The Seattle Mariners. Founded in 1977, they remain as the only team throughout the entire MLB that’s never been to a World Series. Not never won a World Series, never been to one. To be fair, they are on the younger side of the spectrum when it comes to established dates. Especially when you have teams like the Braves and Cubs who have been around since the late 1800’s. Still, in modern day, it feels wrong that they haven’t made it at least once after the legacy Ken Griffey Jr. had during the 90s and today’s squad of talent. After making it to Game 7 of the ALCS, the Mariners gave up the go-ahead run to George Springer and came up short in the 9th, ultimately ending their post-season run. Everyone thought they’d come back stronger and hungrier than ever for some hardware.
“I think we’re a World Series team,” said Blake Dreyer (‘29). “I don’t know what’s happening this year, but nah, it wasn’t a fluke.”
Ryder Leslie (‘29) said something similar, “I think they have the potential to be a World Series team… I think they’re just getting off, like, a rough start like they do every year.”
“I do believe they still are one of the top four, five, or six favorites in baseball. ” said Mr. Jon Murray.
Kaden Saddler disagrees with all these takes saying “Fluke. Total fluke.”
Baseball is a weird sport, so many different things can happen on a diamond. It’s totally possible for a terrible team to have a historic season for no good reason, though I don’t think that’s what’s going on. The 2026 Mariners have so much talent, from Julio’s raw athleticism to Josh Naylor’s impressive baseball I.Q.. There’s true potential for greatness. If they play their cards right, they can turn this season around and find themselves with some October baseball.
In regards to the WBC, people are torn on whether it benefited the Mariners or not.
“It was a bad impact for some of them,” said Dreyer. “Julio Rodriguez, he was good in the WBC … Cal was not great ”
There was even some division in opinion within themselves. “ I don’t think it was necessarily the WBC, I think it was… Yeah, it was the WBC. ” said Leslie.
“It could be World Baseball Classic, we had more guys than anybody potentially. It could just be we’re typically known as a slow start team.” said Murray.
Saddler said “Cal should have shook his hand.”
Whether it’s the baseball gods cursing teammates for “unsportsmanlike behavior” (which is debatable), or just a combination of post-season and pre-season high-leverage games, it’s clear something is wrong.
“We get to the end of June and we’re still not above 500, I think we have issues then” said Murray.
“We’re going to have to get players to produce early, and start off strong and end strong.”
There’s a lot of wisdom in that sort of topic. The all star break marks a clear middle of the regular season, which this year is around mid July. So Murray’s estimate of late June is absolutely spot on. If they can’t work out the kinks in the next month or so, they’ll need to start looking at lineup changes, manager decisions, and free agents.
“I think the direction they’re going in with keeping Rob Schneider at the 1 is a good idea… Dan Wilson is a good coach. Edgar Martinez is a great batting coach. He’s helped a lot of the players in a positive way” said Leslie.
Murray said “Pete Woodward, he’s always done a great job. I’ve heard some people be skeptical of Daniel Wilson, but you can’t ask anything better than a catcher.”
There have been a variety of coaches throughout the years, but the rise of Dan Wilson brought a lot of hope to the franchise. Just last year, he took the Mariners farther than they’ve ever been. There have been some questionable decisions through the last two years, but I’m willing to let Dan fail and learn. With the knowledge he has, I think he’ll become something special.
Though failure is most of the game, there’s a bit too much for a 3rd place team.
“Part of it is just the marine air we literally have in Seattle versus playing in Arizona or playing in Texas,” said Murray.
There’s definitely truth in that statement. Climate can affect all sorts of things, like exit velocity and spin rate. If teams in warmer areas are getting benefits due to their weather, it can make teams in colder areas look worse than they are.
All in all, I truly don’t know if the Mariners are going to be ok this year. Between the bad base running and the poor at bats, I’d like to believe that they can turn it around, it’s just not looking great for us. But you know what they say. The nice thing about rock bottom is that there’s nowhere to go but up.
As Murray said, “This is our year, man.”
