On April Showers, April Flowers

The Mariners were a little bit of everything in April, which is exactly what they were supposed to be.

The Mariners finished April with a .500 record. The month included a five-game losing streak, a four-game losing streak, and two four-game winning streaks. They were projected in the preseason as favorites in their division and the entire American League. They are still favorites in the division, but have fallen to second in the AL behind the hot-start Yankees. They are now two-games under .500 after opening May with back-to-back losses.

They finished April seventh by WAR:

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Again, this is about what they were projected for entering the season. A good lineup with middling base running, and a good pitching staff with a porous defense behind them. It’s a well-rounded but not extraordinary group with greater strengths than weaknesses, and they are elevated by a weak division and league.

Now, it’s still early. I’ll have more commentary on the Mariners initial standing two Sundays from now when they breach the 40-game mark. Today, I want to discuss a few things that stood out in the season’s first split.

April Flowers

Cole Young steps forward

Cole Young has been good, or maybe great — depends who you ask.

FanGraphs lists Young at 0.8 WAR through April. That makes him the seventh most valuable second baseman in the majors, and just outside the top 50 for qualified position players. Good.

Baseball Reference lists Young at 1.9 WAR. That makes him not only the league’s best second baseman, but the fourth best position player in all of baseball. Great.

The difference comes down to defense. Baseball Reference uses Defensive Runs Saved (DRS). By that metric, Young has been the second best fielder in the majors. In fact, Young was named Sports Info Solutions Defensive Player of the Month for April in the American League. FanGraphs, on the other hand, uses Fielding Run Value (FRV) from Baseball Savant, which suggests Young has been about neutral on defense.

While the degree of success is up for debate, it’s a (small sample) success nonetheless. Last year, Young was awful on defense. It was a combination of bad hands, bad footwork, and a weak arm. This year, he seems to have fixed at least the first two points. His arm is somehow even weaker than before, but he’s now getting to grounders, collecting them into his glove, and throwing the ball accurately to first base. Kate Preusser did a great overview of Young’s improvements this spring, and those have indeed carried into the regular season.

It’s not just in the field. Young was the Mariners’ second best hitter in April, with a 125 wRC+ in 126 plate appearances. He’s maintained all the things he did well last year — pulling the ball in the air, drawing walks, and avoiding strikeouts. But he’s improved his quality of contact, with a 40.7% hard hit rate (pretty good) and a 40.7% launch angle sweet spot rate (outstanding).

As the chart shows, however, this isn’t quite new. Young hit equally well for a good chunk of last summer. The upsell is this isn’t simply a fluke. The downsell here is we’ve seen him collapse after doing this before. Still, a great season starts with a great month. Young is on his way.

The bottom of the order steps up

Young is one of several encouraging signs from the bottom of the Mariners order. Dominic Canzone picked up right where he left off last year, with a 142 wRC+ and some of the best contact quality in baseball. Luke Raley looks healthy again and has flashed extraordinary power, though he’s cooled in recent weeks. Randy Arozarena is in the midst of a classic hot streak (even if the rest is still quite frustrating).

The Mariners 1st and 5-9 hitters posted a combined 114 wRC+ in April, keeping the offense afloat while the middle of the order struggled. Julio Rodríguez, Cal Raleigh, and Josh Naylor each picked it up in the second half of the month, and the Mariners 127 wRC+ since April 10 is second best in baseball. This looks like one of the league’s top lineups once again.

Emerson Hancock steps at all

Perhaps more surprising than Young’s progress on defense is Emerson Hancock emerging as a quality mid-rotation starter, or as he showed Saturday, maybe even more. Hancock wasn’t good last year (or the year before) in the sixth starter role, and the Mariners often needed him to be. I’d honestly written him off — the stuff simply wasn’t there over a fairly large sample.

But in the latest example of “development isn’t linear,” Hancock suddenly found it in April. He had a 2.86 ERA, 4.60 FIP, and 3.46 xFIP in six starts. Sure, a pesky home run problem was still there, but he struck out batters, limited walks, and went deep into games for the first time in his career.

