Terrace Club Blues

Tag: seattle-mariners

  • The Best Unis in Baseball

    The Best Unis in Baseball

    I wish the record was looking a little bit better for my first (of what I hope to be many) pinch hit AB of the year, but I am thrilled to be back!

    The play on the field hasn’t been great this year (though it sure is wild how good back-to-back can make you feel) so I’m gonna take this (6-9, nice) moment to share a take that is truly in the spirit of this blog — something that is not all negative. In fact, its mostly positive! And when I saw a slew of new City Connect uniforms get officially unveiled this week, I knew it was time that someone said it. 

    The Mariners have the best uniform set in baseball. 

    A TLDR for people who are here strictly to read about baseball

    – Northwest green is the best color in sports

    – Navy blue is the best neutral uniform color

    – The Steelheads uniforms are the cleanest of any throwback in the league.

    – The only reasonable argument against the Ms uniform set is that the current City Connects are atrocious. 

    I know that “best in baseball” is a big statement! I will hear reasonable arguments in favor of the Yankees or Dodgers (but not the Cardinals) for teams who have truly classic uniforms, but I still think the Ms do it best. 

    On Northwest Green

    The northwest green jersey is the best uniform top in all of sports. It’s a perfect color that represents its team and its place as well as any you can think of. 

    It’s timeless in a way that most things started in the 90s are not. The northwest green top debuted in 1993 – a time when people didn’t know a lot about Seattle. But as soon as Junior and the M’s put that uniform on, they were the shit. As Jon Bois put it:

    “The Mariners were the coolest team in baseball. In a time when domes were still cool they played in the King Dome, which sat in the shadow of the Cascades and in the middle of a mysterious distant city whose cultural exports were computer stuff, Nirvana, and the Space Needle… A far away futuristic paradise.”

    Choosing a shade of green leaning-teal was a very 90s choice. But it made sense for the Seattle Mariners – a pop of futuristic green up against the deep blue of the ocean. Something that felt a little out there for everyone else but just right for folks in the Pacific Northwest. 

    Everyone else bailed on their 90s looks. The Dbacks, Marlins, and (Devil)Rays – the teams who I think had the most 90s coded color schemes in the 90s and early 2000s – all bailed in favor of branding that still screams 2008. But, the Mariners always kept northwest green in the mix. And, while the jersey did get shelved for a few years, both good eras of Ms baseball have come with the boys in northwest green. I find it fitting that the drought was ended in this glorious jersey. 

    If you’re Gen X, Z, or a Millennial and you grew up in the PNW you have northwest green in your closet and it looks good whenever you put it on. There aren’t many things that launched in 1993 that you can consider timeless, but the Mariners gave us something that is. When you see that color you think of Seattle and if you watch baseball you can draw a straight line straight from Griffey, Edgar and A-Rod to Julio, JP, and Cal. 

    Navy Blue – Simple is Best

    No waxing poetically on navy blue. I think It’s the best neutral uniform color. Black is overdone in sports (more on that later) and navy is both easy on the eyes and representative of the city. It makes sense given the maritime based team name and the color of the water just a few hundred yards from the stadium.

    Having a loud primary color as your main color puts you at a big disadvantage. Using navy as the primary color lets northwest green shine. “Seattle” in silver looks great against the navy, and while I do miss the road grays, I’m never mad that I get to see the navy tops all of the time.

    An Ode to a Classic

    Baseball has always done a middling job of honoring the Negro leagues and the Black teams and players from that era who were not allowed in the major leagues. I’m thrilled that the Mariners have decided to included the Steelheads uniform as part of their full-time rotation because I think it is a sustained, good faith effort to honor their contribution to baseball in the Pacific Northwest.

    Also, they are absolutely fire. They allow the Ms to tastefully depart from the core color scheme in a way that makes sense (to honor a past team from our region) while really highlighting what made uniforms from that era shine. Bold block lettering, thick piping, off-white–I love them. And I love when a throwback isn’t just for a special occasion. 

