SEATTLE — The Seattle Mariners will have one month to watch the playoffs before being able to officially start the offseason after missing out on the postseason for 22nd time in 23 years.

The Mariners will have a lot of options to try and improve the team. They’ve been tied to big name free agents like Pete Alonso and with other potential difference makers like Alex Bregman, Tyler O’Neil, Juan Soto and Anthony Santander available, there’s a lot of different avenues for Seattle to pursue. And that’s not even considering possible trade targets.

Of course, all of this depends on what Seattle President of Baseball Operations Jerry Dipoto is permitted to do via payroll restrictions.

The Mariners ranked 16th in the league this season in payroll and there’s been some speculation that the team could still be looking to salary dump this offseason with Randy Arozarena set for a third arbitration and Cal Raleigh and Logan Gilbert due for raises as well.

There’s also various kinds of options for players like Jorge Polanco and Mitch Haniger to sort out and several decisions to be made whether to non-tender players like Josh Rojas, Luis Urias and Sam Haggerty.

Seattle is unlikely to be big-money spenders in the offseason. But according to comments by Dipoto on Saturday, they might have more to spend than initially thought.

“The only thing I do know going into the (offseason) is how (payroll) is going to play out for us,” Dipoto said before the Mariners game against the Oakland on Saturday. “And it’s not going to be nearly the concern that it was this past year.”

Dipoto also mentioned that the budget for in-house spending would also increase with Julio Rodriguez’s salary jumping to $18 million next year and players like Raleigh and Arozarena just two of several players likely due for big raises with arbitration.

“That’s going to jump payroll quite a bit anyway,” Dipoto said. “But it won’t be the only rise that we see in payroll. I can’t give you an exact number; I don’t know what that is. I can tell you we’re not going the other way.”

According to Dipoto, it seems like the Seattle won’t be nearly as hard-strung for cash as it has been in previous years.

Or, at least it did. Until an article was released by the Seattle Times on Monday.

According to the a joint article from the Times’ Ryan Divish and Adam Jude, team owner Jerry Stanton doesn’t seem too interested in the big-name free agents according to an interview he gave in June:

“We’ve got the resources to be able to do the things we need to do to put a good team on the field. We’ve never been focused on free-agent bats, [those] kind of big-dollar free-agent bats as a matter of strategy, not because of anything having to do with resources.”

The article had an interesting excerpt mentioning the team feeling the “scars” of the Robinson Cano 11 years after signing him. But it’s interesting to wonder what those scars actually are.

Cano had an OPS of .826 in his five years with the Mariners, was an All-Star selection in three of those years and finished top 10 in MVP voting twice and was a big reason the team was able to sign Nelson Cruz.

When Cano was eventually traded, Seattle was able to get off the hook for most of his salary. Aside from an 80-game suspension for violating the MLB’s performance-enhancing policy in 2018, Cano performed up to his 10-year, $240 million deal. The only thing that he didn’t accomplish during his time with the Mariners was making the playoffs, which could hardly be blamed on him.

And if Cano is really being used as the benchmark as to why the Mariners are refusing to spend, then the organization is failing to realize the apples to oranges situation.

Seattle was over a decade deep into a playoff drought at the time of signing Cano and saw an opportunity to add one of the biggest bats in the league at the time to the team.

Flash forward to now, the Mariners are coming off their fourth consecutive winning season with just one playoff appearance to show for it. And they likely have one more year with this current core of players before needing to consider either shelling out big money to Raleigh, Gilbert, George Kirby and others, or seriously re-tooling in the trade market and free agency.

Seattle doesn’t need Soto to be a playoff team. He would help the team exponentially, but the Mariners don’t need to add him.

But players like Alonso and Bregman seemingly off the table — who would be instant upgrades at first and third base, respectively, (two positions of need) — makes it a curious thought as to what the payroll increase could actually be used for.

But those are questions Seattle fans will likely get the answers to in the offseason.

FORMER MARINERS RELIEVER HELPS LEAD METS TO HE PLAYOFFS: Former Seattle Mariners pitcher and current New York Mets hurler Edwin Diaz played a major roll in sending his current squad to the postseason on Monday. CLICK HERE

MARINERS CATCHER MAKES MLB HISTORY: Seattle Mariners catcher Cal Raleigh broke a franchise and an MLB record during the team’s season finale against the Oakland Athletics on Sunday. CLICK HERE

MARINERS, ATHLETICS LEGEND THROWS OUT FIRST PITCH: Baseball Hall of Famer and the MLB’s all-time stolen bases leader, Rickey Henderson, added a nice bow on the rivalry between the Seattle Mariners and Oakland Athletics on Sunday. CLICK HERE

Continue to follow our Inside the Mariners coverage on social media by liking us on Facebook and by following Teren Kowatsch and Brady Farkas on “X” @Teren_Kowatsch and @wdevradiobrady

The Seattle Seahawks’ second-half comeback fell short in a 42-29 loss to the Detroit Lions on Monday night, handing the team its first loss of the Mike Macdonald era.

