(Editors Note: The following article is the second part of a two-part series looking into the future to check on the 2023 AL West Champion Seattle Mariners. See what you might have missed in the first installment along with several assumptions this article is based upon.)

The year is 2023. Kyle Lewis, J.P. Crawford, Julio Rodriguez, Jarred Kelenic, Logan Gilbert, and Emerson Hancock all are here and adding above-average MLB value, averaging 3 fWAR apiece. Evan White, Yusei Kikuchi, and Marco Gonzales are here as well. Finally, we modeled an eight-man bullpen off of the extremely talented 2014 bullpen. All-in, seventeen roster spots are taken up among these players already inside the organization. Let’s quickly add up what this roster costs, so far. 

The money we’re sure of in White, Kikuchi, and Gonzales totals up to $26M. In addition to that money is another $3.7M still left paying Cano. Kyle Lewis will be in his first year of Arbitration, and J.P. Crawford in his second. If they both maintain ~3WAR paths through the next couple years, I’d say you’re talking something like ~$20M to have both of those guys on the roster. To comp Crawford, Francisco Lindor is making $17.5M in his second year of arbitration. I’d expect Lewis to get about $8M and Crawford something like $12M if they both continued producing ~3 fWAR until 2023.

Adding the eight-man bullpen into this figure is relatively simple if we just sorta assume they’ll all be club-control, league-minimum guys for now. Dipoto has proven to be very quick to plug-and-play back-end arms and, unless they sign someone, or uncover a gem, I wouldn’t expect that trend to change.

So, there we have it. With nine roster spots remaining, and about 20 fWAR to go and get to meet the goal of this exercise (45 fWAR wins us the AL West), the Mariners already have $50M committed to the 2023 roster. Now, the rest of this task will, purely on paper, seem extremely daunting. The “market” for WAR is something around $8.5M/WAR and the Mariners, according to the situation I’ve laid out here, need to go and find twenty wins. That’s $170M in theoretical spending. If we add that to what we have the M’s already spending in 2023, you’re talking about a squad that’s absolutely knocking on the door of the luxury tax, if not beating it down. Do I care that ownership needs to spend, and spend heavy, to create a winner? I sure as hell do not. Will they? Well, that’s the real question.

Let’s Buy Some Fellas

Now, let’s look forward into the next three offseasons to see what free agents the Mariners might be interested in. Via the above exercise, we know that their outfield is full, they have a shortstop, a first-baseman, four starting pitchers, and a bullpen. This leaves holes at third base, second, and catcher in the field. As well, they’ll need to find a bat that slots well at DH. Finally, to round out the players seeing maximum playtime, they probably ought to find a bonafide ace (if those exist by 2023) to round out their starting rotation. That’s five positions where the Mariners will have to splash cash to create a contender, not to mention role players.

There’s a million directions that Seattle could take here. Lord knows, with Dipoto at the helm, literally anything could happen amongst the multitude of back-end trades he’s so capable of making. However, I’d submit that the very first player the Mariners need to target in free agency is J.T. Realmuto this coming offseason. Sure, Realmuto likely hits the market a year or two too early for the Mariners contention window, but 2021 will be his year 30 season, which means he likely has a few more good years behind the plate. Realmuto’s bat could easily move to DH and still give you value, but if he can stick at catcher, you’re talking about a guy who is going to give you something like 4-5 fWAR if he doesn’t fall off a cliff in 2023. Realmuto will be extremely expensive. He’s maybe the very top FA available this coming year. Remember how you haven’t heard anything about Cal Raleigh? Yeah, the M’s are gonna need a catcher.

