Mariners New Year's resolutions for 2024

This story was excerpted from the latest Mariners Beat newsletter, with Manny Randhawa filling in for Daniel Kramer. To read the full newsletter, click here. And subscribe to get it regularly in your inbox.

A new year has begun, and with it, countless resolutions have been made around the world as people look ahead with optimism for 2024.

How about the Mariners? What might their New Year’s resolutions be?

Let’s take a shot at coming up with a few for individual players and the club as a whole.

Julio Rodríguez: Join the 40-40 club

This seems like the logical next step in Rodríguez’s budding career. During his rapid rise to superstardom, J-Rod became the youngest player in AL/NL history to reach 25 home runs and 25 steals as a 21-year-old rookie in 2022. He then became the first player in AL/NL history to hit 25 homers and steal 25 bases in each of his first two seasons by belting 32 homers and swiping 37 bags in ’23.

Considering that he got off to a slow start at the plate last season before catching fire to hit 18 homers and steal 23 bags in the second half, a 40-40 season certainly seems doable for Rodríguez. After a fourth-place finish in AL MVP Award voting last year, could he make a serious run at the honor this year?

Mitch Garver: Stay healthy

The Mariners replaced some of the offense they lost earlier this offseason in the trades of Eugenio Suárez and Jarred Kelenic, as well as the potential loss of Teoscar Hernández in free agency, when they landed Garver on a two-year, $24 million deal on Christmas Eve.

Garver, who turns 33 on Jan. 15, has proven to be a very good hitter when in the lineup -- he has a career .825 OPS and averages 30 home runs per 162 games. The trouble is, he has only played in 450 games over seven Major League seasons. Injuries have hampered him, including last year, when he was limited to 87 games for the Rangers.

If Garver can play in 150 games as a full-time designated hitter, Seattle could reap big benefits with the type of rate stats he’s put up over the years.

Ty France: Find some of the slugging he lost in ’23

France has never been a major power hitter, but he certainly didn’t enter the 2023 campaign anticipating a 70-point drop in his slugging percentage. Following his first career All-Star selection in ’22, when he hit 20 homers with a .774 OPS (125 OPS+), France hit 12 home runs and slugged .366 last year. He and the Mariners would certainly like him to rediscover the pop he had from 2021-22.

George Kirby: Enter the Cy Young Award conversation

Kirby had a great sophomore season in 2023, posting a 3.35 ERA and a 1.04 WHIP over 31 starts (190 2/3 innings). He had the lowest BB/9 rate in baseball, at 0.9, and the highest strikeout-to-walk ratio, at 9.1. With his tremendous control and one of the most effective four-seam fastballs in the game, Kirby could ascend into the upper echelon of starting pitchers in ’24.

Mariners: Reach the AL Championship Series

The Mariners still have holes to fill on the roster, and while starting pitching is a strong suit, rotation depth and the lineup are still areas of uncertainty. On top of that, the Texas behemoths in the AL West -- the Astros and Rangers -- aren’t going anywhere, making the division a tough one to win.

But if there’s anything we’ve learned from the MLB postseason, particularly in recent years, it’s that if you can get into the tournament, anything can happen. The Mariners finally broke their 21-year postseason drought in 2022. Now, it’s time to not only get back to the postseason, but to have success there.