Seattle outscored Detroit 22-21 in the final two quarters, but that margin was far from enough to win the game when entering the halftime break trailing by 14.

“Yeah, I mean, just not a good enough performance on our front,” Seahawks head coach Mike Macdonald said postgame. “Got to give Detroit a lot of credit. I thought they had a great plan offensively … they just outplayed us on the defensive side of the ball for us. I will tell you this, our guys fought the heck out of that game. They went down to the last second and that’s what I’m most proud of right now and we’re going to hold onto that and that’s a foundation that we’ve built here that we’re going to push forward with.”

The first half was defined by Seahawks wide receiver DK Metcalf’s fumble that ended a promising 5-play, 33-yard drive that — after the return — allowed Detroit to begin their next possession at Seattle’s 14-yard line with a 7-0 lead. If Seattle manufactured points on that drive, they may have been able to continue trading blows with the Lions early on.

Instead, Detroit increased its lead to 14 points on a 3-yard touchdown rush from running back Jahmyr Gibbs. Down four defensive starters to begin the game, the Seahawks were well behind where they hoped to be after the first quarter.

The Lions churned out yards on the ground in the meantime, totaling 88 rushing yards between Gibbs and David Montgomery in the first half. The pair also accounted for all three of Detroit’s first-half touchdowns against Seattle’s decimated defensive front. That made it easy for quarterback Jared Goff, who finished 12-of-12 passing for 92 yards through 30 minutes of play.

Goff finished 18-of-18 passing for 292 yards and two touchdowns — the most pass attempts by a quarterback without an incompletion in NFL history. Seattle’s back end could not stop the Lions while ailing on the front end. It was really that simple.

As the third quarter clock began rolling, the flood gates opened. Seattle lost its fifth starter to injury in safety Julian Love (thigh), but Detroit and Seattle traded touchdowns on five consecutive drives.

Even though Seattle felt held at arm’s length, its offense continued to make up for the struggling defense’s woes. Walker scored two of his three rushing touchdowns in the second half, and rookie tight end AJ Barner caught another from Smith.

The Lions got two third-quarter touchdowns via a “Detroit Special” — a goal line touchdown pass from wide receiver Amon-Ra St. Brown to Goff — and a 70-yard touchdown catch by Jameson Williams on a one-play drive.

Seattle forced just its third punt of the game with 1:59 remaining, trailing by eight. What would have been a fourth-down conversion at Detroit’s 31-yard line via a 8-yard catch from Seahawks wide receiver Jaxon Smith-Njigba was negated by a offensive pass interference committed by Tyler Lockett — forcing the Seahawks to punt on a drive that could have tied the game.

Following another 7-play, 80-yard touchdown drive, not even an eventual safety mattered for Seattle’s effort. An interception in the end zone by Smith with 1:06 remaining sealed the deal.

“I wouldn’t say it’s a litmus test, it just shows us we’re not the team that we need to be at this point,” Macdonald added. “I mean, that’s just – that’s what it is. Just wasn’t good enough. They did what they did to win the game, they did a great job, they had a great plan, and we came up short.”

Seattle’s poor defense allowed Goff to set an NFL record for pass attempts without an incompletion versus Macdonald’s unit. Backups or not, that’s unacceptable. That ultimately must fall on the coaching staff, or else it wouldn’t be a record. The Seahawks are far from the first team to be that limited from injuries.

Is that an indictment on Macdonald? Of course not. He has engineered one of the best defenses through three weeks. But he needs to go back to the drawing board in a backup situation. The team had much of the week to prepare for the starters’ absences, and that was abysmal.

“They operate at a high level,” Macdonald said. “I mean, they had a really good plan. We’re on record that Jared’s a great quarterback – played clean, they ran crisp routes, and we obviously didn’t deny the ball. That’s about as obvious as it gets

In a losing effort, Smith set career-highs in attempts (56), completions (38) and passing yards (395). He was the Seahawks’ engine, and it wasn’t enough. It’s hard to constantly play from one-to-two scores down, but Smith did his best to keep the Seahawks in the game.

“We’re [3-1], that’s what it says, and now we’ve got to get on to the next one,” Smith said. “That’s just football, that’s NFL football. I think the only team that went undefeated was the [1972] Dolphins, so we’re just trying to go out there and win every game we can. Today we didn’t get it done, but that’s why we’ve got next week.”

