Danny O’Neill: Mariners dedicated to not doing quite enough

Scott Servais once drew a distinction between three types of major-league players.

Good players, he said, want to be challenged.

Bad players, on the other hand, hope to be left alone.

And great players? What great players want is to be told the truth.

There is no doubt which bucket Servais’s former employer would fall into.

A great franchise wouldn’t shy away from the truth that this is the point when a big-bucks acquisition would be most helpful to a team that’s spent four years fighting at the margins of the playoff picture.

The Mariners appear dead-set on ignoring this fact.

A good franchise would challenge itself to put some horsepower into that lineup that constituted an albatross last season, seeking upgrades at first, second or even third base.

The Mariners haven’t done much of anything.

And a bad franchise? Well, stands to reason that a bad franchise would put its head down and hope that no one pays too much attention to the moves it hasn’t been making.

I want to be very clear about this: I’m not saying the Mariners are a bad team. They’ve had a winning record each of the past four seasons. They even made the playoffs once. They have an exceptional starting rotation. They have a bona fide star in Julio Rodriguez and one of the game’s more impactful catchers in Cal Raleigh. They certainly have a chance to make the playoffs this season.

Of course, they would have a much better chance if they added a couple of big-swinging infielders, which is what makes this silent offseason so very frustrating. The Mariners are not the cheapest team in the league.

But they are a team whose chances at a championship would be dramatically improved with the addition of two good players, and the ownership group can not be coaxed nor shamed into breaking out its credit card.

I suppose I could be impressed by the Mariners’ resolve. Think about the discipline required to finish a game or two short of the playoffs – as the Mariners have each of the past two seasons – and then do absolutely nothing for the next two and a half months.

OK, OK. I’m exaggerating. The Mariners haven’t been entirely idle. They did decline to pick up the option for second baseman Jorge Polanco (cost: $12 million), and they signed infielder Donovan Solano (cost: a reported $3.5 million with another $1 million in potential incentives). They’ve claimed a couple of players on waivers and on Wednesday they traded for catcher Blake Hunt, whose name I know only because the Mariners initially acquired him 14 months ago in a trade. He hit well in Tacoma last year, but he’s also 26 and has yet to reach the majors.

I will leave open the possibility that the Mariners will make more additions before their pitchers and catchers report to spring training on Feb. 12. They’ve got at least $15 million more to spend on this season’s roster. But I’m not going to pretend that there’s a single flying Frenchman’s chance that this team would sign someone like first baseman Pete Alonso or third baseman Alex Bregman. The Mariners aren’t even pretending there’s a flying Frenchman’s chance this could occur.

Instead, the Mariners executives have done their level best to stay out of sight. This is understandable to a certain extent. After all, this franchise has something of a knack for stumbling into unwanted attention, whether it’s Kevin Mather offending entire swaths of his own team over breakfast in Bellevue, or Jerry Dipoto and his attempt to put a percentage on success following the 2023 season.

That didn’t go over real well. Nor did Dipoto’s observation that Mariner fans should be thanking the team for its approach, something he later said was a poor attempt at humor.

There was no season-ending press conference after this season. Instead, Dipoto conducted an impromptu Q&A in the team’s dugout on the second-to-last day of the season and the Mariners slid out the backdoor and into the offseason in which they’ve tip-toed around, careful not to disturb anything.

It’s very possible that Seattle’s playoff chances will wind up pinned to the hopes that one of the Mitches (Garver or Haniger) bounces back this season, that full seasons from both Victor Robles and Randy Arozarena will be a huge boost and having Dan Wilson as manager and Edgar Martinez as hitting coach will be a rising tide that lifts everyone in the clubhouse.

And perhaps that will happen.

Maybe this will be a year when things break Seattle’s way, and they find a way to make a dollar out of 75 cents. Or maybe this is going to be another year in which the Mariners white-knuckle their way to the final weekend of the regular season and then bemoan another near-miss before spending another offseason hoping to be left alone.

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