Through no particular fault of their own, the Seattle Mariners are scheduled to play real baseball games in 2020. There are plenty of reasons for them to not do this. One of the more compelling reasons, specific to them, is that they are bound to be extremely bad. More serious arguments can be made regarding player safety and health, and whether any of this is really worth it. We are excited to watch Baseball, but that excitement also worries us some. Season previews often break down what happens if it all goes wrong, or if it all goes right. This one asks a different question: What if all is just? In this chaotic assemblage of baseball-like material ahead, what outcome would be the most Mariner of them all? We’ve provided eleven answers to that question.  

***

It’s September 14th, 2020. Six weeks and the Mariners are somehow 26 games back of the Houston Astros, who under the cover of darkness have lost just five games all season. The locker room is quiet after another 6-1 loss. No one remembered to turn on the stereo, or no one bothered. Social distancing is hardly a problem, because no one wants to be near each other. An ashen, waterlogged Servais is off whispering at reporters in a conference room. Soon the men will all go home, or, everyone suspects, go drink at some bar. Seven players have already vanished, sent to the IL with no body part listed next to their name, their lockers emptied and fumigated in the night, like victims of a purge.

And suddenly: someone, somewhere, coughs. Twenty-five men look up. Twenty-five men share one thought.

They leave, like normal, nodding to each other, heading out to their cars. And they don’t come back. Ten players opt out the next morning. The rest follow. Rob Manfred tries to stem the tide, but before long the Marlins disband, then the Orioles. They’re forced to cancel the regular season, skipping straight to the tournament. Elsewhere the league plods on, but in Seattle, the season is collectively and willfully forgotten. It was all a mistake. The 2020 Mariners should never have been. –Patrick Dubuque

***

Rooting for the Seattle Mariners has provided so many opportunities to learn about the importance of silver linings. With no championships, and a playoff drought more tortuous and longer than the Mississippi, this team has taught me to care about baseball things that aren’t really related to winning. I’ve learned to value small moments of joy, like a walk-off dinger in a meaningless July game or the wonderful aesthetic that is striped stirrup socks and no batting gloves. And I’ve learned to appreciate small moments of comfort, like listening to the dancing static on the radio as the M’s face off against the A’s on a sleepy Tuesday evening. 

With this in mind, I believe the most Mariners season would be… one where no one really worries about the Mariners. The 2020 squad actually seems primed for this type of season; they have a few fun, young guys but no real expectations. I’m excited for baseball to come back, but the M’s are often at their best when they’re little more than background noise. As the old adage goes, the most Mariners season is actually the friends we made along the way. –Andrew Rice

***

There was always a chance that the Seattle Mariners, like any of the bad-luck franchises, would start the season hot. As they neared the August 31st trade deadline, sitting at 12-12, too many wondered if this was their year. Pushed to buy, they failed to do so. Not due to foresight, not due to a committed notion of sticking to a plan. God knows how badly Jerry Dipoto and Scott Servais wanted to drop some banner in T-Mobile Park. No, they didn’t add talent because they were unable to make anyone want the various odds and ends left to salvage. There was no fat to trim off of this particular bone.

The music stopped shortly after, in early September. Going 2-8 to start the month didn’t feel so bad until you realized it was nearly one-fifth of their season spent dragging an anchor. They set the ship out to sea, never trying to dock it. J.P. Crawford and Jake Fraley had 20 PA each due to their “mysterious,” injury-shortened seasons. Jarred Kelenic’s two homeruns in his 17 PA will give us plenty to talk about in the coming, unsure months. Jerry Dipoto remains safe as can be, watching over a team that lost a year, but so did everyone else, he’ll say. Somewhere, George Kirby is playing catch. Mitch Haniger never saw the field. –David Skiba

***

As the phenomenal Dorktown series examined, the Mariners have some clearly defined eras of futility. Are we glancing at the perpetually terrible Mariners that existed until 1995? Are we discussing the statistically unlucky Mariners of the early 2000s? Or are we pondering the generally overrated Mariners of most recent years (looking at you 13-2)? The choice is surprisingly difficult.

At its heart, the most Mariners season seems to be something that is a combination of all three. A period of time when the Mariners are playing on a level that makes sense, combined with a stretch of the most dismal futility, ultimately falling short of their final destination. The question has never been whether or not they make it across the finish line into the arms of the playoffs; it’s always been: How far will they miss the mark?