Michael Rosen outlined the changes for Hancock recently at FanGraphs. Basically, he’s the rare pitcher who, mid career, suddenly changed the way he’s physically throwing the ball. Stuff metrics love the changes, and the results have followed. That’s what’s so exciting about what would other wise be a small sample — it’s a lot easier to believe he’s changed when he literally has.

Now, I was going to note that Hancock’s stuff ticked down over his last to April starts. He still looked like a better pitcher than the last few years, but maybe more “reasonable improvement” than “new ace.” Then last night happened. Hancock struck out 14 batters and picked up 21 whiffs. It was an incredible, career-best performance for any pitcher, and that it was Hancock makes it borderline unbelievable. He is now fourth — fourth! — in the majors with a 25.2% K-BB rate. It’s a turnaround unlike anything I’ve witnessed.

April Showers

The rest of the rotation

The other starters haven’t been bad necessarily, and including them here isn’t quite fair. The Mariners’ rotation finished April in a four-way tie for eighth most fWAR in the majors. They also posted a league best 5.6% walk rate and were 1/3 of an inning behind the Dodgers for most innings pitched (181).

They also finished a disappointing 20th with a 21.2% strikeout rate. Strikeouts aren’t everything, but the tradeoff is more contact, and the Mariners have allowed the third worst hard hit rate in baseball. One of those should ideally change.

Again, it’s still an above average group, and there a lot of teams that would love to have this rotation. But it’s year four and five for Logan Gilbert, George Kirby, and Bryan Woo, and they don’t seem they’re any closer to actually being in the top tier of rotations. Mariners starters are 10th by fWAR since 2022; Mariners batters are ninth.

There are important questions ahead, with Hancock continuing to pitch well, Luis Castillo getting shelled, and Bryce Miller nearing completion of his third rehab stint in the last 365 days. The dynamic will shift soon.

The defense

All that hard contact allowed is not ideal for the defense behind them. It’s been dreadful, again. At the moment they’re tied for last in the majors by OAA.

The thing that jumps out most is Julio at -3 OAA (-2 FRV thanks to a nice throw). I don’t buy that he’s suddenly bad now. As I wrote in the preseason, fielders of his caliber (and age) should be good for a long time, and I expect his performance will even out over time. But this was indeed the worst month of his career in the outfield. He’s completed outs on just three of seven plays graded as “1 Star” by Baseball Savant (here, here, here, and here); he also missed a ball so easy it didn’t even get a star.

Now, if you click through those videos, I think you’ll see why I’m not concerned. It’s not like his range has suddenly disappeared (in fact, it’s slightly improved). There’s been weird weather, roofs, and a few misreads on tweeners. Julio has never been a guy like Pete Crow-Armstrong or Ceddanne Rafaela, where you’d expect him to fetch more than a handful of five-star catches in a season. Instead, Julio earns his keep as one of the most fundamentally sound route runners in the game, with the athleticism necessary to adjust on the fly. He made 81 of 84 plays graded one or to stars last year — he does the routine better than anybody. I expect that to return.

The rest? Awful. Dreadful. I don’t need to see anymore. I’ll always take offense over defense, and I continue to believe this is a top-10 group overall. But defense is where good fell short of great in 2025, and that’s likely the case again this year.

The short side

The Mariners finished April with an 81 wRC+ against lefties. There were a handful of strong performances from Arozarena, Young, Mitch Garver, and even J.P. Crawford. But there was still half a lineup that was simply non-competitive against lefties.

This isn’t a surprise. The Mariners best role players are lefties with strong platoon splits, and the plan was always to platoon and pinch hit. The issue is the Mariners have a 50 wRC+ in 31 plate appearances off the bench. The strategy simply hasn’t worked, again.

Of course, the Mariners are also fourth in the majors with a 113 wRC+ against righties in twice as many plate appearances. It’s a good lineup, if a vulnerable one.

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