    Not Connected 

    Remember, this take is mostly not negative. 

    I think the Mariner’s current City Connect uniforms are trash. 

    Black baseball pants shouldn’t be on a professional baseball field (or on any baseball field if a team wants to look good), and they make absolutely NO sense for the Mariners. 

    First and foremost black isn’t in the color palette for any iteration of the Mariners. I’m not a fan of uniforms outside the color scheme unless it makes sense.  I actually really like the idea behind the City Connect uniforms across sports, and think it has been done well a few times: Boston RedSox green monster jerseys – fantastic, Miami Heat “Miami Vice” uniforms – very fun, Trailblazers PDX carpet jerseys – amazing.

    But if you’re doing it just to do it. I’m not for it. Oregon and Nike started using colors liberally in uniforms during the early 2000s and it has permeated all of sports. When teams started mixing black into their uniforms when it wasn’t part of their color scheme, legendary sports uniform writer Paul Lukas dubbed this “black for blacks sake,” and I think that is exactly what is going on here. Someone at Nike wanted to get black into the M’s City Connects because it’s cool and because they are lazy. It’s ugly and it makes a pretty good jersey look silly. 

    I will note that the official uniform description says that black is included to honor the Seattle Steelheads (who didn’t wear black pants from what I can find). Suuuuuuuure. IF that is truly why black was included in this uniform, then I think it was well intentioned but poorly executed. Now that we are wearing the actual Steelheads uniforms surely we don’t need the black pants anymore. Right?!

    Finally, as my brother (the primary author here at TCB) pointed out, this uniform makes them look like scuba divers–or as he put it–literal mariners… Last time I checked, we don’t want the baseball team looking like they are moving through water, but maybe that is just me. 

    In Summary

    I’d also be remiss to not make any mention of the discontinued Sunday crème uniforms. They were fine. I love a cream colored uni, but I never really understood yellow on cream and I prefer the Steelheads look. 

    Anyway, the Mariners current uniform set is elite. The best in baseball despite having one big miss. I wish they would wear the northwest green top more often (and at home!), and I hope they get new City Connect uniforms next year that don’t suck. Look good, feel good, play good. 

    -DB

  • Small Sample, Large Take

    Small Sample, Large Take

    And Medium Sized Sunday Post (1-2)

    This afternoon I got a text from my dad that read “I have an early Mariner take”. 

    Alright, okay. Here we go!

    My dad, although getting older, (not yet grumpier which I’m grateful for) remains steadfast in his reliability for oracle like hot hitters. Which, mathematically, also come with occasional misses.

    So, when I told him I’d call in a sec to listen in, I wasn’t sure which direction we would land.

    Echos of the World Baseball Classic

    I was hoping to never write about it, and to never hear about it again, but here we are.

    Someone tweeted a few weeks back, sometime before the semi-finals, the real losers of the WBC were the Seattle Mariners. After all, Gabe Speier performed poorly for team USA, Josh Naylor provided sluggish production as captain of team Canada, and Geno Suarez, who we let walk in Free Agency became the eventual centerpiece to Venezuela’s well earned championship.

    But the real Mariners adjacent storyline of the WBC was the Cal & Randy handshake debacle which, as we’re well aware, was plastered all over national media. We’ll never know exactly what went down, how & why— but we do know it was made out to be a massive deal, whether it actually was or not.

    ~

    I gave my dad a ring.

    “Cal doesn’t look right” he said. Not just his timing in the box, but his body language overall.

    “And Randy… might be a problem”.

    Regarding Cal…

    Obviously this early in the season stats do not matter. Cal going 1 for 16 or whatever it may be is not concerning. When it comes to baseball statistics, Cal will be fine. The part I do agree with my dad on is that Cal’s (demeanor, body language, aura, whatever) does not look right. The inside joke in my household right now is that “Cal got the ick about himself” — surely this is slightly embellished, but our eyes do not deceive us.

