Mariners ready for spring training with a clear goal: Dethrone the Astros, win AL West
Cal Raleigh — nicknamed “Big Dumper,” known around the Mariners for wearing a cowboy hat — looked unusually dressed up. He was in a sports coat his manager noticed and appreciated.
As he walked to the podium, Raleigh could see a video replay of his game-winning home run last Sept. 30, the iconic one that clinched the Mariners’ first playoff appearance in 21 years, playing on a screen above and behind him.
Raleigh smiled. Again.
How many times has he watched the ROOT Sports television replay with Dave Sims’ call of his historic moment — “The dream lives! They’re going to the playoffs! Cal Raleigh! WOW! Hey now! Hey now! Hey now!” — in the four months since he did it?
“It’d be embarrassing to say,” Raleigh said Wednesday.
“It’s kind of hard not to think about, honestly,” he said. “You know, I’ll be scrolling through Instagram and stuff like that, and it pops up. Or my Mom’s going to Facebook and it pops up.
“’The pitch from Acevado...,’” Raleigh said of Sims’ call on live TV that Friday night, “is a funny thing going in our family.”
Now, Raleigh and the still-young, still-(they hope)-rising Seattle Mariners are back for more than clinching a wild-card berth into another postseason in 2023.
“The goal is to win the division,” Mariners president for baseball operations Jerry Dipoto said Wednesday at the team’s annual pre-spring training luncheon at T-Mobile Park.
“We feel like that is a realistic goal.”
Yes, that means dethroning the Houston Astros.
The Astros won the American League West over Seattle last season. The Astros beat the Mariners in three bitterly contested playoff games, including a 1-0 Houston win in 18 innings that clinched the best-of-five series last October.
The Astros, yes, went on to win the World Series.
But Seattle thinks it has improved.
“We do feel like we got meaningfully better,” Dipoto said of his eighth offseason as the Mariners’ architect.
“We are a deeper, more complete team than at the end of last season.”
He and Seattle’s leaders made it clear on the first day of February, a kickoff day for a new season: The Astros are the Mariners’ standard. They are the Mariners’ measuring stick.
They are Seattle’s target for 2023.
Gap closed with Houston?
This offseason, many across the Pacific Northwest have wondered if the Mariners did enough for their offense to close that gap between them and Houston.
Dipoto and the M’s didn’t sign in free agency the megabucks power hitter Seattle’s offense lacked throughout 2022. They didn’t get Aaron Judge or (more realistically) Carlos Correa or Trea Turner. They let Carlos Santana leave to Pittsburgh in free agency, for only one year and $6.7 million. That’s a cost Seattle easily could have afforded to bring back for 2023.
Dipoto’s and the Mariners’ big winter move was acquiring Toronto All-Star outfielder Teoscar Hernandez, who hit 25 home runs last season. Seattle sent relief pitcher Erik Swanson and minor-league pitcher Adam Macko to the Blue Jays for Hernandez.
Hernandez is entering a contract season. He will play right field. That is because the Mariners let Mitch Haniger sign with the San Francisco Giants.
Hernandez, 30, spent some of this winter working out with fellow Dominican outfielder and new Mariners teammate Julio Rodriguez, who is eight years younger.
Rodriguez, the American League 2022 rookie of year as Seattle’s All-Star center fielder, is from Loma de Cabrera. Hernandez is from Cotui. That’s a four-hour drive, 220 kilometers east of Rodriguez’s hometown.
“I’m trying to learn from him, and I’m trying to teach everything that I know, to pass (to) him and see what we can do together,” Hernandez said.
“It’s exciting to be part of this organization, and see what it can do,” Hernandez said. “And special moments, and now being on the home side with them, is very exciting for me. I’m pretty happy for it.”
The Mariners also acquired Milwaukee second baseman Kolten Wong in a trade that sent the Brewers outfielder Jesse Winker and infielder Abraham Toro. Wong will replace Adam Frazier. Frazier was free to sign with Baltimore this winter following a .238 season with three home runs for Seattle in 2022.
The Mariners in free agency signed outfielder A.J. Pollock from the Chicago White Sox (one year, $7 million) and utility infielder Tommy LaStella from San Francisco (on another one-year deal for the major-league minimum of $720,000. The Giants reportedly are paying his previously scheduled $11.5 million salary for 2023 after designating La Stella for assignment in December.
Pollock had 14 home runs in 138 games for the White Sox last season. He could be part of a new left-field platoon with Taylor Trammell and still-only-22-year-old Jarred Kelenic in Seattle.
We still believe in Jarred’s talent,” Dipoto said of the .141 hitter for Seattle after another stint with the Triple-A Rainers last season.
“He works his tail off.”
La Stella had two home runs and hit .239 in 60 games while injured for San Francisco in 2022.
Raleigh is back from surgery on the left thumb he injured late last season. He had the operation this winter in Los Angeles. It was done by Dr. Steve Shin, the same specialist that operated on the broken finger Russell Wilson had two NFL seasons ago when he was still the Seahawks’ quarterback.
Raleigh said he’s fully ready for the start of spring training. He’s been in Arizona working out the last two weeks. He caught a bullpen session thrown by Marco Gonzalez in Arizona on Tuesday.
Reserve catcher Tom Murphy is back from injury ready for the start of spring training, too.
“This is the deepest team we’ve had since I’ve been here,” Scott Servais said on the eve of his eighth season managing the Mariners.
Luis Castillo not in WBC
The biggest reason for Seattle’s energy entering spring training in Peoria, Arizona, that begins Feb. 13?
Their starting rotation that shined last season is returning.
Plus, in a change of initial plans, the ace of that staff is staying with the team throughout spring camp.
Luis Castillo, dominant for Seattle after his midseason trade from Cincinnati last summer, was on a preliminary roster for his native Dominican Republic to play in the upcoming World Baseball Classic.
But Dipoto said Wednesday the Mariners and Castillo have decided Castillo will not play in the international showcase tournament. It runs March 8-21, through the middle of spring training.
“Luis is not going to pitch in the WBC,” Dipoto said. “He’s going to be in camp with us, and that is something that we are pleased with, that he will be there, and it’s a choice that we made together.
“I’m thrilled we have him,” Dipoto said. “We’re really looking forward to him being with this group for a full season — and think that’s part of the reason why we are meaningfully better this year.”
Logan Gilbert (13-6 with a 3..20 ERA, 174 strikeouts in 185 2-3 innings last season as a rookie), fellow 2022 rookie star George Kirby (8-5, 3.39, 133 strikeouts in 130 innings) and 2021 Cy Young winner Robbie Ray (coming off a 12-12 Seattle debut year and disastrous postseason) are behind Castillo in the rotation.
The fifth starter is likely to come out of a competition between Chris Flexen (8-9, 3.73 in 33 games, 22 starts last year) and veteran Gonzalez (10-15, 4.13 in 32 starts last season).
Matt Brash is not a candidate for the fifth-starter spot, at least not to begin this season. Dipoto said Brash, who made five starts for Seattle last season and will start for Team Canada in the World Baseball Classic next month, will be in the Mariners’ bullpen to begin 2023.
The Mariners’ equipment trucks are scheduled to leave Seattle for the drive to Arizona on Monday.
Seven days later, the Mariners will begin their quest to topple the Astros in the first Seattle season coming off a postseason appearance since 2002.
“They are a really good team, and they aren’t going anywhere,” Servais said said of the Astros.
“We are a really good team. And we aren’t going anywhere.”