His lone interception came with the game on the line — constantly furthering drives despite the pressure around him. It doesn’t take much more than the eye test to see Smith’s effectiveness in this game. He is what makes Seattle’s offense functional. Put any other quarterback in that system, and a different (possibly even worse) result is likely.

Smith is Seattle’s best player. He avoids negative offensive plays and creates gains when losses should be a foregone conclusion. Smith continues to be the best quarterback the Seahawks could have in 2024 — evading pressure, extending plays and creating positive plays — when the league has seen a downturn in quarterback proficiency. There is nobody better suited for the job.

Seattle was without four defensive starters to begin the game (five key contributors with Byron Murphy II also out), and it lost Love in the second half.

The Seahawks allowed touchdowns on five of Detroit’s 11 drives, making it far too easy for the Lions to pile up points. No matter what the offense did, it couldn’t keep up. The defense only forced punts three times — one of which was the first drive of the game.

Gibbs, in particular, had his way with Seattle on the ground, rushing 14 times for 78 yards and two touchdowns (5.6 yards per carry). He consistently had massive holes to run through between the tackles with the interior of the Seahawks’ defensive line at a disadvantage. There was little they could do to slow the rushing attack.

Seattle was completely lost on the “Detroit Special” that saw Goff catch the first touchdown pass of his career. That’s not entirely on the backup unit, but it was emblematic of the night.

This game displayed why the Seahawks have struggled to win the past two seasons despite a decent offense. When the defense can’t get critical stops, it’s tough for the offense to keep pace even with the weapons it possesses.

Macdonald, obviously, was brought in to fix that. His largely-backup unit didn’t do the job on Monday, and it led to a 13-point loss on the road. The defense has been a bright spot for the Seahawks through three weeks, and it’s understandable that they would take a step back with all the injuries.

However, if Seattle wants to be a Super Bowl contender (like the Lions), they must be firing on all cylinders. That wasn’t the case on Monday night.

Seattle (3-1) faces the New York Giants (1-3) on Sunday, Oct. 6 at Lumen Field. Kickoff is at 1:25 p.m. Pt. New York is coming off a 20-15 loss to the Dallas Cowboys.

The Seattle Mariners, along with 27 other teams, ended the 2024 regular season on Sunday. But there were two teams that still needed to wrap up their 162 games. And there were some playoff implications on the line.

Due to inclement weather on scheduled Sept. 25 and Sept. 26, the Atlanta Braves and New York Mets were scheduled to make up that game and another postponed contest from April 10 in a doubleheader on Monday at Truist Park in Atlanta.

If one team swept the doubleheader, then that winning team and the Arizona Diamondbacks would be the final two National League Wild Card teams. If the Mets and Braves split the doubleheader, then both would be in the postseason as the final two Wild Cards.

New York punched its ticket to October with an 8-7 win in Game 1 of the twinbill. And former Seattle reliever Edwin Diaz played a major roll in the win.

Diaz, who played with the Mariners from 2016-2018 and was named an All Star and American League Reliever of the Year in 2018, pitched the final 1.2 innings of Game 1.

When Diaz entered the game, the Mets led 6-3. He let up two hits that gave the Braves four runs and a 7-6 lead, but was only dinged for two earned runs due to runners being on base when he entered.

Diaz ended up earning the win after New York shortstop Francisco Lindor hit a go-ahead two-run home run in the top of the ninth that ended in teh eventual final of 8-7. Diaz ended up earning the win due to Lindor’s home run.

It wasn’t the best outing for Diaz, but he entered the game in a jam and prevented Atlanta from taking too big of a lead.

Diaz will likely get a chance to redeem himself in the playoffs.

MARINERS CATCHER MAKES MLB HISTORY: Seattle Mariners catcher Cal Raleigh broke a franchise and an MLB record during the team’s season finale against the Oakland Athletics on Sunday. CLICK HERE

MARINERS, ATHLETICS LEGEND THROWS OUT FIRST PITCH: Baseball Hall of Famer and the MLB’s all-time stolen bases leader, Rickey Henderson, added a nice bow on the rivalry between the Seattle Mariners and Oakland Athletics on Sunday. CLICK HERE

MARINERS SHORTSTOP MAKES FRANCHISE HISTORY: Despite missing over a month with injury, Seattle Mariners shortstop JP Crawford posted one of the best defensive seasons by a shortstop in franchise history. CLICK HERE

Continue to follow our Inside the Mariners coverage on social media by liking us on Facebook and by following Teren Kowatsch and Brady Farkas on “X” @Teren_Kowatsch and @wdevradiobrady