As we enter what could possibly be one of the weirdest baseball seasons in the history of the sport, the most Mariners season, to me, means they are absolutely forgettable. Nothing of note will happen to this squad. There will be no Baseball Tonight highlights. There will be no ground gained or lost. The Mariners will simply exist, and the world will continue to turn around them.  –Peter Woodburn

***

The most Mariners season is already impossible. Mariners seasons, by right, are filled with an August and September of commercials from previous seasons, because all this year’s set features players long since traded. They’re about holding on to aged joys, as present hope slips down the drain. They’re waiting for a miracle, and then in the absence of one, finding or making our own.

The 2020 Mariners, like the sport itself, should probably not exist. But regardless of how many games they win, or even play, the message will stay the same: “We are excited about the progress our young players have made, and look forward to a bright future for Mariners baseball.” The modern era of the Mariners has perfected this message. Even the 2016-2018 teams were dipping only an arm or so into the water, perpetually terrified of drowning. Always, no matter how dark the present, the cry is to look east, for sunrise is near the horizon.

A Mariners season ends in failure. That’s not fatalism or cynicism, it’s history. The 2020 Mariners, though, will not be a Mariners season. The current front office has moved the organization into a post-failure universe. The Jerry Dipoto Mariners are incapable of a Most Mariners season. No Jerry Dipoto Mariners season has ever been a failure. No Jerry Dipoto Mariners team has ever risked enough to fail. 

The future is bright. –Nathan Bishop

***

It’s August 31st, 2020, and the Seattle Mariners are somehow in the race, but they are missing one vital piece: The closer. Sure, Austin Adams and his ragtag group of mid-90s hurlers complemented with what could be called a slider are doing their best to keep the USS Mariner afloat. Rather than go with a traditional closer, Jerry Dipoto has something, nay, someone else in mind.

Unfettered by the attendance numbers, which seems to be a blessing in disguise for the Mariners, it’s now all about television ratings. Root Sports is doing alright, but we’re about to go up against the fall lineup and CBS is bringing in a murderers’ row.

At the insistence of ownership, Dipoto has to go to the well and hopefully boost some nostalgia ratings by bringing in a new closer. Enter Félix Hernández. Hernández has done fairly well for the Braves as a starter, mind you, but the higher-ups want to bet the farm on a postseason run. 

Ownership insists that Dipoto throw the kitchen sink at Atlanta to bring back the king. A King’s Ransom, if you will. Throwing in Kelenic puts them over the top. Félix returns and is somehow an effective closer. The M’s are eliminated with five games to go.  –Scott George, age 33

***

The record at the end of the season doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter if there are 60 games or ten. It doesn’t matter if the kids get ABs, or who visits the Mystery IL, or who outperforms or underperforms. It doesn’t even matter if they miraculously make the playoffs and the next offseason is spent debating the legitimacy of their first postseason in nearly two decades. (There is no sport that loves the humble asterisk more than baseball). None of these things will make this the most Mariners season ever.

No, it will start quietly. I’ll tune in to 710 AM and notice that Rick Rizzs is not part of the pregame show. No mention of it until first pitch, when Aaron Goldsmith will mention that Uncle Rico is a little under the weather, but should be back tomorrow. It’ll be a nice treat, getting nine innings of Goldy (with special guest Dan Wilson, of course) on the radio, while TV viewers get a Sims-Blowers combo.

But Rizzs doesn’t come back the next day. And now Sims is out, too. Gary Hill is handling radio duties, and Shannon Drayer has admirably stepped in to help, while Goldy has switched back to TV. By the end of the week, no one’s in either booth. ROOT Sports is still airing the games, showing images of players we recognize, overwhelming us with graphics in an attempt to mask the silence. But for radio listeners like me, the only sounds we’re treated to is the occasional crack of the bat, or the smack of a fastball into Austin Nola’s glove. The absence of fans in the stands is deafening. Baseball is, theoretically, happening on the field. But I won’t be able to tell you a damn thing about it. –Dan Gomez

***

There was never a most Mariners season to be found in 2020. This isn’t the symptom of a shortened season, or the ongoing pandemic. The Mariners as we knew them are dead. They’ve been adrift since a tomb was sealed on a Thursday night against the A’s last September, tetherless and undefined. The team has evolved into an amorphous blob no longer capable of failure; any result can and will be written off as a stepping stone towards unrealized success. They are, finally and fully, Jerry Dipoto’s Mariners. 

