One day after his unfiltered takedown of the team’s 2024-25 offseason moves, a wave of reaction from current Seattle Mariners players is coming into view, and it’s not painting a rosy picture for the organization.
Now on a one-year, $6 million deal with the Chicago Cubs, the 40-year-old Turner unleashed his frustrations in an interview with Bob Nightengale of USA Today, and his comments quickly went viral on Wednesday.
That statement hits hard—especially considering the Mariners did indeed fall just one game short of the 2024 playoffs, boast an elite pitching staff, yet have an underwhelming offense. Their response? Barely scraping together an eight-figure sum in free agent spending over the winter.
Initial reactions from Mariners players, as relayed by Nightengale, were noticeably deferential. Bryce Miller summed it up best: “[At] the end of the day, the guys who are in the locker room—that’s who we’re riding with. We believe in who we have.”
We won’t repeat every detail of his words, but one quote in particular cuts deep:
“The fact that they missed the playoffs by one game and didn’t go out and add an impact bat or two when you have the best pitching staff in baseball just seems absurd to me.”
But the story doesn’t end there. Ryan Divish of the Seattle Times later reported, under anonymity, that several Mariners players have voiced their true feelings about Turner’s assessment. One player emphatically replied, “Not one bit,” when asked if he thought Turner was wrong. Another simply remarked, “Isn’t it every year?” And yet another declared, “I would think any intellectual baseball fan who’s been following this team would see what’s been happening. It’s pretty obvious.”
These candid comments underscore a growing sense of frustration among those on the inside. Despite the club’s improved financial muscle—Seattle’s Opening Day payroll has climbed from 25th in MLB in 2021 to 17th in 2024—stagnation appears to have set in, with Spotrac projecting the Mariners will again rank 17th in Opening Day payroll this season.
Yet, amid all the criticism, there’s a silver lining: the Mariners still project to have a good season. FanGraphs has them slated for 84 wins, keeping them within striking distance of what would be their fifth consecutive season of at least 85 wins. For fans, this marks the best era the team has seen since the early 2000s.
What makes Turner’s pointed remarks even more infuriating is that, given the franchise’s ample resources—whether measured in revenue ($396 million in 2023, according to Forbes) or trade assets, including a roster full of talented starters and MLB’s top farm system—a more ambitious offseason should have been on the horizon. In an ideal scenario, these assets would have been deployed to craft a championship-caliber roster for 2025. Instead, it seems like owner John Stanton and president of baseball operations Jerry Dipoto missed a prime opportunity to fulfill what should be their duty to both the franchise and its passionate fanbase.
So now the pressing question remains for both Mariners fans and players alike: If not now, then when?
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