TORONTO -- I saw Seattle Mariners owner John Stanton at the Rogers Centre on Monday night before the Mariners lost Game 7 against the Toronto Blue Jays in crushing fashion.

Let's hope he was really paying attention to what happened and how it happened, because he has the power to help stop it from happening again.

And if he was really watching, and really grasping what happened, then that might be the only good thing to come out of Monday night.

How will he view it? 

In 2000, the Mariners lost in similar, crippling fashion against the New York Yankees in the American League Championship Series. The ownership group then lost Alex Rodriguez in what seemed like another bit of terrible news for the organization, but they continued to work hard in the offseason and seemed determined to help the franchise get back to that same spot.

After adding Bret Boone and Ichiro Suzuki in that offseason, the Mariners won an American League record 116 games in 2001 and got back to the ALCS again. 

If Stanton sees this team as "close" and worth investing in, maybe the Mariners can get back here again in 2026. If not, then the Mariners are destined for this to have been a fun, but outlier season.

Offseason questions 

The Mariners have three major offseason questions already in front of them, and that's what to do with Josh Naylor, Eugenio Suarez and Jorge Polanco as free agents.

Do any or all of them want to come back? How much money will the organization give them? If not them, or not all of them, how does the organization fill those holes moving forward?

And that's just the stuff on the surface, but when you dig deeper you realize that this team could use another reliever or two and they could use some more bench depth.

How much leeway does ownership give the front office to go out and acquire those pieces? And pieces that can help elevate the roster, rather than just serve as a hopeful reclamation project?

We'll have to wait and see, but we have a long cold offseason ahead of us to figure it out.

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