After securing their first division championship for the first time since 2001, the Mariners head into the postseason as one of the favorites to win the World Series. It’s a weird feeling to be in this space. For so long, the M’s have either been irrelevant or the plucky underdog fighting against bigger and better teams. You have to go back to that historic 2001 squad to find the last time Seattle was being picked as the odds on favorite to win a championship.
And with high expectations comes the
potential for great disappointment. So many promises have gone unfulfilled over the years. We had a taste of success in 2022, but it was quickly dashed by a better, stronger Astros ballclub. After so many years of frustration breeding cynicism, it should be second nature for Mariners fans to guard their hearts. To doubt their hometown team.
But the cure for cynicism is hope. Hope for something, anything different than the dreariness of the past. Throw your whole heart into the endeavor. You might get hurt. The Mariners may fail. But hope is an opportunity to stand together, to stand behind your team, to stand with one voice shouting “LET’S GO MARINERS.”
The Seattle Mariners are one of the best teams in baseball this year. They have a real opportunity to win the whole fucking thing. This should be a lot of fun.
(As of publication, FanGraphs hadn’t published their official game-by-game odds for the ALDS. This article will be updated with those odds as soon as they are available.)
The Tigers were the class of the American League for the first half of the season. After a Cinderella season in 2024 that included a shocking run to the playoffs, it looked like the whole team had taken a step forward into becoming one of the elite ballclubs in the AL. Back in mid-July, the Mariners and Tigers met in a three-game series just ahead of the All-Star break. Detroit had the best record in baseball at that point and Seattle was reeling from a sweep in New York with a record just three games over .500. The M’s swept away the Tigers and that seemed like a pretty significant turning point in both teams’s seasons. The Mariners surged to an AL West championship while the Tigers fumbled away the AL Central crown in a historic September collapse.
The Gritty Tigs did manage to exact some quick revenge against the Guardians, eliminating them from the playoffs in a tightly contested Wild Card series. The Tigers also finished the regular season with two straight road series and played their first-round games in Cleveland, which means these two games in Seattle to start the ALDS will be the 10th and 11th straight road games they’ve played — they haven’t played at home since September 21. I’ll take this opportunity to remind you that September performance doesn’t always predict October success (or in this case, failure). The Tigers are a talented ballclub that slumped at the exact wrong time. They’ve got some momentum behind them again after their first-round victory. The odds are in the Mariners favor, but don’t underestimate how tough this series could be.
The Tigers return basically their same lineup that saw them through the 2024 postseason, with the exception of their one-hole hitter. Gleyber Torres, the club’s lone significant off-season signing, leads off as the Tigers’ best on-base threat, although his strikeout rate crept up in the second half. He crushes lefties, but is only average against righties. It’ll be key to keep Torres off base in front of lefty Kerry Carpenter, who hits righties well, has hit the Mariners particularly well (.375 career against Seattle with six homers and more hits than strikeouts) and is one of the few Tigers who didn’t suffer a second-half swoon. Carpenter missed about a month in late June through July with a hamstring strain and was notably absent when the Mariners swept the Tigers in Detroit. Wenceel Pérez is a switch-hitter and a streaky one, coming off a cold stretch in September, but he came up with the hit that broke open the game for the Tigers in the definitive Game 3 of the Wild Card, tattooing a hanging slider off Hunter Gaddis for two runs.
Cleanup hitter Spencer Torkelson is coming off his best professional season yet after being selected first overall in 2020; he remains susceptible to off-speed offerings but has been crushing fastballs this year, often over the fence. Riley Greene has 36 bombs this year and is the team’s best hitter according to anyone you ask, from MLB to FanGraphs to our own Seattle Sports. Greene’s season is “beat it, nerds” made flesh, raising the conundrum: since when does a team’s best hitter bat fifth? Since when is a team’s best hitter pinch-hit for in a clutch situation? Well, when his strikeout rate is bottom 5% in MLB, although Greene makes up for that by hitting bombs and scads of doubles even while not walking much – move over, former two-true-outcome king Tyler O’Neill. Greene is also one of the worst offenders of the Tigers’ second-half swoon, going from a wRC+ of 141 to 90, with a particularly sluggish final month of the season.
Greene’s confounding profile makes a good transition into the part of the lineup that elicits strong “Frank Grimes learning facts about Homer Simpson” vibes for this writer. Dillon Dingler is an excellent defensive catcher who hits maybe the world’s emptiest .278 thanks to an elevated strikeout rate and a complete allergy to taking walks. His Statcast sliders make me viscerally angry and if he lived in any other country in the world he’d have starved to death. Similarly, Zach McKinstry hit .260 this year without finding barrels on a regular basis, albeit with superior plate discipline, but he’s another one who had a rough second half vs. first half split: from a 132 wRC+ to 81. He lives in a palace but doesn’t know how the economy works. Colt Keith was sidelined for the final two weeks of the regular season with a rib injury and missed the Wild Card series. He was ramping up baseball activity this week and the expectation is that he’ll be on the Tigers ALDS roster. That probably means he’ll slide back in at third base, pushing McKinstry to short and Javier Báez to the bench. There was a good joke in here about Javy getting All-Star buzz midseason (“want to see my Grammy?”) but it had to get cut. Stupid Colt Keith. Parker Meadows hits .230 against everyone else but .273 against the Mariners and he stole this potential game-winning home run from Cal Raleigh last year. His brother Austin owns a factory. It truly boggles the mind.
