{"id":289974,"date":"2025-11-17T08:08:09","date_gmt":"2025-11-17T08:08:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/289974\/"},"modified":"2025-11-17T08:08:09","modified_gmt":"2025-11-17T08:08:09","slug":"mariners-to-re-sign-josh-naylor","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/289974\/","title":{"rendered":"Mariners To Re-Sign Josh Naylor"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Mariners and first baseman Josh Naylor<\/a> are in the final stages of working out a five-year contract, ESPN\u2019s Jeff Passan<\/a> reports.\u00a0 The deal will become official when Naylor passes a physical, according to The Athletic\u2019s Ken Rosenthal<\/a>.\u00a0 WHDH\u2019s Ari Alexander reports<\/a> that the contract is in the range of $90MM-$100MM.\u00a0 Naylor is represented by ISE Baseball.<\/p>\n

Assuming the deal crosses the finish line, Naylor becomes the first headline name of the 2025-26 free agent class to land a new contract, just two weeks after the World Series concluded.\u00a0 It counts as a surprise to see any major free agent sign their next contract this quickly, even before the players who received qualifying offers<\/a> have made their decisions.\u00a0 (Naylor was notably not eligible for a QO, since he was traded from the Diamondbacks to the Mariners during the season.)<\/p>\n

MLB Trade Rumors ranked Naylor 12th on our list of the offseason\u2019s top 50 free agents<\/a>, and the five-year term matches our projection that Naylor would receive a five-year, $90MM deal.\u00a0 The five-year length of Naylor\u2019s contract also matches\u00a0the longest free agent deal the Mariners have given out during Jerry Dipoto\u2019s decade in charge of Seattle\u2019s baseball operations department.\u00a0 The M\u2019s inked Robbie Ray<\/a> to a five-year, $115MM pact during the 2021-22 offseason, and Ray\u2019s contract and Yusei Kikuchi<\/a>\u2019s four-year, $56MM deal in January 2019 were the only free agent deals of the Dipoto era to exceed even two years.<\/p>\n

\"\"There are multiple reasons behind the lack of big free agent strikes.\u00a0 The Mariners\u2019 infamous 10-year, $240MM deal with Robinson Cano<\/a> from December 2013 could\u2019ve led to some organizational wariness over blockbuster signings.\u00a0 Since John Stanton\u2019s ownership group bought the team in 2016, the M\u2019s have only once finished a season with a top-10 payroll, and are only moving back into the middle range of spending league-wide.\u00a0 There is also \u201cTrader Jerry\u2019s\u201d own personal preference to build rosters via trades rather than free agents, as Dipoto has become known for being very active in negotiating swaps.\u00a0 Players may have had misgivings about joining a Mariners team that has two just postseason appearances in the last 24 seasons, and hitters in particular weren\u2019t exactly lining up to play in a notoriously pitcher-friendly environment.<\/p>\n

With all of this in mind, there was such mutual interest between Naylor and the Mariners that it certainly seemed like the team was very willing to stretch beyond its usual free agent comfort zone.\u00a0 Dipoto was open in telling the media \u2014 including Darragh McDonald on the MLBTR Podcast back in September<\/a> \u2014 that re-signing Naylor was a priority for the organization, and Naylor himself was just as effusive in how much he enjoyed playing in Seattle.<\/p>\n

Considering how Naylor performed after arriving in the Pacific Northwest, it\u2019s easy to see why both sides moved quickly on a long-term deal.\u00a0 Naylor was already enjoying a strong season with the Diamondbacks, but with Arizona falling out of contention, the D\u2019Backs dealt<\/a> the slugger a week before the trade deadline, landing rookie left-hander Brandyn Garcia<\/a> and pitching prospect Ashton Izzi<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Naylor proceeded to hit .299\/.341\/.490 with nine homers and 19 stolen bases (without a single caught stealing) over 210 regular-season plate appearances for the M\u2019s, and he followed that up with a .340\/.392\/.574 slash line over 51 postseason PA.\u00a0 Adding this type of pop into the lineup was perhaps the primary reason the Mariners won the AL West, and then outlasted the Tigers in the ALDS before falling just short of the first World Series berth in franchise history in losing the ALCS to the Blue Jays in seven games.<\/p>\n

