Mariner Roster Taking Shape

The Seattle Mariners regular season will now be starting in ten days so we will be seeing more players either released, waived or being sent to the minor leagues. The Mariners have said with the beginning of the season they will go with four starting pitchers, eight relievers and thirteen position players. The Mariners won’t need a fifth starter until the middle of April so why they will go with four starters to begin with.

So now a look at who I believe will be the roster on opening day March 29. The Mariners right now have 37 players on the 40 man roster so they have three spots to add non-roster players or sign or trade for a player. 

The starting pitching will begin with James Paxton, Felix Hernandez, Mike Leake and Marco Gonzales. It looks like a solid group if Felix can be healthy. Ariel Miranda or Rob Whalen will be the fifth starter when the time is needed. So it looks to be that they both will start the season in Tacoma. Whalen had a rough start on Sunday so we hope that he can recover and pitch the way he did in his previous starts in training camp.

The relief staff looks pretty set going into the season. Edwin Diaz will be the closer with Nick Vincent and Juan Nicasio being the setup men for the eighth inning. Marc Rzepczynski and James Pazos will be lefties out of the bullpen; so the remaining three right handed relievers for the Mariners should be David Phelps, Dan Altavilla and possibly be Casey Lawrence as the long reliever. Lawrence will have to be added onto the forty man roster since he came in as a non-roster invitee. This spot could be changed if the Mariners decide to pick up another pitcher who currently is on another team.

Now the thirteen position players the Mariners will start the season with. At catcher the starter will be Mike Zunino and his backup will be Mike Marjama. Going with thirteen players the Mariners could start the season with two utility players or two first basemen. Right now I would go with the latter. Ryon Healy and Dan Vogelbach who has had a solid training camp will share first base. This means that the utility player will be Andrew Romine over Taylor Motter. Romine being the veteran and Motter who has options can be sent to Tacoma. With several days off early in the season this makes good sense that Motter can get in regular playing time. The rest of the infield will be Robinson Cano at second, Kyle Seager at third and Jean Segura at shortstop. The outfield we will see Ichiro Suzuki in left, Dee Gordon in center and Mitch Haniger in right field. The fourth outfielder will be Guillermo Heredia who can play all three spots however will see most of his action in left. Ichiro and Heredia likely will start the season platooning in left field. Ichiro will start against righties while Heredia against lefties. This could change depending on how Ichiro performs and how many right handed pitchers they face early in the season. Heredia might see some action against right handers. He doesn’t hit right handers as much as against lefties. Also I would see him coming into games as a defensive replacement late in games. At designated hitter we have Nelson Cruz and we could see Vogelbach there if Cruz isn’t totally healed. There we go with looks to be the opening roster. With general manager Jerry Dipoto on the seen a couple of the spots could change. Go M’s.