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The Mariners have a Bill Simmons problem
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The Mariners have a Bill Simmons problem

Originally posted on Lindy's Sports  |  By Niall Ridgley  |  Last updated Aug 18, 2026 9:05 AM ET
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If you had been living under a rock for the last year and I were to tell you that Bill Simmons has been tweeting about the Mariners every night, and that they’ve been a topic on the number one sports podcast, Pardon My Take (famously a national sports podcast iykyk), what would you think was going on?

You would assume that the Seattle Mariners have shaken the monkey off their back and finally made the World Series.

Unfortunately, that is not the world we live in. At least not yet — cue bizarro-Niall, a delusionally positive Mariners fan who only comes out at night, if the Mariners are up 7, and if Cal Raleigh has hit a home run — as the Mariners currently sit 4 games back in the AL West after once again teaching the Houston Astros who is boss (the Mariners are 9-2 against Houston this season).

So what gives? Why the attention from the national media? Well, dag-gummit, I’m about to tell you, as well as how the Mariners should handle said attention during this it-can’t-be-overstated-how-critical stretch.

Mariners must ignore Kade Anderson buzz

*At least for right now. Easy, Kade fans, I said for right now, this season! Don’t hurt me, I didn’t force you to draft an AA pitcher in your fantasy baseball league!

So, The Ringer‘s Bill Simmons is obsessing over the Mariners because he did exactly that: he drafted Mariners phenom (and possibly the hottest young pitching talent in the minors with a 20+ inning scoreless streak currently cooking) LHP Kade Anderson in his fantasy baseball league.

As a result, Bill is desperate for the Mariners to bring Kade up to give his fantasy team some extra oomph as the season closes out.

Now, the actual Seattle Mariners — who, for the record, are literally fighting for their playoff lives in the real MLB — might not want to do that, given that doing so would disrupt a recently changed and currently stabilizing pitching rotation that management hopes will lift the team to a miracle recovery of the division lead down the stretch (read my full analysis of the Mariners trade deadline pitching moves for more details).

I present the evidence (in chronological order, of course, I’m no amateur):

So, yeah… you don’t have to be a subtext doctor to figure out that ol’ Bill’s primary concern might not be the Mariners success this season.

Takeaway: The Mariners should tune out the media’s pressure on Kade Anderson (and fellow AA star, RHP Ryan Sloan) and focus on winning out with the playoff-making pitching staff we purposefully curated and currently have. Not doing so would signal that the ‘Ners are giving up on this year, and I’m (probably foolishly) not ready for that just yet.

National media focusing on Mariners for wrong reasons

*Even though some of those reasons are admittedly technically correct. I know, I’m leaning heavily on the asterisks today. I’ll seek help.

I’m referencing the Mariners latest mention on Monday’s Pardon My Take episode. Now, at this point last year, Cal Raleigh, amidst his 60-run home run season, was getting the star treatment as a headlining guest on a PMT, complete with a visit to their new Chicago HQ.

This time around — and, I’ll mention, with the Mariners having not been mentioned since their epic flameout in Game 7 of the ALCS last year — the 2026 Mariners were being looked at in a different light. Perhaps fairly so.

“The Seattle Mariners are 58-66. They’re 58-66. That’s a bad baseball team. [And] they’re 3 games out of the wildcard. That’s, that’s – just how ridiculous is that,” host Dan ‘Big Cat’ Katz remarked while talking about how (comparatively) bad American League records have been this year.

You’re not wrong, Dan. But I’ll take being the best of the bad baseball teams in the bad baseball league, if it means the Mariners making the playoffs.

Then all the bad teams can roll the dice against the other bad teams from the bad league until they play the last team standing from the good league to make sure the big guys don’t lock out the good league next year because the bad team had too many good players.

Are you ok after reading that? I’m not after typing it, but I digress. Boo Dodgers.

Point is, if the Mariners continue to tune out the noise, they will give themselves the best chance for the playoffs. All the rest can wait.

This article first appeared on Lindy's Sports and was syndicated with permission.

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