They could end the playoff baseball drought in Seattle. It’s certainly possible. There’s a lot to like about the farm system and little money on the books past this season. Everything might finally break in the right direction. But this is an expectation that Jerry Dipoto’s Mariners will not shoulder themselves with until success is inevitable. They cannot possibly fail because they will not accept the burden of potential failure. How could they? Expectations can’t be placed on that which lacks definition. The future is here, and none of it matters. –Matt Eitner

***

Would it be typical of the Mariners to suffer a string of fluke injuries and inexplicable slumps while division rivals soar with luck and star power and homegrown talent, and fall out of contention mere weeks into the season? It would. Would it be even more typical, spiritually if not historically, for the Mariners to make the playoffs for the first time in 19 years during an abbreviated season lousy with asterisks? Absolutely.

Not that I’m predicting a playoff run–I’m not even willing to predict an actual start to the season–but I would take great comfort in the M’s making the postseason in a year when, no matter what chaos takes place, fans will respond, “yeah, but–” for the rest of eternity. It would take significant collapses from multiple teams in multiple divisions, an entire roster outplaying its reasonably low expectations, robust health amidst a pandemic, plus several prospects making recklessly early debuts to wild success (securing Dipoto a generous contract extension).

Will this happen? No, it will not. But if it did, we would laugh-cry and say, “Of course that’s how it happens” and “I miss Félix” and “typical Mariners.” –Christian Powers

***

This thought experiment seems like an attempt to find the most absurd, yet predictable, outcome possible knowing what we do about this franchise and its history. Case in point: the Mariners always being 1.5 games out of the playoffs at their best is, for my money, both funny and familiar. That’s precisely what keeps me coming back to following this stupid baseball team: Cosmic humor provides something like a metaphysics of meaning, familiarity convinces me that we aren’t yet in the Bad Times. That’s why I bothered in the first place all these years.

But of course, we are probably, actually, for real this time, in the beginnings of the Bad Times. All bets are out the window now that we can’t rest on the laurels of bike rides and missed bunts. Those were then, this is now.

I realized recently that the true lesson of the Mariners isn’t just that they exhaustively scour the possible outcomes calculated by probability machines to find outliers to revel in. Instead, it’s something far more insidious. The true lesson of the Mariners is the same lesson explicated to us by every philosopher since Kant, thinkers who watched the Meaningful world of antiquity give way to the nothingness and contingency of modernity. It’s the realization that welp, this is it, bud. You don’t have to like it, but it is what it is. So the most Mariners season is, for my money, the one we’re probably going to get: Cody Bellinger contract traces COVID-19 through the entire league on July 17th, the season is cancelled, and the Mariners fold up shop on their 1% playoff odds, somehow having found a way to make a world-historic crisis into just another Tuesday. How do they do it? How do they keep doing it? —The Other Matt

***

It’s hard to be excited about a baseball season given all that is going on in the world, but here I am. The original 26-man roster is devoid of so many things that make teams tick over the course of a 162-game season, but a 60-game season presents unique circumstances. Sure, we could be sitting here in a few months discussing how the favorites remained the favorites, the Orioles remained the Orioles, and ultimately those other one-hundred games were unnecessary. 

But imagine, if you will, a year in which the rotation holds it together. Imagine Justus Sheffield finally figuring it out. Imagine Yusei Kikuchi ironing out his mechanics to surprising results. Imagine a summer of the Mariners just surviving. Then imagine the late season emergence of Jarred Kelenic, Logan Gilbert, maybe a Joey Gerber. The three arrive–along with a trade acquisition or two–like a lightning bolt, bringing energy to all aspects of the game. Suddenly, the Mariners have momentum. Suddenly, we’re all starting to believe. As we round the corner and head into the home stretch, the Mariners sit at 28-22, their grip tightening on that long-awaited playoff berth.

This, unfortunately, is where they must leave us, as a mini-outbreak emerges amongst MLB players. They’re never quite able to figure out how to get the season back on track. We are left haunted by the image of the Mariners’ playoff odds sitting at 95% and never leaving it. The drought continues, and we are left to sit on our patios, kicking at rocks, softly mumbling “of course, of course”. –Ethan Novak