Two other names that might be thrown around in the coming offseason are D.J. LeMahieu and Trevor Bauer. I’ll start with Bauer first. Is Trevor Bauer an ace? Perhaps, in the very broadest sense of the term. If you like a Big Tent for modern aces, Bauer’s probably in there. Is Bauer a weirdass who definitely cares about stuff like no income tax? Most definitely, yes. Does Bauer have a friend on the team? Yep! Do Bauer and Dipoto have a sort of gravity that makes me believe they’re bound to find each other? Without question. Do I like it? Not at all. Bauer’s current pace would have him around 6 fWAR in 2020, showing he hasn’t lost the stuff that made his 2018 so special. He’s going to be one of the youngest top-end starters to hit free agency in the coming offseason and he might be more-willing than most to pitch in Seattle. It’s an idea.

LeMahieu, on the other hand, doesn’t really strike me as a guy that gets the M’s over the hump. He’ll be playing his Year 33 season in 2021, will be coming off of a stint with the Yankees, and likely gets overpriced by an extremely sexy 2019 in New York. He looks good right now, pacing about 5WAR/600 with a wRC+ of 154, and I wouldn’t hate him at first base or DH going forward, but I wonder if that maximizes dollars for a Mariners team that will have to spend big, and wisely, to make this work. 

A second basemen will be an interesting task to fill, looking forward, with Shed Long looking less and less like the permanent solution there. Really, Seattle will have two choices: spend on a top-end SS and hope moving Crawford to second doesn’t totally kill his value, or overspend and hope your target’s bat makes it worth it. I suppose another path would be hoping Noelvi Marte could make the move to second, but that seems far-fetched for a number of reasons when 2023 is considered as a target.

Into The Deep Future

Looking further down the line into the 2022 FA class, the Mariners might find another target if Nolan Arenado opts out. Now, Arenado opting out means he’s going to get paid in a way that I’m pretty positive the Mariners would hesitate to match. Generally speaking, I, too, wouldn’t be super enthused to go over Arenado’s current AAV of $32.5M when he’s going into his Year 32 season. Which brings me to my most diabolical plan yet. Sign Corey Seager in 2022 as your franchise third baseman. He’ll be 28 with a big bat and have more than enough juice to play a solid third base. He’ll be expensive and you’ll have to convince an in-prime star to move positions, but, if there’s enough talent on the swell, he just might be convinced to take over his brother’s shoes in Seattle? Maybe?

Alongside Seager and Arenado are the incredibly sought-after potential free agencies of both Francisco Lindor and Carlos Correa in 2022. Both will command huge contracts, and, as I stated earlier with moving JP Crawford (or trading him), you might find a case to upgrade a position we, for this exercise have marked down as “good” to “elite”. This class of FA’s also brings about a major run of late-career aces like Scherzer, Verlander, Greinke, and Kershaw, all whom I think are bad fits for where the Mariners will be in this moment in time.

Looking further forward, even as far as we have now, is relatively impossible with Dipoto, but we can all dream on signing Aaron Judge just before the 2023 season kicks off. Personally, I don’t care how good or bad the Mariners are, I want this man in Seattle hitting the biggest damn bombs you’ve ever seen. Lord knows he’s already done it in our home park once before. The reality is that the Mariners are going to have to spend a lot of money to fill their holes and top this team up, which we’ve yet to see from this organization. They had the chance to in 2016 and again, luckily, in 2018, and stepped back from the ledge of the Luxury Tax. Dipoto is likely going to have to trade one, if not multiple, of his blue chip farm pieces sometime in the coming years to upgrade this team outside of simply free agency. Perhaps the recent acquisitions via the Austin Nola trade will bear fruit we can’t yet count on. The future is bright.

It can’t be discounted, however, how important it is that the Mariners start spending and acquiring talent in this very offseason, or the entire exercise of the rebuild could be for naught. Waiting for all the stars to align to finally go and get a bonafide star could very easily, and frankly, quite likely, bite Seattle in the ass if they’re unwilling to start committing dollars to the payroll now. Team’s aren’t built overnight. The farm is strong but the majority of these guys will flame out, that’s just how it goes. There appears to be a window for a legitimate contender in Seattle. Let’s just hope Dipoto and Co. will follow up their words with cold, hard cash.

You may note this is the first sentence of this series mentioning Mitch Haniger. Somehow, 2023 will be his first year of Free Agency.