Now I’m wondering if that wasn’t the X (ha) factor after all. I think it might have been the veteran leadership of one Justin Matthew Turner. Just 4 years my junior, Turner joined the club when the M’s were 56-52 (.519) on the year (admittedly, still in first place in a week division, tied for first with eventual AL West winner Houston). During his tenure in Seattle, the Mariners would go 29-25 (.537), a time that overlapped both all of the Wilson\/Martinez success and the lead-up to that time that precipitated Scott Servais’s firing (especially the abysmal road-trip in which we saw Servais’s last win<\/a>). This isn’t as definitive, of course. Statistically, Wilson & Martinez have a lot more success than JT in these small samples.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But that was before the first 9 games of 2025. The Mariners infamously refused to spend loose couch cushion change and a bag of chips on bringing back JT, preferring to sign Pirates cast-away Rowdy Tellez to a minor league deal to earn a starting first base spot with a torrid Spring Training. JT signed with the Cubs for $6 million (I can’t sufficiently stress that this is literally nothing in today’s MLB). JT is 3\/11 (.273) in limited action with the Cubs, who are 7-4 and sit atop their division. Tellez is 1\/12 (.081) for the Mariners, who are 3-6 and sit at the bottom of their division. His OPS+ is -12.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Obviously the difference between JT and Tellez on the field isn’t worth 4 wins for the Cubs. But you don’t sign Justin Turner at 40 for his on-field contributions. You sign him for what he does on the bench, in the batting cage, in the clubhouse. Veteran leadership. It’s a thing that the Mariners lack. JP Crawford and Cal Raleigh can both lay claim to a pseudo-captain status of this squad and both are south of 31 years old. It’s a young team, which makes it long on potential, but there’s no one with seniority and sage wisdom (outside of Wilson & Martinez themselves) to right the ship when it starts to take on water as it has so far this year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I would be less certain of my diagnosis for the 2025 Mariners if there weren’t a prior case study to 2024. This one is way more dramatic and obvious: Carlos “Slamtana” Santana. (No, not this guy<\/a>.) The 2022 Mariners were 34-41 (.453) and in 4th place when Slamtana joined the club in late June. North America’s longest major-sport playoff drought (by an order of magnitude) was in no danger of ending. With Carlos aboard, the M’s rattled off a 56-31 run (.644), including an epic 14-game winning streak going into the All-Star break, to end the drought and finally make the playoffs. Slamtana was instrumental in the clinching game of the Mariners’ first playoff series win in two decades<\/a> as well.<\/p>\n\n\n\n We let the Pirates jump on getting Santana the next year for cheap and he helped them to a hot start, but they eventually traded him to Milwaukee where he again made the playoffs. He spent the following year in Minnesota and won a Gold Glove! But this year, despite buzz that the Mariners would bring him back for a vacancy at first base (especially if they didn’t re-sign Turner), he returned to Cleveland for $12 million (double JT, but JT hadn’t just won a Gold Glove and Slamtana turns just 39 on Tuesday). Again, this was an affordable price for the Mariners. Carlos has opened 2025 9\/31 (.290) with a homer and 6 runs scored for the Guardians, though they are just 3-5 in the early going. Because they have the luxury of playing in the AL Central, they’re just a game out of first with that record.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I’m talking about all this because it’s way more important than the game, which was painful and futile in the way that only a floundering foundering team can produce. The Mariners lead the AL in walks, demonstrating a real tangible improvement in plate discipline and hitting approach that is commendable and truly exciting. But they are next-to-last in runs\/game (3.11), somehow well ahead of 3-5 Houston (2.25), who is also In Trouble. And the runs thing indicates that this is, at core, the Same Old Mariners in a fundamental way. A team that struggles to put together timely hits and a sense of momentum. And when they haven’t struggled, it’s usually been with the help of a veteran leader who has won something before.<\/p>\n\n\n\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/bluepyramid.org\/storey\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/Game9-Vets.png\")
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