Locked On Mariners - Daily Podcast On the Seattle Mariners - What You NEED to Know About the Seattle Mariners' Payroll This Offseason

Episode Date: October 6, 2026

Ty and Colby observe MLBTradeRumors.com's arbitration projections, what that means for the Mariners' payroll this offseason, and more. Check out our merch store!Check out our Patreon!Follow the show on Twitter: @LO_MarinersFollow the show on Bluesky: @lockedonmariners | @tdg | @mlbcolbySupport Us By Supporting Our Sponsors!IndeedListeners of this show get a $75 Sponsored Job Credit to help give your job the premium placement it deserves at http://Indeed.com/podcast.Gameday Mens HealthGameday Men’s Health is a real, in-person men’s health clinic that looks at the full picture  before developing a treatment plan. Book your complimentary test and consult at https://join.gamedaymenshealth.com/reasons_to_choose_gameday-1201?utm_source=lockedon&utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=MLB&utm_network=lockedon&utm_adgroup=corp&ghl_tag=national,corpKALSHIFor a limited time, Download Kalshi and use code Locked On to get $25 when you trade $25. Kalshi. Trade what’s next.  OdooGreat organizations win because operations matter. And that’s why you should get Odoo. Try for free today at https://Odoo.com/lockedon.GametimeToday's episode is brought to you by Gametime. Download the Gametime app, create an account, and use code LOCKEDON for $20 off your first purchase. Terms and conditions apply.FanDuelThis season, FanDuel is making the excitement go beyond what happens on the field with the all-new FanDuel Rewards Club, featuring exclusive offers, surprises, and more. Every week, check the FanDuel app to see what’s waiting for you or visit https://FANDUEL.COM to get started. FANDUEL DISCLAIMER: 21+ in select states. First online real money wager only. Bonus issued as nonwithdrawable free bets that expires in 14 days. Restrictions apply. See terms at sportsbook.fanduel.com. Gambling Problem? Call 1-800-GAMBLER or visit FanDuel.com/RG (CO, IA, MD, MI, NJ, PA, IL, VA, WV), 1-800-NEXT-STEP or text NEXTSTEP to 53342 (AZ), 1-888-789-7777 or visit ccpg.org/chat (CT), 1-800-9-WITH-IT (IN), 1-800-522-4700 (WY, KS) or visit ksgamblinghelp.com (KS), 1-877-770-STOP (LA), 1-877-8-HOPENY or text HOPENY (467369) (NY), TN REDLINE 1-800-889-9789 (TN) Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

MLB trade rumors have released their arbitration projections for 15 Mariners players, giving us a better idea of what the Mariners payroll should look like this off season. We'll break it all down coming up. Colby, hit it. You are Locked-on Mariners, your daily Seattle Mariners podcast, part of the Locked-on Podcast Network, your team every day. Ahoy, Sailors, it is Tuesday, October 6, 2026. My name is Tadengazolus, and I'm joined as always by my co-host, Colby Patnode.

This episode is brought to you by Kalshi. For a limited time, download Kalshi and use the promo code locked on to get $25 when you trade $25. Kalshi, trade, what's next? On today's show, MLB trade rumors have released their annual arbitration projections for the Mariners and 29 other teams. Break those down and tell you where that should roughly put the Mariners payroll heading into the off season. And then after that, we'll quickly talk about some injury news, two prominent Mariners undergoing procedures. But let's start with these RAB projections. Every year MLB trade rumors does this.

And they always turn out to be very accurate or at the very least right in the ballpark. And we always use these numbers for our offseason plan and just our overall offseason discussion. Logan Gilbert coming in here with, I believe, the highest Rube projection of any player around the league this time around 15.4 million dollars, Kloy. Yeah. I mean, it's no surprise. It's still a bargain price, which is, you know, what the first six years of club control or in Logan's case, Logan's case, seven years of club control are all about. You get incredible value. And then the player, you know, more or less sells you the best years of his career for significantly less.

That is what arbitration is built to do. And Logan's finally gotten to the end of it. This is his last crack. This is his fourth year of arbitration. most players only get three. And so, yeah, him having the highest number naturally makes a lot of sense. He's very, very good pitcher who, again, has already gotten three raises. So, of course, he's going to be among the most expensive.

There are a couple other players who are, like, in the ballpark. So maybe he ends up not getting the most in this process. And also, it's entirely possible he signs an extension. And, you know, this $15 million might actually end up only being like nine. and then they push money down the road later into the contracts. Those are also things to keep in mind. But yeah, Logan's going to make a good chunk of change this year, and he deserves to and good for him.

