Is Eugenio Suarez the Final Piece for Mariners’ AL West Push?
The Mariners needed a strong deadline to compete for a division crown. Eugenio Suarez could be the missing piece that helps them get there.
A wild 2025 MLB trade deadline is now in the past and several offensive-minded position players found themselves new homes last week. A couple of the bigger names in that group ended up on the west coast with the Seattle Mariners.
Last year, the Seattle offense struggled, to put it lightly. Just four players who played over 100 games on the season had a wRC+ over 100 (considered an average hitter) with Luke Raley leading the way at 137. That helped lead to a 4.17 runs per game average, good for finished 20th in the league.
That’s a big part of why their 2024 season ended in disappointment. The Mariners would finish second in the division by just 3.5 games while missing out on a Wild Card spot by just a single game.
Mariners bats have been much louder in 2025, though. On top of their increased run production, their batters are tied for fifth in MLB with a combined 110 wRC+. They’re of course led by the incredible exploits of catcher Cal Raleigh (163 wRC+).
As one of a group of many buyers at this year’s deadline, the Mariners could’ve decided to raise the floor of the pitching staff or further lean into the strength of the offense. They opted with the latter.
Seattle executed one of the first big trades of deadline season when they acquired first baseman Josh Naylor from the Diamondbacks. He made an immediate impact, tallying hits in his first four games with his new club.
The trade for Naylor was a move that made sense. The first base position has been volatile for the Mariners this year and the team is a middle-of-the-road 18th in MLB with a 100 wRC+ at the position in 2025.
Seattle didn’t have many more weak spots to address on the offensive side of things after that. But there was one, and it was all the way on the opposite side of the diamond over at third base, which was the home position of the top trade option on the market.
So the night before the deadline, the Mariners doubled down and brought in the best player available in Eugenio Suarez. With that bat in tow, it gave Seattle the chance to reach even bigger heights than just a Wild Card berth.
Is Eugenio Suarez the Last Piece the Mariners Needed to Make a Run at the AL West?
For teams who didn’t sell the farm at the deadline, they have now shifted focus to their playoff pushes. Division battles will be settled over the next couple months with one of the more competitive races happening in the AL West.
The Houston Astros (63-50), winners of the division for seven of the last eight seasons, are once again leading the way. But they are far from guaranteed another AL West crown.
Right on their tail are the Seattle Mariners (60-53), who are only three games behind them and also owners of the third AL Wild Card spot. They have their own shadow in the Texas Rangers (59-55), who are just 1.5 games further back.
All three teams have had the benefit of a solid pitching staff in 2025. The entire trio ranks in the top half of MLB in team ERA with the Mariners above average (3.84, 11th), the Astros very good (3.70, 7th), and the Rangers the very best (3.27, 1st).
The story is different on the offensive side, however. In terms of straight run production, i.e. runs per game, the Astros (4.30, 18th) and the Rangers (4.15, 24th) are among the bottom half of the league.
Meanwhile, the Mariners have had more fortune this year. Their 4.52 runs per game are tops in the division, fifth in the American League, and 11th in MLB. And it’s hard to imagine those numbers not going up with their new slugging duo.
Upon making their improvements on offense, Seattle stormed out of the deadline set to prove that they could finish the job. They hosted their division rival Rangers for a four-game series and took three of the games, punctuated by Julio Rodriguez’s 100th career homer and fourth 20-20 season to start his career.
As the Mariners dispatched of the Rangers, the Astros let Seattle creep up even closer. They fell flat in their games after the deadline, getting swept in a three-game road series by the Red Sox.
That’s a good start, but the Astros and Rangers won’t give up without a fight. They made their own improvements at the deadline, Houston reuniting with Carlos Correa and also trading for position players Jesus Sanchez and Ramon Urias while the Rangers brought in pitchers Merrill Kelly, Phil Maton, and Danny Coulombe.
But if the division was ever there for the taking, it’s right now. The Mariners have a shot to be the new kings of the AL West and it could be Suarez who’s the final piece that gets them there.
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Matt Carroll is a writer for Just Baseball and former site expert at Reviewing the Brew. He studied journalism at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and currently…