Mariners enter offseason with payroll flexibility, prospects to go bigger 

SEATTLE -- ‘Tis the season for Jerry Dipoto and Justin Hollander to shine, and they might have the ability to do so more effectively than any offseason over their tenures in Seattle.

Dipoto, the Mariners’ president of baseball operations, and Hollander, their general manager, were understandably still emotional when recounting their assessment of 2025 at a wide-ranging media session last week. But with the World Series nearing an end, the offseason -- and the transactional window that will follow five days later -- is on the immediate horizon.

“I do think this group is going to be together a long time,” Hollander said. “And we should be back in the same spot with a chance to go further for years to come.”

While the sting of losing Game 7 of the American League Championship Series will simmer for quite some time, there’s validation to Hollander’s assertion. The Mariners only have four free agents, boast MLB Pipeline’s No. 3-ranked farm system and will have far more payroll flexibility to spend this winter than at any point in recent memory.

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“I would say, similar to where we ended the year as a starting point,” Dipoto said.

The Mariners finished 2025 with a payroll of roughly $165 million, per Cots Baseball Contracts, which ranked 15th among the 30 teams and was the largest in franchise history. That figure was a $15 million (10%) increase from 2024.

The spike last season was largely tied to the $10 million that the Mariners absorbed when acquiring Josh Naylor, Eugenio Suárez and Caleb Ferguson at the Trade Deadline. All three were rentals -- free agents at season’s end -- which itself represented a shift in the club’s Deadline strategy from recent years, and maybe spoke to a renewed backing from ownership to do so.

“I think it shocked people,” Dipoto said. “But we have the support of our ownership group, and they've always been open to us pushing in. We did push this summer in a way that maybe we didn't quite push before. But we think that's, again, part of our roster-building model is to really lean into what we can access in July and lean on our city, our ballpark, our fan base and our atmosphere to really help seal the deal, because it's the best recruiting tool we have.”

If Dipoto’s “starting point” is around last year’s figure and the Mariners only have roughly $130 million on the books so far for 2026, per Cots, that’d leave them around $30-35 million to work with this winter, which is far and away a higher figure than they’ve had in any offseason since emerging from their rebuild in 2021.

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Last year, they had about $15 million to work with, which led them to just two notable free-agent acquisitions: veteran Donovan Solano (who was released on Sept. 1) and Jorge Polanco (who returned for significantly less than the club option that the Mariners declined after an injury-plagued season). And the year prior, the margins were tight enough that they had to trade higher-cost players -- notably, Suárez -- to reinvest in what they described as a reimagined offense.

They should have the spending power to bring back Polanco if they desire after a major turnaround, and more chiefly, re-sign Josh Naylor to the higher-cost, multiyear deal he’ll covet.

“You can never quit trying to find pieces to add to the team,” Hollander said. “That's where my head is going to be ... is what does this team need going forward? And that starts with the guys who have a chance to be free agents in a couple weeks, and seeing if we can bring as many of those guys back as possible. And then add to parts of our club that we feel like either didn't meet expectations or, as we look in our crystal ball, we think are areas where we can improve upon like we can't. We can't rest on our laurels. We weren't good enough.”

Dipoto also hinted that the Mariners will be able to again be bold at the ‘26 Trade Deadline in a way they were in ‘25, in taking on more money midseason.

“I think we've been in that boat for a while now,” Dipoto said, “and the commitment that we get from ownership is real.”

There’s a lot of work to be done this winter, but the Mariners appear to be in a prime position -- financially -- to address most, if not all, of their needs.