Here’s why manager Scott Servais is so excited about the Mariners’ new-look lineup

SEATTLE – The words Scott Servais has been using lately tell only part of the story.

It’s the inflection in his voice, and the frequency with which he talks about it, that fully give away how he feels about the potential of this overhauled Seattle Mariners lineup.

Folks, he’s excited.

“I just love our approach right now,” the Mariners manager said after his offense exploded for 12 runs in a recent Cactus League romp of the Colorado Rockies.

That wasn’t a one-off performance, either. With full-time players getting more at-bats later in the spring, the offense broke through for 56 runs over a seven-game stretch, emerging as the hottest-hitting team in the majors.

Let that sink in: the Seattle Mariners as the hottest-hitting team in baseball.

Sure, sure, it’s only spring training. Doesn’t count.

But you can’t say it doesn’t matter. It matters to Servais, who hasn’t been afraid to share his enthusiasm about how well a new lineup and a new strategy began to gel in the buildup to opening day.

“We have a good lineup. It’s very balanced, and you’re hoping for a more consistent offense by the way we built our team,” Servais said, adding, “I’ve said it from the day I got here (at spring training): I liked our team. It was crazy how it all came together.”

Give him a drop of truth serum, and Servais will tell you he wasn’t so sure it would all come together like this during the circuitous offseason the Mariners (and their fans) endured.

By the time Servais and the Mariners front-office executives left MLB’s winter meetings in Nashville, Tennessee, on Dec. 6, they had three holes – three massive holes – in the heart of their lineup, and no obvious answers to fill them.

Up to that point, the club’s priority had been to shed payroll. That’s because the front office had been hit with a harsh reality in mid-October, when it became clear that uncertainty surrounding the future of the Mariners’ regional sports network, Root Sports, would loom ominously over the franchise, squeezing budgets and freezing spending.

For the Mariners’ 2024 plans, that meant that player payroll would not be increasing much, if at all, from the roughly $140 million with which the team closed out the 2023 season.

If the front office wanted to add any pieces to the roster, it would first have to subtract salary. And that’s exactly what happened.

On Nov. 22, the Mariners traded away popular third baseman Eugenio Suarez (and his $11 million salary for 2023) to Arizona for two nominal parts. On Dec. 3, on the first night of the winter meetings, the Mariners traded away former top prospect Jarred Kelenic to Atlanta, which took on the contracts of Marco Gonzales ($12 million in remaining salary) and Evan White ($15 million) in the deal.

“We did what we needed to do to create the framework from which to build the team we envisioned,” president of baseball operations Jerry Dipoto said at the winter meetings.

A year earlier, during the 2022-23 offseason, the Mariners had roughly the same amount (some $20 million) to use on roster upgrades, and they used about two-thirds of that on Teoscar Hernandez’s salary ($14 million) after trading with Toronto for the slugging right fielder. From there, the Mariners could really only afford to add on the margins, and that’s largely what happened with the additions of Kolten Wong, AJ Pollock and Tommy La Stella.

None of those four worked out as the Mariners had hoped.

Hernandez had a couple of hot stretches last summer, but he wasn’t the consistent middle-of-the-order presence the Mariners expected him to be (and he became the first player in MLB history to swing-and-miss 500 times in a season). Wong, Pollock and La Stella were all busts.

Comparing those four additions to the four main additions the Mariners were able to make this offseason – signing Mitch Garver and trading for Mitch Haniger, Jorge Polanco and Luke Raley – and it’s a different feeling with opening day approaching, as Servais will happily tell you.

“We’re built differently this year, and you’re going to see it play out as the season goes on,” Servais said.

The trade for Polanco, a 30-year-old switch hitter who’d spent his entire career in Minnesota, was the finishing touch in late January. Negotiations for that trade had been hot and then cold for weeks, and Servais has acknowledged he was losing hope that the deal would get done.

When it finally did, on Jan. 29, Servais felt like he had a complete lineup.

The Mariners, by design, believe they will cut down on their strikeouts – dramatically so, they hope – after setting a franchise record in 2023, when they struck out on 25.9% of plate appearances. Under new offensive coordinator Brant Brown, the Mariners have a new two-strike approach, and Servais is confident that will lead to more consistent contact and more opportunities to create scoring rallies.

“The vibe around our team – I’ve said it all spring – it’s different,” Servais said. “This is a different group.”

Mariners’ veteran hitters have described this as the best lineup they’ve had with the club leaving spring training.

“We’re way deeper than we used to be,” Servais said. “Now we just have different movable pieces, guys (who) can do different things, play different positions, so I like what we’re trying offensively.”

And their added depth means Servais can nudge first baseman Ty France – the Mariners’ No. 2 or No. 3 hitter for much of the past two seasons – down to the No. 8 spot to open the season, sandwiched between young outfielder Dominic Canzone and third baseman Josh Rojas.

“There’s guys at the bottom of the lineup that are going to win a lot of games for us,” Servais said.

Yes, they have to produce once the regular season starts, once it starts to matter. And, yes, they have to stay healthy, which is the one real concern from the veteran group of newcomers in Garver (87 games), Haniger (61) and Polanco (80), who each played about a half-season in 2023 because of various ailments.

But by all accounts, the new additions have fit with the Mariners’ new offensive approach and, just as notable with where the organization stands, they fit into the budget, too.