Much like we advocated for a few weeks ago, the Seattle Mariners have signed former Houston Astros' reliever Ryne Stanek. It's a one-year deal, per Ryan Divish of the Seattle Times.
Sources confirm the Ryne Stanek agreement. Hard-throwing right-handed reliever will be in Peoria tomorrow to take a physical and sign his contract.
The 32-year-old righty is a seven-year veteran who has played for the Tampa Bay Rays, Miami Marlins and Astros. He's been an integral part of the Astros' bullpen since arriving in 2021. He helped the Astros win the World Series in 2022 and has made more than 55 appearances in each of the last three seasons. His ERAs over the last three years are 3.24, 1.15 and 4.09, respectively.
There's a few different ways of looking at this move:
1) The Mariners are being proactive about adding to their team. For a team that has been skewered for lack of spending this offseason, any investment at the major league level is a welcome one. The Mariners got better today, especially if they can end up utilizing Stanek as a sixth or seventh inning option, as opposed to an eighth or ninth inning one.
2) It does give you a little pause about the health of relievers Matt Brash and Gregory Santos. The whole reason we advocated for signing Stanek was because of the fear of a serious injury to Brash. Jerry Dipoto recently said that Santos and Brash will likely miss the first few weeks of the season, but he said he expects them in April. Does this signing mean something is worse than we thought?
3) The M's have been notoriously good as finding diamond in the rough relievers. Paul Sewald, Drew Steckenrider, Justin Topa, the list goes on. Does this signing mean they haven't found someone yet this year that can fill that role?
The M's open the season on March 28 against the Boston Red Sox.
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