The Seattle Mariners finally made the major addition we'd been waiting on all offseason, reaching an agreement with the St. Louis Cardinals to acquire utility man extraordinaire Brendan Donovan as part of a three-team deal that also involves the Tampa Bay Rays. We're not quite sure of the full extent of the trade just yet, but it seems like Seattle will be sending at least infielder Ben Williamson to Tampa and prospects Jurrangelo Cijntje (a pitcher) and Tai Peete (an outfielder) to St. Louis.
The Mariners have been interested in Donovan for months now, and it's not hard to see why given his versatility he brings and the uncertainty in Seattle's infield after losing both Eugenio Suarez and Jorge Polanco. Donovan can plug holes at second or third base, or even right field if Victor Robles or Dominic Canzone don't pan out. He's a very solid big-league player at positions of need, and the price is hardly exorbitant in the short term.
But while this seems like a nice bit of business in a vacuum, the only question that really matters for a team that got to within a game of the World Series last year is: Will it get us over the hump? That's a bit more complicated.
Projected Mariners lineup after trading for Brendan Donovan
It seems like a safe bet that, given Donovan's elite contact and on-base skills — career OBP: .361, including a .353 mark last season — the Mariners will want to put him at the top of their batting order on a daily basis in 2026. From there, assuming manager Dan Wilson tries to alternate between lefties and righties (and barring any other significant additions between now and Opening Day), the lineup could look something like this.
Player | Position |
|---|---|
Brendan Donovan | 3B |
Julio Rodriguez | CF |
Cal Raleigh | C |
Josh Naylor | 1B |
Randy Arozarena | LF |
Dominic Canzone | DH |
Victor Robles | RF |
JP Crawford | SS |
Cole Young | 2B |
That certainly isn't bad; in fact, Donovan-Rodriguez-Raleigh-Naylor-Arozarena would stack up nicely with just about any top five in the American League. But it's also worth remembering just how badly Seattle needed a player like Donovan, and how top-heavy their position player group remains even with Donovan aboard.
Canzone was a pleasant surprise last season, posting an .840 OPS that was very much backed up by the underlying contact data. But that was also a sample size of just 82 games, and given how much of an outlier it was from the rest of his young career to date, it's fair to wonder whether he'll be able to repeat that number or something close to it. And if he regresses, the bottom half of this lineup could get dire in a hurry, with Robles and Young struggling mightily at the plate in 2025 and Crawford not bringing much of any ceiling.
Of course, top prospect Colt Emerson is waiting in the wings, and if he hits the ground running, Seattle will really be cooking. And besides, the Mariners don't need to be the best offense in baseball to make a World Series run. With the pitching they already have in house, they just need to be good enough. Can their new-look lineup clear that bar? And where does this team now stand in the AL pecking order?
Does Brendan Donovan deal make the Mariners the new AL favorite?
Seattle will once again roll out one of the starriest starting rotations in baseball, most of it homegrown: Logan Gilbert, George Kirby, Bryan Woo, Luis Castillo and Bryce Miller. But Castillo is clearly in decline (don't look up his numbers away from T-Mobile Park if you're squeamish) and Miller came crashing back to Earth after his breakout 2024. And beyond that, there's very little in the way of depth: With Cijntje gone in the Donovan trade and Logan Evans lost for the year due to Tommy John, the only known quantities for Seattle beyond the first five are Emerson Hancock and Dane Dunning. An injury to one of the core arms could leave the Mariners awfully exposed.
Seattle will still be a good team in 2025, and I'd be surprised if they don't capture the AL West for a second straight year. (Maybe Houston's offense manages to stay healthy and collectively turn back the hands of time, but I'm skeptical, and I still don't think the Rangers have done enough despite the MacKenzie Gore trade.) How they stack up with the rest of the AL's best, however, is a bit murky right now.
We can set aside the AL Central for the purposes of this conversation, with the Guardians, Royals and Tigers once again content to fiddle around the margins over the offseason. But the AL East offers some stiff competition, with the Blue Jays and Red Sox bolstering their pitching staffs, the Orioles adding Pete Alonso and the Yankees running back what was a 94-win team last season with the second-best run differential in the sport.
The Mariners are very much in that mix. Questions abound, though: Will Josh Naylor repeat his torrid post-deadline pace over a full season? How close can Cal Raleigh realistically come to the heights of 2025? Is Randy Arozarena's second-half swoon the sign of a decline to come? Who will replace Jorge Polanco's 26 homers? That's a lot of ifs, and while I can be talked into having them ahead of the Red Sox (not enough pop) and Orioles (not enough pitching), I feel a bit better about both Toronto and New York reaching their ceilings.
The Blue Jays missed out on Bo Bichette and Kyle Tucker, but this is still a lineup without many obvious weaknesses, and the pitching staff got a facelift thanks to Dylan Cease and Cody Ponce. Counting on Gerrit Cole, Max Fried, Carlos Rodon, Cam Schlittler and Clarke Schmidt to all make it to October healthy (and the bullpen to avoid implosion) might be a lot to ask, but the Yankees will once again mash, and on paper at least boast a ton of talent. Donovan will help Seattle, but Jerry Dipoto needed to get aggressive this offseason to prevent 2025 from becoming the high-water mark, and I'm not sure he's done that yet.
The Mariners need to keep on stacking talent to compete with the Dodgers
And that's before we even get to baseball's big bad right now, the two-time defending champion Los Angeles Dodgers. Seattle seems content to simply throw themselves into the pile of good but not great AL contenders, and while that might be enough to reach the World Series given the requisite breaks, will it really be enough to go toe-to-toe with L.A. in October?
Of course, just getting to the World Series might be the aim; who knows what pitfalls might await the Dodgers between now and then, and who knows what the field will look like. I'm skeptical of this lineup's ability to grind down the Dodgers pitching staff the way Toronto was able to last fall, though, even if guys like Raleigh, Naylor and Arozarena are able to more or less repeat what they did last season. And that puts a lot of pressure on a pitching staff that's now missing some of the supporting pieces that helped keep it afloat amid injury and inconsistency last summer.
The Mariners have as much homegrown talent as anyone this side of L.A., between their Major League core and the prospects around the corner. Which is why it's such a shame that Dipoto doesn't seem willing or able to shove all his chips into the middle of the table. Now would be the time to do so, but Donovan is far from the only thing this team needs.