Paul Sewald points out the obvious about Mariners: They don’t spend, so they don’t win

Twenty teams, some Paul Sewald quotes, and a call to action for Mariners ownership

That’s the column in one line, and time will tell if it will ring true.

We’ll start with the ballclubs—more specifically, the last 20 teams to reach the LCS in the American and National leagues. Next to each will be where they ranked in the MLB payroll that season.

• 2019: Yankees (3rd), Cardinals (6th), Nationals (7th), Astros (8th).
• 2020: Dodgers (1st) Astros (5th), Braves (16th), Rays (28th).
• 2021: Dodgers (1st), Astros (5th) Red Sox (6th), Braves (10th)
• 2022: Yankees (3rd), Phillies (4th), Padres (5th), Astros (8th)
• 2023: Rangers (4th), Phillies (5th), Astros (7th), Diamondbacks (21st).

What does this tell us? Well, it doesn’t necessarily tell us that spending guarantees a path to success. After all, the Mets, Yankees and Padres had the three highest payrolls in 2023 and none made the playoffs. And it doesn’t tell us that teams must spend big money to contend for a title, as the 2020 Rays and ’23 D’backs can attest to (although that Rays’ run did come in a COVID-shortened season).

Are you listening, Mariners chairman John Stanton?

You see, in the past five years, the M’s have never had a top-10 payroll. They were 11th in 2019, 21st in 2020, 25th in 2021, 21st in 2022 and 18th last season. And in that span, they have made the playoffs once, when they were swept by Houston in the 2022 ALDS.

Mariners president of baseball operations Jerry Dipoto knows it’s imprudent to spend for its own sake (he saw massive contracts given to Josh Hamilton and Albert Pujols cripple the Angels when he worked in Anaheim). But at some point, I’d have to think that he’s expressed to his chairman that they have to shell out the dough.

Enter Sewald. It was just a few months ago that the Diamondbacks were closer to the Mariners, but a deal at the trade deadline changed that. The Mariners had a seller’s look at the time, holding a 55-51 record while sitting seventh in the wild-card standings. So they shipped Sewald to Arizona for Josh Rojas and Dominic Canzone. and surged into first place before a September descent left them just shy of the playoffs.

That shortcoming caused catcher Cal Raleigh to vent, lamenting the trading of Sewald and the Mariners’ inability to beef up their roster via free agency. He would later apologize for the comments, but Sewald — new team and all — defended his former catcher.

“Had I been there, I probably would’ve echoed the exact same thing,” Sewald said on the “Chris Rose Rotation” podcast. “I had my frustrations while I was there about the team we had put together as well. And, frankly, that’s why I got traded.”

There is debate as to what Sewald meant by “why I got traded.” Some think he was implying that Dipoto dealt him in response to his expressing discontent, but I think it was in reference to the team being in sell mode because of its mediocre record.