And I'm so hopeful the Mariners are working towards an extension with him just because I feel like he's earned it. Brennan Donovan comes in at $6.1 million. Gabe Spire, $3.3 million. I can't imagine that they would not. tender him at that low of a figure even after the fairly disappointing year from Gabe. Yeah. I would say no, that they would tender him a contract.

Keep in mind, these are projections. This is if they go to arbitration. The Mariners pretty famously do not go to arbitration. They want to get deals done and they try to find middle ground and all of that. So, you know, Gabe may come in. at 3.5 and the Mariners may come in at like 2.8 and they'll meet somewhere in the middle. I think the only player to go to arbitration with the Mariners is Teoscar Hernandez. Maybe Tom Wilhelmson way back in like Jerry's first or second year.

But yeah, Teosker, you remember, came in like $2 million over what the Mariners did. And yeah, that didn't set up for the best relationship going forward. But the Mariners typically like to get these things done and figure it out. And I think they will get something done for Spire for less than $3 million. million bucks, but they're definitely going to tender him and, and, you know, have that opportunity to negotiate because he's still really good against lefties. And, and, you know, their stuff is still really good when he's healthy. And, you know, you don't necessarily want to be in the business of losing your decent bullpen arms, at least not yet, because you don't have enough of them as things stand

right now. So three million bucks is pretty treesome to pay somebody for a year to get what, you know, at times it's been a dominant reliever. George Kirby, this is kind of the big one, Colby. $2.8 million. Kind of an underrated aspect of him being potentially traded this winter is that that would free up essentially $10 million or if you get a player back in a potential Kirby deal who's making some money that wouldn't have as much of a significant impact on your payroll. Right.

You know, George 10 million bucks is still a good deal. Like there's not a team in baseball that wouldn't want George Kirby a 10 million bucks. So the number really doesn't impact his trade value whatsoever. And it is maybe a little bit of a bonus, I guess, for the Mariners, if they do trade them. But again, chances are they're probably going to trade George if they do for some kind of proven major leaguer who's probably going to be making a little bit of money too. So they're not going to save just, you know, wipe 10 million bucks off the payroll. But could they wipe, you know, five or six million or whatever off of it or maybe even just one or two, one or two if they get the right player in return? sure so that is a nice little bonus there and again when you're trying to decide between

trading george kirby or trading like emerson hancock hancock's not going to be our eligible next winter even unless they change the rules which you know who knows they might yeah they might but uh yeah it's it's a good number uh for george it's a good number for the mariners as they probably we assume are going to look to trade uh george this winter So here's our first clear non-tender candidate. That would be Patrick Wisdom at just $1.1 million, but they're not going to tender him a contract. That brash $1.8 million. That's a no-brainer.

This one's pretty interesting. Luke Rayleigh at $3.1 million. Yeah. I don't see it. I think it's possible that they maybe tender him and then try and trade him. That's what I think they're going to. do. Right. But, you know, three million bucks for Luke Rayleigh. It's not that Rayleigh's not worth it. When he's healthy, he's a good player. He just hasn't been healthy the last two years. He doesn't

hit lefties at all. The defense has regressed significantly over the last couple of years as well. I just, I, I, I, I, we didn't even talk about it on the show, but they did claim Tolia, uh, you know, a few days ago. And just kind of feels to me like Tolia is there to kind of, you know, compete with Luke Rayley for Luke Rayley's spot. And, and, uh, uh, If they really like Tolia, then he's free, relatively speaking, and Rayleigh's going to cost three million bucks. I think they might make that pretty easy decision there. So Rayleigh is the only true 50-50 here. I think everybody else is almost certainly getting tendered or is insignificant enough that it's like, if they get non-tendered, who cares?

So Rayleigh really is the decision point here out of everybody. and I don't have a good feel for this because they could just, you know, non-tender them. And maybe they try and sign them back to like a $1.5 million deal with some incentives because Rayleigh still has a role with the Mariners. Like they still, the Mariners still have D.H. at bat so they can give. They still don't have left fielders thing stand right now. And like he's not a bad fit with like Michael Arroyo if you think.

