Few teams have had as disappointing a 2026 season as the Mariners. Despite finishing one game away from their first pennant and entering the year as a popular pick to represent the American League in the World Series, the M’s are all but guaranteed to miss the playoffs. They’re highly likely to end up below .500, with the missed opportunity of the lackluster AL West field only adding insult to injury.

It leaves Seattle with some questions for the upcoming offseason. Beyond any possibility of a leadership change in the front office or the dugout, the Mariners will need to improve an offense that has scored an MLB-low 577 runs (3.95 per game). They’ll need to do so with the potential free agent departure of this year’s best hitter, Randy Arozarena, as well as longtime shortstop J.P. Crawford and deadline acquisition Taylor Ward.

Even if they re-sign Arozarena and Crawford, that only gets them part of the way to bringing back an offense that wasn’t good enough. Rebounds from Cal Raleigh and Josh Naylor and/or steps forward from the likes of Colt Emerson, Lazaro Montes and Michael Arroyo might be enough to make this a good team in 2027. Yet the Mariners can’t justify running everything back and hoping the players perform better. This year’s results were simply too ugly — only the A’s, Rockies, Reds and Royals have a worse run differential — to completely write this off as the bad end of variance.

The need for some kind of overhaul comes as most of Seattle’s vaunted rotation moves closer to free agency. They’ll still have a full six-year control window over Kade Anderson and three-plus years of control on Bryan Woo, Emerson Hancock and Bryce Miller.