    Regarding Randy…

    In Saturday’s early season game against the Guardians Arozarena had 2 noticeable teammate “red flags”. One of them came in the 7th inning when a fly ball hung up in the left center gap. Julio and Randy both drifted over into outfielder “grey-zone” and eventually collided as Julio made the catch to secure the out. Our two Latino kings briefly exchanged some words during the interaction and Randy appeared visibly annoyed at the supposed miscommunication. Annoyed at, from what we know, one of his closest friends on the team.

    Later in the game, during the bottom of the 10th inning, Randy was late to post on 2nd base as the assumed ghost runner— resulting in a pitch clock violation on lead-off batter Brenden Donovan, costing a strike before the first pitch was thrown.

    Okay… So What?

    What to make of this— I’m not sure. I hope it’s still a nothing burger. A 10-2 win tonight could be the start of putting it all to bed. Honestly, I think the guys will be fine. But I also resonate with my dad’s instincts a bit.

    If Cal really did tell Randy not to initiate a handshake in the USA vs. Mexico game, it’d be really lame of Randy to hold onto some kind of negative energy (and to say the things he said). On the other hand, I like Randy a lot and I’m willing to give him the benefit of the doubt. Maybe Cal should have handled things differently.

    Regardless, anytime we see negativity manifest on the field, even if it’s ridiculously early, or in the form of a large take with a small sample size, it’s certainly worth talking about. At the same time, I hope we won’t have to going forward.

    The time to be great is now.

    Let’s get after it,

    NJB

  • Wind In Our 1st Place Sails (16-12)

    Wind In Our 1st Place Sails (16-12)

    “The Old Fans And The SEA“

    The 2025 Seattle Mariners harpooned themselves into sole possession of 1st place in the AL West after Sunday night’s series dagger against the Miami Marlins as former 12th round pick Logan Evans navigated 5 smooth innings in his maiden voyage as a big-league starter.

    Of course *and it’s not fun to note*, the reason Evans was given the opportunity to take the helm this early in the season was a result of the “other” Logan’s premature exit on Friday night, followed by the unnerving news that he will be shut down for at least 2 weeks with a throwing-arm flexor strain (which isn’t the worst initial diagnosis possible— but bad for him and the club in the long run however you spin it & I could go on and on about this but I’m choosing to focus on other narratives and will touch briefly on what Gilbert’s injury could mean later).

    “Now is no time to think of what you do not have. Think of what you can do with what there is.” — Santiago, The Old Man and the Sea

    Wow. WOW?? Is this what we could actually look like?

    Obviously it’s still too early to characterize in absolute who this 2025 Mariners ball-club is, or to project the overall likelihood of where we will end up in late September, but as promised in my first Terrace Club Blues post— a month is enough to define some cornerstone storylines in considerable depth and to begin an illustration of what this season could look like into the dog days of summer and beyond.

    Channeling my best Hemingway (although that guy was a dick)— I will detail what I believe to be the stories worth talking about so far in this young season.

    The ?Elite? Offense?!

    I’ve talked about it before. Baseball is strange. Intriguingly, questionably, unbelievably strange. To the point that some true realities make absolutely no sense. Maybe that is part of the reason we love it so much. Despite all the hyper-analytical decision making & AI trained, predictive models, baseball will always surprise and as humans I think we love that little bit of unpredictability.

    But if you told me that the Mariners would statistically be the best offense in baseball (if it wasn’t for those damn Yankees) at the end of April I would have told you to immediately stop smoking whatever you’re smoking. 

    The 125 WRC+ the M’s have put up indicates we are 25% better at scoring runs than league average (given all the things that ought to be given) which is 4% better than the Chicago Cubs who rank 3rd at 121 WRC+ and 14% better than the Los Angeles Dodgers who rank 6th at 111 WRC+ 31 days into the season. Give me a hit of that.

    For an offense who struggled immensely (to put it lightly) last year and who kept their line-up basically identical to 2024, how can this be possible?

    A Jorge & Cal Story

    THIS version of Jorge Polanco is exactly what we went out and got him to do last year.

    He didn’t do it.