And really was good for the first couple of months of this year before the elbow really got away from him. They like his energy. He hits a team mobile park, which is, you know, not something you want to get rid of. of. So Rayleigh has a very interesting case about being tendered or not. Ultimately, I think they probably do. It's a relatively low risk. But if they didn't, you know, I don't think it's like the worst thing in the world that they didn't tender Luke at that cost because there are legitimate questions about Luke going forward. But I think ultimately he's probably worth it. Yeah. Bryce Miller, $3.9 million, which means that the Mariners are going to decline his $6 million option.

there's a $15,000 buyout with that. Brian Wu, $5.2 million. Edward Bizarro, $1.5 million. I think they tender him that contract, even after the second half struggles for him. Jose Ferreira, $1.6 million. Michael Rucker, $800,000. Cooper Criswell, 900,000.

Carlos Vargas, 800,000. You think all those guys are getting tendered at those low numbers? I think so. Just to compete in the spring training. It's barely above league minimum. And they like Rucker. whether we like it or not, they do like him, obviously.

And I think they like Chriswell and they like Vargas too. So like there are Beligible, but barely. Like their raises are rounding errors. So yeah, I think they tender all those guys contracts. And again, like if they don't, okay, whatever. Like these are guys who are coming in to compete. You hope that all three of those guys really have to like, you know, dominate and force their force the Mariners hands to be in the opening day.

a bullpen, but they're cheap, free depth. And you have room on the 40 right now. Like, yeah, there's no reason not to tender those three guys at those prices. Yeah, and again, even with Bizarro's struggles, he's still worth a million and a half to see if you can

get right and all of that. And honestly, even if you don't, he's probably still worth a million and a half. Like, that's just chump change. Even for the Mariners, for a guy who has proven at times for long stretches of times to be a you know quality seventh

maybe even eighth any type of guy so yeah I don't think there's going to be any surprising non-tenders in the Mariners bullpen and then lastly Dominic Canzon coming in at $3 million nice little raise for him after a breakout season all right so coming up now that we've gone over these numbers

where does that put the Mariners payroll going into the off season we'll talk about that but first reminder this episode of the lockdown Maris podcast is brought to you by Kalshi make baseball season more this year on Kalshi America's number one prediction market platform you can trade on every single game.

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It may not be suitable for all investors. Kalshi products are not available in all jurisdictions. Prices, values, and available markets may differ from those mentioned. For more information, see Kalshi.com slash regulatory. And you're listening to the Lockdown Marys podcast, part of the Lockdown Podcast Network, your team every day. Thank you so much for making us your first listen for all things, Mariners.

And also thank you for making lockdown the number one sports podcast network. If you enjoy the show, give this episode a like and hit the subscribe button if you're watching on YouTube. Or if you're listening on your favorite podcast platform, leave us a five-star review. It only takes a few seconds and really helps this out. All right. So after calculating all the arbitration projections from MLB trade rumors and then the guaranteed contracts currently on the Mariners payroll and all the options that we assume they are going to pick up or decline. and accounting for all the remaining pre-arb spots that would be on the roster if the season started tomorrow. The Mariners payroll going into this offseason comes in at about 135-ish to 140-ish million dollars, Colby,

which gives the Mariners about $30 or so million to get back to where they ended 2026, which according to Cots baseball was 168. million dollars flat. Yeah. So a couple things worth noting in there. One that does account for the Munoz option, which will be picked up. It also accounts for the buyouts of Robles and Miller, Robles at about half a million, Miller at about 15,000.

It's also worth reiterating because I know we'll get there eventually, but Bryce Miller's not going to be a free agent. They're not cutting Bryce Miller. They are declining his option that they negotiated last year. He will instead go through arbitration a move that's likely going to save the Mariners about $3 million, which is already accounted for in this math. This also counts Luke Rayleigh and his $3 million of Arb, which the Mariners may nondender. So there might be an extra $3 million in there as well.

this also accounts for a 40-man roster being paid the full league minimum, which does not happen. You do not make league minimum, major league minimum, if you're on the 40-man, but you're in the minors. The minimum for that, I believe, is still like $62,000, $61,000. You only get league minimum if you're actually on the big league roster or you're on the I.O. So while the 26-man roster is probably closer to, you know, 128-ish, give or take, it's worth noting that teams always like to have about $5 million in reserve just to handle injuries and having to call guys up and paying them pro-rated league minimum for X amount of time and all that. And then the Mariners' front office always tries to save, you know,

about another five to seven-ish million dollars to make deadline additions because ownership is terrible and they won't just write another check. So even though the 26-man roster is probably about $10 million less than the full 40-man roster, it's still worth just adding that on to our starting number because we know that they're going to want to keep that in reserves to begin with as well. So yeah, I think when you look at Cots, they're at 168, we have them at about you know, again, give or take between 132-ish to 135-ish, depending on Rayleigh and all that. If you're like going to go out and set out and try to do like a somewhat realistic off-season plan, at least in terms of money, I think the best place to put it would be at about 170-ish max.

