The Seattle Mariners have made a few roster moves over the last several days as they circle their candidates for manager. Free agency opens officially at 2 PM PT today (Monday, November 2nd), and there are likely to be several M’s headed out the door or at least off the 40-man roster, which must be cut down to a true 40 by the deadline as well. This means players like Logan Evans and Brennen Davis will need to have spots found, as the 60-day injured list does not exist during the offseason.
Still,
Seattle has reportedly been adding. Last week, they claimed OF Grant McCray from the San Francisco Giants, and Monday they added RHP Isaac Mattson from the Pittsburgh Pirates as well. The waiver moves are not necessarily big shakes, like the addition of OF/1B Michael Toglia in October, but the depth of the M’s roster failed to produce big production as it had in years past.
McCray offers tri-positional defensive coverage, but the 25 year old has been sledding uphill at the dish since his big league debut in 2024. Watching McCray roam the outfield is graceful and impressive, but when tasked to cover the spacious confines of Oracle Park he’s struggled to shine. What McCray has done is run hard, play hard, and hit the ball hard. It’s a family legacy, as his father Rodney McCray was a longtime pro baseball player who earned parts of three years in the big leagues himself and coached for years afterwards. However, the elder McCray’s prominent legacy has local roots, having run through the right field fence at Civic Stadium (what has now become Providence Park) in Portland, OR with the Vancouver Canadians in an brave-but-doomed pursuit of a fly ball.
Savvy collectors may be able to track down a bobblehead from the Portland Beavers of this incident, which you’ve likely seen on a blooper real somewhere. Rodney’s son plays with a similar fearlessness and maximum effort.
His barrel rate is 12% for his 247 PA career over the past three seasons, and as a prep 87th overall pick back in 2019, the Gigantes were willing to give their hard-charging youth some extended chances. Unfortunately, McCray’s undoing thus far has been his inability to get the bat on the ball often enough. He’s punched out nearly 40% of the time as a big leaguer, and despite quality performance in the minors it’s been clear that contact will make or break the youngster’s career. In his favor, and sorely missing from Seattle’s outfield beyond Julio Rodriguez this past year, is a cannon of an arm and elite foot speed.
Then there’s Mattson. The 31 year old was dealt from his drafting club of the Anaheim Angeles of Orange County to the Baltimore Orioles in 2019 for Dylan Bundy, something I would have assured you occurred 25 years ago. While he debuted with the O’s, he ultimately bounced around indy ball and the Minnesota Twins organization in the early 2020s before returning home to the Pirates. Growing up in Erie, PA and attending the University of Pittsburgh, the homecoming may have been impactful for the reliever. After another dominant display in the minors in 2024, Mattson finally cracked through to stay in 2025, with an extreme fly ball tendency that has been catnip for lazy pop-ups for most of the last several seasons.
It’s fairly easy to grasp what makes Mattson’s stuff work when he’s on. The 6’2 righty has a fairly over-the-top delivery, backspinning his four-seamer well to get above-average ride that sits at the top of the zone in the 93-96 range. That is, when well-located, a barrel dodger, and he uses it overwhelmingly, more than 70% of the time in an era rarely so heavy on a single type of heater.
That’s possibly where the M’s want to make some tweaks, however, as Mattson’s secondaries show some promise. The slider and changeup he’s flashed have some potency, and the M’s were undone among many areas by incompetence in the middle relief realm a season ago.
Both players retain minor league options that can be used for 2027 if needed.