The bench for the Tigers features a pair of right-handed-hitting outfielders: Justyn-Henry Malloy, who saw his playing time cut down this year after striking out close to 40% of the time in 2024 but has brought that K rate down dramatically this year; and former Angel prospect Jahmai Jones, who bounced around a few teams but has settled in Detroit as a pull-hitter fourth outfielder type. Their infielder backups are contact-oriented, lefty-killer Andy Ibáñez and Báez. If Keith needs more time to get 100% healthy, Báez would fill in as the shortstop like he did in the Wild Card series. Righty Jake Rogers is the second catcher and his mustache is the third catcher.
Probable Pitchers
Because Tarik Skubal pitched on Tuesday in Game 1 of the Wild Card series, he’s probably lined up to pitch Game 2 of the ALDS on a normal four days of rest. And because that first-round series against the Guardians went the full three games, the Tigers won’t have either of their other two top starters, Jack Flaherty or Casey Mize, available to pitch in this opening game. Last year, Detroit relied on some pitching chaos during their surprise postseason run and I suspect we’ll see a return of that strategy here in Game 1. I have Keider Montero listed as the “starter” but I’d expect him to pitch through one turn in the lineup at most before handing things off to a cavalcade of relievers. The thing about the Tigers bullpen is that it’s taken a pretty significant step back this year. Former Mariner Will Vest has been fantastic as the Tigers closer and Brant Hurter has been a good setup guy, but the bridge pieces to lock down the middle innings haven’t been nearly as good as they were last year. The other thing to consider is that the more batters see relievers in a series, the better they perform the third or fourth time they’re facing the same pitcher. Burning through the bulk of the Tigers bullpen in Game 1 could have some positive knock on effects for the Mariners later in the series.
Thanks to the first-round bye, the Mariners have the luxury of setting up their rotation exactly how they want. Logan Gilbert should take the mound in Game 1 as he’s been the Mariners most consistent starter behind Bryan Woo. This year, Gilbert has lowered his arm angle, helping his splitter become one of the most unhittable pitches in baseball. Among all pitchers with at least 130 IP, his 32.3% strikeout rate ranks second in baseball. He still has a bit of a home run problem, but all the additional K’s more than make up for that single flaw. Gilbert allowed five runs in 10.1 innings against the Tigers this year.
You’re going to hear a lot about how the Mariners beat Tarik Skubal twice this year, scoring seven runs in 10.2 innings off the Tigers’ ace. Don’t let that past performance in just two starts overshadow the absolute dominance he showed throughout the rest of the season. He’s the presumptive favorite to win his second straight AL Cy Young award and he’s quickly established himself as one of the best pitchers on the planet since a breakout half season in 2023. Skubal is really unlike any other modern ace; instead of relying on a big breaking ball, he simply overpowers batters with what might be the best fastball in baseball and a deadly changeup to keep them from sitting on the heat. The stuff is electric but Skubal’s big differentiator is his elite command. Think Kirby with even better stuff.
Speaking of Kirby, he’ll take the ball for the M’s in Game 2. It’s been an up-and-down season for the young right-hander; he started the season on the IL with a shoulder injury and took a while to settle in after returning in May. Like Gilbert, Kirby also lowered his arm angle this year, though I wonder if that change in mechanics caused him to lose a bit of his pinpoint accuracy. Kirby allowed four runs in five innings in his start in Detroit this year. He also has a fun new sinker grip, if that’s your kind of thing.
Jack Flaherty was a reliable workhorse behind Tarik Skubal this year. He didn’t reach the highs of his resurgent season with Detroit and Los Angeles last year, but he was healthy and largely effective for long spans of the season. He struggled a bit during the middle of the summer — from June 14 through August 12, his ERA was a ghastly 6.58 though his peripherals painted a much better picture. His success largely depends on his feel for his two breaking balls. His four-seamer is good, but not overpowering, and if he becomes too reliant on his heater, he’s liable to get into trouble. Both his curveball and slider are true platoon neutral weapons and he’ll use them liberally to generate both swings and misses and weak contact. In his lone start against the Mariners this year, Flaherty allowed two runs in five innings while striking out seven.
The availability of Bryan Woo is still a bit up in the air, which means Luis Castillo will most likely be the Game 3 starter in Detroit to give Woo as much time to get ready as possible. Castillo had a rough August spurred on by a dip in fastball velocity. His heat didn’t return in September, but he still managed four brilliant starts down the stretch, allowing just three runs in 25.1 innings. He faced the Tigers twice this year and allowed five runs in 12 innings. Any concern about Castillo’s road splits (he had a 4.71 ERA away from T-Mobile Park this year) should be mitigated somewhat by the pitcher-friendly environment in Comerica Park.
Tommy John surgery derailed the early-career development of Casey Mize and he finally got things back on track last year. He made real improvements across the board this season and finally stepped into a regular role in the middle of the Tigers rotation. His strikeout rate improved by nearly five points and his walk rate improved slightly as well. The biggest change for him was a new slurve that gave him another reliable secondary weapon to pair with his slider and splitter. It was that offspeed pitch that spurred his breakout last year and it’s been even better this season. Mize faced Seattle twice, holding them scoreless in 5.2 innings in his first start of the season and then getting knocked around for six runs in three innings in July.
If Bryan Woo was going to be available to pitch in this series, it would probably be in a start in Game 4. Both Gilbert and Kirby would be fully rested for a potential Game 5 and I don’t think Seattle would want to roll the dice on a less than 100% Woo in an elimination game. If Woo isn’t available, Game 4 would be Bryce Miller’s opportunity to turn his lost season around with a strong start in the postseason.
No matter which game Skubal starts during the first weekend of this series, the off days in the middle of the week mean he’d be able to make a start in a potential Game 5. The same goes for Gilbert or Kirby depending on how the M’s want to match up in this decisive game. No matter who starts for Seattle, it’ll be all hands on deck in an elimination game.