Now, when you look at the end of the year payroll versus end-of-the-year payroll, the Mariners only finished like a million, not even a million bucks higher this year than it did last year. About 700,000. So despite John Stanton's claims that they've raised payroll each of the last five years. Yeah. I mean, they've raised opening day payroll. Like, they raised opening day payroll fairly significantly from 2025 to 2026. 2025's opening day payroll was 145 mil, about 146, basically.

2026 was 161. But if we're talking about year end, it's, again, like we said, like about a $700,000 difference from the end of 2025 to the end of 2026. Yeah, wouldn't worry about the luxury tax. They're not close to that number yet. So that's not really a thing. It's the cash, the cash out that they care about.

You could say, well, they were willing to give, you know, Luis Castillo, if they had kept him, they would have been willing to spend $170 plus million. So I guess it's fair to say like,

okay, are you willing to, you know, bump payroll up to it? at least what it would have been if you hadn't been able to trade Luis Castillo, which would be another, what, 11 million, 10 million bucks on top of what we already think. So that would push it closer to 180. But that would, you know, that would require John Stan being a good owner.

You know, I think it's more likely that he lowers payroll than it is that he raises it significantly. Yeah, I mean, there's the baked in excuses that you can already see from a mile away, like the lockout and the disappointing season, even though that they were top three in the American League in attendance. Like, yeah. 2.8 million people come to the ballpark. They know exactly what their TV revenue is going to be next year. Like all the other excuses that they used to use, they don't apply anymore.

But, oh, thank goodness, there's a lockout because we're greedy owners and we want to, you know, have the players laundry count against their salary cap. And we also want to charge them to fix the divets in the outfield. Like, because of that nonsense, there's always that excuse that they could just pull the rug out from under Jerry. And it's like, oh, actually going to be $1.50. now and all of a sudden you have $10 million to play with. But we should also note here that the model right now or the math right now currently accounts

for George Kirby's ARB number. And I think Ty and I both agree that Kirby is very likely to be traded this winter. And Sam or Hancock, which like that creates a very different situation about Sancock than Kirby. But yeah, like I mentioned earlier, like if you trade Kirby, that either gives you another 10-ish million dollars to spend or you know it takes off a chunk of whoever you're bringing in in a potential Kirby trade right so they go to 170 right and you trade Kirby and ignore the return for now then you're probably going to have about you're going to be at about 125-ish so if you go to 170 that's 45 million bucks and then obviously whatever you acquire Kirby for

or whoever you get for Kirby probably going to be some major league salary attached to that so that'll get added. But needless to say, the Mariners, unless they drastically cut payroll, they're going to have some room here to make some moves. Are they going to have the room to make the huge move, the $1, $28 million a year move? No, I don't think so. I honestly don't think that would be a wise use of money anyways, just based on how many holes they have to fill on this roster.

But there is a possibility they could make it work. And just about every avenue that could be open to them will be open to them if they want to be aggressive enough, even with the limited payroll that we're kind of projecting here. So, but yeah, I think 170 is a fair projection. And I think starting right now at about 130 to 135, I think that's right in the ballpark. All right. Coming up, two prominent Mariners underwent successful procedures. We'll tell you what those were and who they were. Just a moment.

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or show some love by grabbing yourself a t-shirt hat or sticker on our merch store at our Hoy Sailors-SHawr. dot fourth wall.com. Links in the description of this episode. So we were wondering if we would find out about any offseason surgeries for any of the mariners who were really banged up over the course of the year. A lot of IL stents. A lot of guys playing through things.

And now we have from the mariners themselves some news about a couple of surgeries that a couple of prominent mariners have successfully undergone. on Cal Raleigh underwent a left shoulder I'm not even going to attempt to pronounce that AC procedure at the University of Washington

Medical Center on October 3rd Josh Naylor underwent I'm also not going to attempt to pronounce that wrist surgery his right wrist at the University of Washington Medical Center on October 3rd

as well so there you get we We knew that Naylor was playing through a lot of stuff, including a wrist. So there you go. He finally had some work done on that. Shoulder for Cal is a little interesting. Now, it's left shoulder. It's not right shoulder.

