Wednesday was a breaking point for Seattle Mariners fans. Or maybe, it was the continuation of a breaking point that just keeps getting extended.
See, on Wednesday, the Mariners traded away popular third baseman Eugenio Suarez. In doing so, they got rid of a great clubhouse figure, a guy who can hit 30 homers a season and one who can play excellent defense.
Sure, Suarez is an imperfect player but at $11 million a year, he's still a relative value at the position. What did the Mariners get for him? A backup catcher and a non-prospect reliever.
It certainly seems like this was a salary dump to fans, all so the team can let Luis Urias, who hit under .200 last year between Milwaukee and Boston, play third base. For a team that is constant need of offense, how do they justify getting rid of a guy like Suarez and replacing him with this haul?
But see, this isn't just about Suarez, this is about the continuing distrust between the Mariners and their fanbase, and the continuingly growing divide between the two.
1) The Mariners are the only franchise that has never made the World Series. Forget winning it, they are the only team that has never even made it. After nearly 50 years in existence, fans are tired of waiting. They want the ownership group to provide a winner. Salary dumping a player of that caliber doesn't show that.
2) It's aided by the fact that in 2023, coming off a season in which the M's went to the playoffs, ownership greenlit essentially no spending for the major league roster. While the Texas Rangers went out and bought everybody (and got a World Series), the Mariners spent on Tommy La Stella and AJ Pollock in the offseason, two players that didn't even finish the season with the team. The Mariners missed the playoffs by 1.0 game.
3) Then, after the season, President of Baseball Operations Jerry Dipoto insulted the fanbase by saying that the organization was doing the fanbase a favor by not foolheaertedly spending and being aggressive. No, the fanbase would like to win, so they'd like you to aggressively try to do it.
4) A report recently surfaced that the Mariners are not really a player for Shohei Ohtani in free agency. Whether he wants to play there or not is one thing, but to apparently not even try? That's also insulting to the fanbase, especially considering that Ohtani has said he likes Seattle, and that is idol, Ichiro, is a pillar of the organization.
Add it all up, and you get angry comments like this, from every corner of Mariners social media:
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