    Jerry & Co. made the controversial decision to re-sign Polo this winter and run it back.

    This year, he is doing it— and in historically, mesmerizing fashion at that. If it wasn’t for Aaron Judge (man fuck those guys lol) Jorge would be the best offensive player in baseball right now, and every time he is at bat, it just FEELS like he is going to do something great.

    And whether he does or not— oh guess what, the opposing team has to face Cal Raleigh next— the best catcher in baseball and the early season AL home run leader through April. Coming off of a generationally changing 100 million dollar contract extension this spring, Cal is proving why he is this town’s favorite baseball player and this country’s favorite Big Ass Dumper.

    My Favorite Player Though?

    The Flamethrower from Los Mochis.

    There is an argument to be made that Andrés Muñoz is not only the best reliever in all of baseball right now, but that he is the best pitcher in all of baseball right now. As I’m writing this he is tied for 8th in WAR across the MLB, trailing only Hunter Brown and Jesús Lazardo for WAR put up by pitchers. Those other guys? Well, they’re starters. Our closer is putting up MVP numbers through 28 games and 14 appearances and every time he is on the mound it has been an absolute joy to watch.

    As the biggest Muney fan there is, it has been pure poetry in motion for me. The sheer confidence Seńor Heat (lol) proliferates when jogging in from the bullpen is a much welcomed and much needed reprieve from the otherwise inevitable chaotic nature this team fosters on a nightly basis. While we can’t expect him to perfectly maintain the ungodly statistics he is putting up so far, we can and should look to him as a beacon of consistency whose guiding lights are less likely to waver significantly compared to other streaking beams of excellence this team has shined so far (I’m talking about you, JP, who can’t possibly remain in the 140s of WRC+ into June… although if he does, go fucking off, captain).

    The Unsuspecting Hero & The Journey of Reversing Luck

    In Hemingway’s 1952, baseball-adjacent novella, Santiago is a fisherman who has not caught a fish in eighty-four days and is considered salao, (or “very unlucky” for the non-Spanish speakers reading). This seems to parallel the Seattle Mariners’ fate when it comes to position player prospects throughout the last decade-and-a-half not named Julio Rodriguez or Cal Raleigh.

    Most recently, we can allude to the hype and subsequent failings of supposed franchise saving messiah, Jarred Kelenic (who continues to be inconsistent in Atlanta). Prior to the cooler-kicking-kid it was DJ Peterson, Alex Jackson, and Mike Zunino, who couldn’t live up to their perceived potential.

    Before that it was the likes of Dustin Ackley and Justin Smoak who significantly underperformed despite their impressive young portfolios.

    While some of those names never even made it to the show— their profiles are examples of “can’t miss” prospects who ended up being enormously underwhelming. One hopes only so much time can pass before the current of luck changes direction— and that the M’s, much like Santiago, might have an unlikely trophy fish on the hook.

    Ben Williamson is a mother-fucking BALLPLAYER. While it’s too early to make any giant brushstroke value statements, you can just tell that when he is on the diamond he isn’t thinking about legacy, slugging percentage, or how swag he looks in a uniform— he is simply, and beautifully, just showing up and playing like a kid in his backyard competing against his dad and older brother with no one else watching. That particular notion— the notion of a non-highly-touted prospect over-performing— is a luxury this franchise has never really experienced since, well, Kyle Seager in 2011 (that isn’t to say Williamson and Kyle profile the same at all)— but the importance and history of the hot corner at Seattle is a big one, and maybe, just maybe, we have a bright, young kid who can live up to that.

    So much of the rest of the season relies on further news about Logey— whether he can be back prior to the all-star break, or whether we won’t see him until late in the 2026 season. But for the first time in a long time, in spite of all the untimely injuries, I feel like this franchise has the talent, moxie, and grit to be able to face any challenge that may come their way and the collective buy-in mentality to lean on each other, and the next guy up, in an attempt to make baseball history in Seattle.

    “It’s silly not to hope. It’s a sin he thought.”

    Cheers,

    NJB