Cal Raleigh and Julio Rodriguez haven’t been good this year. Neither have the Mariners.
The Mariners were favorites in the American League on Opening Day, according to FanGraphs. They enter the All-Star break a game under .500. What happened? Well, the Mariners, as a team, have played worse than they were expected to play. Here’s a timeline of the projected and actual WAR, with 2026 prorated through the end of the season:
Where have they played worse? I broke the roster into four components: Cal and
Julio (the stars), the rest of the position player group, the rotation, and the pen. For each group, I added up 2025 WAR, 2026 projected WAR, and 2026 actual WAR (prorated).
We can see most of the underperformance comes from Cal and Julio. They posted 15 WAR last year and were projected by Steamer for 12 WAR this year. They’re on pace for 4 WAR.
Obviously nobody expected Cal to repeat his semi-historic 2025 season. Steamer certainly didn’t. But not only has Cal been worse, he’s not even been good. In fact, he’s not even been average — he’s been really quite bad.
Why? As we recently learned, Cal began the year hurt. Manny Acta said Cal didn’t get enough reps with Team USA at the World Baseball Classic, tried to make up for it afterwards, over exerted, and strained his oblique. Cal tried to ‘tough guy’ his way through the first part of the season, before landing on the injured list after a long 0-for. He’s either still hurt or hasn’t found his timing, because he’s not been great since joining the team again in mid-June. He posted a 62 wRC+ before the injury; he has an 88 wRC+ since.
It’s not fair to lump Julio in the same tier of disappointment as Cal, though I wouldn’t call his season a success, either. Julio got off to his best start ever at the plate, but he slumped in the outfield. He turned it around defensively in June, but then his bat slumped. He started to get hot at the plate at the end of the month, finally putting everything together, but Nolan Schanuel drilled him in the back of the head while running the bases. Julio is on the injured list with a concussion.
This missing production is a big deal. Cal and Julio entered the year as the top batter duo in the majors, each projected in the top five. I found the two best projected batters by Steamer for each team, and compared to actual WAR (prorated). No team has gotten less relative to expectations from their top two hitters than the Mariners.
The teams just below on the list — the Blue Jays, Padres, Mets, and Phillies — have fared much worse on offense overall. The Mariners have an even 100 wRC+ because the rest of their lineup, collectively, has been fine. They’ve been about as good as they were last year, when Cal and Julio led them to a second place finish by wRC+ (and a ninth place finish by WAR).
There’s been a few good performances, from Randy Arozarena, Dominic Canzone, and Cole Young. There’s been a few bad performances, from Josh Naylor, Victor Robles, and Leo Rivas. J.P. Crawford has been hot and cold and can’t play defense. They’ve largely assembled themselves into something close to 2025. This isn’t Dodgers-level depth, of course, but it’s a reasonably competitive group, so long as they don’t have to go it alone.
The issue was this part of the roster was meant to take a step forward this year. The addition of Brendan Donovan is what pushed the Mariners into the “AL favorites” tier of the projections this spring. He simply hasn’t been on the field. Rob Refsnyder was meant to help with the roster’s general lopsidedness. He is now the worst player ever acquired by Jerry Dipoto by WAR. Both players are on the IL.
Still, it’s pretty clear what’s changed from last year to this year.
There’s been plenty said about what’s gone wrong in the first half of the season, and what needs to change in the second. Sometimes the truth is simple.