This kind of success made the Mariners want to more or less bring the band back together<\/a> for 2026, which was no small feat since Naylor, Jorge Polanco<\/a>, and Eugenio Suarez<\/a> (among others) were all set for free agency.\u00a0 Re-signing Naylor is the first major domino to fall, and it how remains to be seen if either Polanco or Suarez can also be retained in the wake of the team\u2019s sizeable commitment in Naylor.\u00a0 The M\u2019s entered the offseason with approximately $34MM to spend<\/a>, according to Dipoto\u2019s statements after the playoff run was over, with more money potentially available at the deadline if more in-season reinforcements were required.<\/p>\n

For now, the Mariners and their fans can at least enjoy the idea of Naylor suiting up at T-Mobile Park for the next five seasons.\u00a0 Naylor turns 29 in June, so his contract will run through his age-33 season.\u00a0 There has been some league-wide hesitancy in recent years about giving major contracts to first base-only players (especially as those players enter their 30\u2019s), yet Naylor\u2019s production outside of just his stretch run with the Mariners makes him a solid choice for a five-year investment.<\/p>\n

Naylor\u2019s 128 wRC+ in 2025 was a career high, narrowly topping the 127 wRC+ he posted with the Guardians in 2023.\u00a0 Since emerging as a regular with Cleveland in 2022, Naylor has hit .275\/.336\/.464 with 88 home runs, translating to a 123 wRC+ and 9.9 fWAR over the last four seasons.\u00a0 His barrel and hard-hit ball rates are okay but uninspiring, and his walk rate from 2022-25 was below average, so Naylor doesn\u2019t exactly fit the profile of a classic slugging first baseman.<\/p>\n

His biggest offensive weapon is his ability to make contact, as Naylor is among the league\u2019s more difficult players to strike out though he is prone to chasing pitches off the plate.\u00a0 There is also the amusing oddity of Naylor\u2019s 30-for-32 record at stealing bases in 2025, which speaks to his skill as an opportunistic baserunner despite being one of the slowest players in baseball.\u00a0 Defensively, public metrics are mixed on his glovework.\u00a0 The Outs Above Average metric has him solidly above average with +12 OAA, while his -6 Defensive Runs Saved paints a less-flattering picture of his work at first base.<\/p>\n

Naylor joins Cal Raleigh<\/a> and Julio Rodriguez<\/a> as Seattle players locked up through at least the 2029 season, and Rodriguez\u2019s deal could actually extend through 2039 depending on a complicated set of options following the 2029 campaign.\u00a0 These three All-Star position players, veteran righty Luis Castillo<\/a>, and a core of homegrown starters (George Kirby<\/a>, Logan Gilbert<\/a>, Bryan Woo<\/a>, Bryce Miller<\/a>) have become the building blocks of an AL West title team that looks to remain competitive for at least the rest of the decade.<\/p>\n

Though many pundits \u2014 including three of us at MLBTR \u2014 predicted Naylor would re-sign the Mariners, the fact that he has found a new deal so suddenly creates an interesting ripple effect on the rest of the free agent class.\u00a0 Teams in need of lineup help have one less big bat to consider, and the first base market in particular has now lost a name many teams would\u2019ve considered as perhaps a preferred alternative to Pete Alonso<\/a>, Munetaka Murakami<\/a>, or Kazuma Okamoto<\/a>.\u00a0 Murakami or Okamoto could be deployed at third base and Cody Bellinger<\/a> could be viewed as a first baseman or outfielder in equal measure, depending on a suitor\u2019s needs.<\/p>\n

Inset photo courtesy of Stephen Brashear \u2014 Imagn Images<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Mariners and first baseman Josh Naylor are in the final stages of working out a five-year contract,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":289975,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[558],"tags":[64,63,16824,591,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-289974","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mlb","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-josh-naylor","11":"tag-mlb","12":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/289974","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=289974"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/289974\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/289975"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=289974"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=289974"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=289974"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}