in the top 10 of the draft for three years. And they hit on three guys. And they really traded well, and they really signed free agents… that affected them in a positive way.”
“…you can’t compile or amass enough draft picks in that format to make a rebuild happen in that quick a period of time. As a general rule, in a 40-round draft… there’s going to be about 30 everyday players… so think of how long it would take you as an organization if that was your only outlet or avenue…”
Listen to Dipoto’s take here:
Either way, whether it was a step back or a teardown, Seattle embarked on a rebuild of the roster. Payroll was slashed until the time that the roster was ready for free agent signings. Flip forward a few years, and the Mariners rebuild was progressing nicely. Solid draft picks, strong player development, and some excellent trades produced a young team with potential. The team’s future looked bright with young cornerstones Julio Rodriguez and Cal Raleigh, backed by a promising rotation of young starting pitchers. The first wave included Logan Gilbert and George Kirby. The team also signed former Cy Young winner Robbie Ray to legitimize the top of the rotation. Through further strong drafting, development, and some good fortune, a second wave arrived immediately after the first in the form of Bryce Miller and Bryan Woo. The trade for veteran ace Luis Castillo put the final touch on a suddenly formidable starting rotation.
The collection of talented youngsters powered the new-look Mariners to a playoff berth and the ALDS. Although they were outclassed by the more experienced Houston Astros, the future looked bright behind an ascendent Mariners team and (hopefully) an aging Astros team. The team stepped up and signed Rodriguez and Castillo to substantial, but reasonable long-term contracts.
But then a funny thing happened. Slowly, the team’s free agent signings started to lag. The team did take on salary via a trade for Jays slugger Teoscar Hernández, but otherwise took chances on declining or bounceback players in trading for Kolten Wong and signing AJ Pollock and Tommy La Stella. All of these were short-term deals and did little to engeder confidence that the offense had improved.
And the next year was even worse. In 2023, the team won 2 fewer games and missed the playoffs by 1 game. Shockingly, Dipoto was told that the budget would be shrinking in 2024. The team declined to sign their expensive free agents and moved other players to shed salary. At a time when the team should have been adding the final pieces to a championship contender, it felt like another “step back”. The team signed Mitch Garver to a two-year, $24 million deal and traded for both Luke Raley and Jorge Polanco. The offseason felt like a proverbial rearranging of deck chairs, and the offense fielded was historically challenged. Help came in the form of in-season trades as some additional funds appeared to free Dipoto to make some much-needed additions. Together with a new coaching staff and offensive approach and the team looked much improved to end 2024. But, in the end the team won three fewer games and missed the playoffs by 3.5 games. All while the starting rotation was putting up historically dominant numbers. Surely it was time to infuse the lineup with some significant investments?
Well, the 2024-25 offseason has been exceedingly quiet. From the outside, it looked like the Mariners were missing out on their targets. Most alarming is that their targets were modest, to begin with. The thread connecting the players that the Mariners were apparently interestd in was that they wouldn’t make a significant impact on payroll. Most absurdly, the Mariners were not close in their pursuit of Japanese pitcher Roki Sasaki, who signed with the Dodgers. A player of Sasaki’s quality who signs for such a cheap, long-term contract is not a lifeline for cheap organizations but rather a reward for teams that were successful in their previous roster building.
With the offseason winding down, Mariners fans are left wondering if they should expect more from a middle-of the road budget. Clearly, there are a handful of teams with money from their stable media deals with the Dodgers in a seemingly class of their own. There has always been a gap between the richest and poorest teams and a looming work stoppage in two years may address that problem. This year, however, it seems like there are more teams in the “have-not” category. Whether these budgets are subject to real-world limitations or just self-imposed restrictions by billionaires is debatable. Regardless of cause, the question is how much could payroll increases help a team like th Mariners?
Well, it depends on who you are competing with. More specifically, which division that you play in. Below, you can see graphs plotting data from 2021-2024. Each point represents one season for a team. On the y-axis is plotted how much a team’s payroll is above or below the mean payroll for the division. On the x-axis are the number of wins for the team that season. You can see for the AL West, there are a bunch of years where the A’s had much smaller payrolls than average in the division (grey points in the bottom left) and there were a bunch of years where the Astros had much higher payrolls than average (yellow point in the top right). Whereas, the relationship between payroll and wins exists in the AL West, no such relationship appears in the AL Central or AL East. High- and low-spending teams have similar likelihoods of making the playoffs.
Similarly in the National League, payroll and wins appear linked in the NL Wst, but not so in thee NL Central or East.
Whether there are factors driving these differences among teams/division or if these are just random patterns are better addressed by someone with more baseball knowledge. But, it is a fun way to look at the numbers… and a plea for the Mariners to please increase payroll for Jerry and his staff.