LA Angels' rival's first free agent signing of offseason barely even counts

The Los Angeles Angels have gone dormant after a scorching hot start to free agency, but at least the organization can say it has spent $80.3 million so far in free agency. The same cannot be said for the Angels' division rival, the Seattle Mariners. The Angels' former general manager, Jerry Dipoto, did whatever the opposite of striking oil in his first move of the Mariners' offseason. He inked the 37-year-old utility man, Donovan Solano, to a one-year, $3.5 million major league deal. The journeyman joins Seattle after spending 2024 with San Diego, 2023 with Minnesota, 2022 with Cincinnati, 2019-2021 with San Francisco, 2016 with NYY, and 2012-2015 with Miami. What a hot commodity!

Solano is a fine player, you do not last 11+ seasons in major league baseball for nothing. However, is he better than Josh Rojas (who signed with the White Sox) or Jorge Polanco (who is likely departing)? Solano posted a lower fWAR the past two seasons than Rojas, and higher than Polanco...but Polanco certainly has a higher ceiling in theory than Solano.

Solano has a solid hit tool, as he has consistenly posted solid batting averages and OBPs in his career. Other than that, he does not add a whole lot. Sure he can play both corner infield spots and even fill in at second base, which helps their positional versatility. He is not fast at all though, and is a poor base runner to boot. Year-in and year-out, he posts well-below average OAAs and has a squirt gun for an arm. The Mariners' desperately need to add power hitting and athleticism to their lineup, and Solano does neither. In fact, outside of a loaded San Diego lineup he will more than likely regress at the plate. The Mariners would have been more well-suited in signing a utility man like Ha-Seong Kim instead. That would have required spending money, which seems like a non-starter for the Mariners' owner, John Stanton.

The Angels are inching closer to the Mariners in the AL West

The Angels' top brass is incredibly vocal about contending in 2025, and, despite recent frustrations, they have at least made a flurry of moves to help round out the roster around Mike Trout, Zach Neto, José Soriano, and co. The Mariners have done absolutely nothing to supplement their incredible core of Julio Rodríguez, Logan Gilbert, Bryce Miller, George Kirby, etc. They are even rumored to potentially move off of Luis Castillo. At least Solano is a great consolation prize for missing out on Roki Sasaki! What's that? He's not?

The Mariners are barely even "interest kings" like the Angels perpetually are. Other than Sasaki, how many free agents are they even in on? There are still plenty of free agents and a lot of offseason left, but their offseason has been incredibly disheartening. Pundits still believe the Mariners will finish top-3 in the division, ahead of the Angels, but the gap is certainly appearing to be narrowing between the division rivals as the rosters are currently constructed.

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