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The Mariners and Mitch Garver have agreed to a two-year, $24MM contract, according to ESPN’s Jeff Passan (via X). The deal will become official when Garver passes a physical. Garver is represented by ISE Baseball.
While Cal Raleigh is still Seattle’s top backstop, Garver gives the Mariners a prominent bat who can act as both a backup catcher and a regular presence at designated hitter. This was the role Garver filled with aplomb for the Rangers last season, as he hit .270/.370/.500 with 19 homers over 344 plate appearances while mostly acting as a DH to allow All-Star Jonah Heim regular time behind the plate. Garver was then the exclusive first-choice DH for the Rangers’ postseason run, as he hit .226/.317/.434 with three homers over 60 PA to help Texas capture its first World Series title.
It wasn’t an entirely perfect platform season for Garver, however, as he missed close to two full months early in the season due to a left knee sprain. This continued a pattern of injuries that has plagued Garver throughout his career, as he has played in only 232 of a possible 546 games since the start of the 2020 season. These health issues (ranging from forearm surgery, an intercostal strain, and knee, groin, and back problems) have contributed to Garver’s increasingly limited usage at catcher, as the move to a DH role should help him stay on the field with a bit more regularity.
This led to something of a tricky entry into free agency for Garver, as while he was technically the top catcher on the market, it would’ve been risky for a team to rely on him for anything more than a timeshare at the position. As MLBTR’s Nick Deeds suggested back in October, Garver’s ideal landing spot might be “a team with another reliable catching option, so Garver could have a clear path to DH playing time and face less pressure to regularly suit up behind the plate.”
The Mariners fit the bill perfectly, with Raleigh establishing himself as the No. 1 catcher and a big power source over the last two seasons. The switch-hitting Raleigh has much better numbers against right-handers than against left-handers, which dovetails nicely with the right-handed hitting Garver’s ability to mash left-handed pitching.
Tom Murphy signed with the Giants last week, though the M’s seemingly prepared for that departure by acquiring catcher Seby Zavala as part of the Eugenio Suarez trade with the Diamondbacks. If Garver is going to primarily be a DH, the Mariners might still have room for Zavala on the roster to act as more of a traditional backup catcher. This could avoid some roster maneuverings since Zavala is out of minor league options, so the Mariners would have to designate him for assignment and expose him to the waiver wire if they wanted to send him to the minor leagues.
Seattle was known to be looking for a power bat for its DH spot, and a right-handed hitter in particular to help balance out the lineup. Such names as Jorge Soler, J.D. Martinez, and Rhys Hoskins were reportedly on the Mariners’ radar, but Garver will now join the roster on a two-year pact. It’s a little less than the three-year, $39MM that MLBTR projected for Garver, though it’s still a nice payday for a player teams might’ve seen as more of a pure DH than as a regular backstop.
Adding a big bat at any price also helps change the narrative of what has been a distressing offseason for Mariners fans. The Mariners are set to assume total ownership of the ROOT Sports Northwest regional sports network on January 1, and the related additional costs have reportedly limited the team’s ability to spend on player payroll. President of baseball operations Jerry Dipoto said in early December that the Mariners’ payroll would rise from its estimated $140MM figure from 2023, yet most of the club’s moves prior to the Garver signing were designed to cut costs. Suarez’s trade removed one big salary from the books, and Seattle then got rid of a lot more money in the five-player trade with the Braves that saw Jarred Kelenic dealt essentially as a manner of unloading the contracts of Marco Gonzales and Evan White.
As per Roster Resource, the Mariners’ projected 2024 payroll now sits at around $128.5MM with Garver’s salary added. With the $140MM number from 2023 in mind, this still gives the M’s some flexibility to pursue further needs, like an outfielder or infield help. Dipoto has downplayed the idea of trading from the team’s young pitching depth, yet that might be a more cost-effective way of obtaining position-player help than by signing another free agent.
Signing Garver already represents a departure for Dipoto in one sense, as he doesn’t often make notable splashes in free agency. Remarkably, Garver is only the first position-player free agent (and only the fourth free agent whatsoever) Dipoto has signed to a multi-year contract during his eight years running Seattle’s front office. This might imply that Garver could be it for the Mariners this winter as far as relatively notable free agent signings go, or perhaps Dipoto will change tactics and look at other free agents in order to further bolster the lineup.
Photo courtesy of USA Today Sports Images
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