Randy Arozarena spent 2026 doing the one thing the Seattle Mariners could least afford to lose.
While the lineup around him sagged, the 31-year-old outfielder turned a walk year into the best season of his career, stacking power, speed, and on-base ability in a park that usually flattens right-handed bats.
He finished with a team-leading 148 OPS+, 161 hits, 26 home runs, 79 RBI, and 5.7 WAR, and he ran the bases like the player who once turned October into a personal stage.
Seattle, meanwhile, finished 28th in the majors in runs scored and missed the postseason. That gap is the whole offseason argument.
Bleacher Report’s Joel Reuter, in a team-by-team look at each club’s top 2026-27 free agent, landed on the side of paying him.
Reuter called Arozarena one of the few players on this winter’s market capable of landing a $100 million contract, a number that would strain Seattle’s usual spending habits, and then asked whether the Mariners can really afford the alternative. His verdict was a reunion.
The case is straightforward. In a thin free-agent class headlined by Tarik Skubal and clouded by an expiring collective bargaining agreement, impact bats are scarce, and Arozarena was the only reliable one Seattle had.
Some around the industry think the price will climb higher than that $100 million floor.
Reporting tied to Ryan Divish of the Seattle Times has put the realistic range at four years and $100 million on the low end, with five-year projections landing between $110 million and $125 million, and a sixth year not entirely off the table if a club wants to lower the average annual value.
That is a different conversation than the one Seattle was having when it acquired him at the 2024 deadline. He is earning $15.65 million in his final arbitration year. The next deal would be the largest of his career, and at 32 next season it would almost certainly cover the start of his decline.
There are reasons to hesitate. His defense has slipped toward designated-hitter territory. Younger options such as Lázaro Montes and Michael Arroyo are pushing for playing time.
J.P. Crawford’s salary is coming off the books, but that savings does not automatically become an Arozarena extension. ESPN’s Jeff Passan said over the summer he would bet Arozarena is not a Mariner in 2027, and Divish has reported that the outfielder would probably prefer to return to the East Coast, with Atlanta among the clubs that make sense. Scott Boras, his agent, rarely steers clients away from the open market.
Still, the production is hard to wave off. Arozarena has been the Mariners’ best hitter since he arrived, and he just posted a sixth straight 20-homer, 20-steal season.
Letting him walk would send the front office back into a market short on right-handed run producers, looking for a cheaper version of the player it already has. Reuter’s answer was simple enough: pay the man. Whether Jerry Dipoto agrees may decide how long this offense stays near the bottom of the league.