So that's good news. Obviously, we knew about the oblique. But yeah, shoulder surgery for Cal is kind of interesting. Yeah, not surprising. Cal just awful year all around. Obviously, the oblique put him on the IL for the first time in his career. Obviously, he's dealing with this shoulder thing, you know, for a chunk of the year. and it's it's brutal you know and and to be a catcher on top of it like there's no really

you can't really like splint everything up and still go out and be a catcher so it just doesn't work that way and and you know the fact that Cal was able to finish the year as strongly as he did uh you know with the with the shoulder thing i mean i guess the good news is is that he apparently didn't need surgery at least so far as we know uh he didn't need surgery on like his core which as we know from the Brennan Donovan experience tend to linger. So the fact that there was no kind of issue with the core, there's no core surgery announced or anything like that. That was my first concern when I saw the tweet pop up that like Cal Raleigh had a surgery

as a shoulder cleanup surgery on his non-throwing shoulder. Yeah, that'll be fine. He'll be ready to go well before spring training. And that's even if spring training actually started on time, which yeah. So, yeah, that's, it doesn't sound like it's going to be any kind of concern for, for 2027 whatsoever. Just hopefully again, it's just like a little like, hey, cow, maybe you take a couple more days off. Maybe you ask for a couple more DH days because we really need you, as this year proved. We need you to be around and we need you to be productive.

So hopefully, you know, maybe that's something that he can learn from this year. The Naylor thing, not surprising. And we saw him just shaking the, you know what out of that wrist basically every other day. And also, I mean, pretty easily can be pinpointed on the lack of power that we saw from Josh. I mean, you're talking about the lead wrist of a left hand. Saw what that did for Thai France. And, you know, obviously that that affects grip strength too and all of that. And so like talking about grip strength.

you're talking about, you know, just the amount of force that gets put into your wrist as you swing a baseball bat, especially that lead wrist. Yeah, it's it's going to sap power. And, you know, Josh only had 10 home runs this year. That's just not acceptable. And it pretty clearly was, I think we all knew, wrist related. We also knew that he had some foot issues, some shin issues at its point. Yeah, obviously had the shoulder thing last year that he was doing with, especially during the playoffs. bit at point like I think Josh needs to dial back to stone bases a little bit here he's just it's fun it's awesome he's good at it but I think he needs to be a little more selective because obviously this is a you know 29 30 year old body who's played a lot of baseball it's got a lot of wear and tear on it and these little injuries kind of you know add up and we saw him several times while running the bases this year like oh you know hurt my neck hurt my back hurt my wrist sliding into bases like you need josh to hit home runs especially you're losing randy he needs to hit more home runs next year and if he can't do it because he's trying

to steal 30 bases then he needs to take a look at his game and be like i got to change my game because as much fun as this is and as much as cool as it is for me to be a guy who steals 30 bases it's just not worth it overall so again you know josh actually probably good news that we heard about this surgery because it does explain the the lack of power that we saw from him this year. And Josh is a guy who's capable of hitting 30. Typically hits around 20, but we know he's capable of hitting 30. And you might need him to do that next year, so you want that risk at 100%. And, you know, if it takes him slowing down on the bases, not physically, can't get much

slower, but if it takes him like pumping the brakes a little bit on the stolen basis for him to be able to hit with some pop next year, it's a tradeoff that he has to be willing to make and the Mariners have to have that conversation with him because they need him to slug more than they need him to steal bases. And, you know, ideally you could do both. But I think of a lot of the injuries I saw this year, all the times I was worried about Josh,

it was on a stolen base attempt. And, and it was trying to stretch out a double or something like that. Right. Just kind of, just, you got to stay healthy and you got to hit home runs if you're going to be a first baseman in this league. 30 stolen bases are nice, but they're not necessarily. necessary. So hopefully there is some some tweaks in the game style or the gameplay style of

Cal and Josh as a result of this. You don't want to take away from it, take them away from it completely because they saw it to be who they are. But like, hey, let's just dial back like half a notch. Like let's let's really try and be healthy this year and all that because those two guys and their power outage this year, massive storyline for the 2026 Seattle Mariners and a big part of the reason why they're not playing right now. All right. That is going to do up for us. Thank you so much for joining us here on the Lockdown Mariner's podcast. Part of the Lockdown Podcast Network, your team every day for Colby Patnode. I'm Tadangis. Be sure to give us a follow on Twitter at L0 underscore Mariners. You can also find us on Blue Sky at TDG, Colby at MLB Colby and the show at Lockdown

Mariners. You can also find us on Instagram and TikTok at Lockdown Mariner's. Have yourself a beautiful baseball day and we'll see you next time. Peace.