'Get better': Seattle opens camp with expectations

PEORIA, Ariz. -- For a Monday, it was packed.

A few days beyond the two-year mark of Major League Baseball’s Spring Training shutdown due to the pandemic, hundreds of fans returned to the back fields of the Peoria Sports Complex to take in Seattle’s first full squad workout for the 2022 season. So much has changed in so many ways in the long span since.

“You can see the excitement,” right fielder Mitch Haniger said. “It's fun to be back out here in front of everybody.”

Hours after players hit the field, the club executed a major trade that will bring two more prominent pieces to camp on Tuesday, left fielder Jesse Winker and Eugenio Suárez, who were acquired from the Reds. How those former All-Stars blend with a nucleus of hungry players that has been here since the stepback in 2019, as well as an eager fanbase dreaming on the possibility of the postseason for the first time since 2001, are among the many storylines of intrigue as the Mariners returned to the field, officially, for the first time since their 90-win season a year ago.

Sellout crowds over the final weekend last year for games with postseason implications proved that there’s palpable hunger from beyond just the clubhouse. And after taking their season down to the final day -- and adding four former All-Stars this offseason, also including second baseman Adam Frazier and reigning American League Cy Young Award winner Robbie Ray -- Mariners president of baseball operations Jerry Dipoto has said that snapping a 20-year playoff drought is the club’s objective this year.

“That is our goal, is to get to the postseason, and then let the players take us where they’re going to take us,” Dipoto said in December, after signing Ray.

Ahead of speaking to the club for the first team meeting on Monday, manager Scott Servais planned to take a more grounded approach, one he said is consistent with the messaging he echoed last year ahead of, at least to those outside the clubhouse, a season of surprise.

“Expectations in that clubhouse and organizationally have not changed at all,” Servais said. “The expectation here, and I've been very clear about it, we talked about it all year last year, the year before -- the focus on getting better. I do know if you chase a result, it will not end well.

“I've talked about this for a long time. We sit here today, how many games are we going to win, if I only focus on how many games we are going to win, and we have to get in the playoffs, that's going to be a miserable existence for me for the next six-and-a-half, seven months. I'm not going to go there. It's about getting better.”

There were countless moments last year where the Mariners appeared to be on the verge of a spiral, yet Servais’ squad continued to bounce back, which was a big part of why he was the runner-up for the AL Manager of the Year Award. Their methodology wasn’t necessarily flashy -- their blueprint to remaining in contention was late-game, one-run wins -- but it was perhaps reflective of the focus on, pardon the cliché, taking things one day at a time.

“I think for us, it's realizing the difference between expectations and standards,” said catcher Tom Murphy, widely viewed as one of the position-player leaders. “I think if we can do that, it's going to be really important for us. Expectations are what everybody else is going to put on for us, whereas we have a standard of what we do every day for our work, our quality of work, how we show up to compete every day, that's our standard. As long as that's high quality, we're going to be a good team.”

Even Ray, who signed on Dec. 1 hours before the lockout then was prohibited from communicating with team officials until the lockout ended on Thursday, has absorbed the messaging.

“You can’t go 162-0, no team has ever done it,” Ray said. “So, it's being able to take the positive out of every day, learn what you did right, improve on what you did that you need to improve on and and then move on. ... I think getting better every day is kind of the motto here. It doesn't matter what you did yesterday. It’s just, ‘What am I going to do to get better?’”

Yet the difference between last year, when the Mariners entered camp continuing to focus on player development yet wound up being the darling of the late-season contenders, and now, where they are squarely in the spotlight after knocking on October’s door, are elevated expectations -- at least from those outside the clubhouse.

“I think we're in a position to take the next step,” Servais said. “But it only happens if you get better. And that's not going to change. Just focus on getting better, one percent better every day when you come to work. And if you look up, this guy gets one percent better and that guy gets one percent better and I get one percent better, we’re probably going to be OK.”