Let me be the first to say: I like Luke Raley's game a lot and I've enjoyed having him on the Seattle Mariners since he first got to Seattle prior to the 2024 season.

He does a lot of things well: He plays hard, he's a good clubhouse presence, he has power, as evidenced by his 22 home runs in 2024 and his 15 in 95 games in 2026.

I'm just not sure how Raley fits on the 2027 Mariners at this point.

Let's dive a little deeper.

1) Raley is now 32 years old, and he'll be 33 next September.

2) He's under team control through 2028, meaning he has two more seasons left.

3) He was recently projected to make $3.1 million through arbitration.

4) Raley is a left-handed hitting outfielder, and the Mariners already have Dominic Canzone and Lazaro Montes as left-handed hitting outfielders.

1) The Mariners are set to (likely) decline an option on Victor Robles, making him a free agent. As a result, they will not have a built-in center field option that is capable of spelling Julio Rodriguez. Raley can be that guy. He played seven games in center field this year, five in 2025 and nine in 2024.

2) The Mariners were 27th in baseball in OPS and just 16th in home runs. Raley had 22 homers in 2024 and 15 in essentially two healthy months this season. Are the Mariners, of all teams, really in a position to be cutting ties with offense?

3) $3.1 million just simply isn't a lot of money, so for the cost, Raley is a good player worth keeping around. And he's done it before, succeeding at the major league level.

4) Montes has a lot of promise, but he might not be ready for a full-time role. If the team wants to start him in the minors, then Raley gives them the chance to do that.

1) The Mariners outfield is too left-handed, with Canzone and Montes already offering alternatives to Raley. He's simply redundant.

2) $3.1 million is still $3.1 million. Can it be spent better on a player who isn't 32 years old and has played only 168 games in the last two seasons? Could that money go toward helping a tattered bullpen?

We talked more about Raley's situation on the 'Refuse to Lose Territory' podcast on Tuesday:

"Could the Mariners non-tender Luke Raley and make him a free agent? Could the Mariners tender him a contract and then trade him? I think there's a lot of things on the board here for the Mariners. And I would not be surprised at if, if any of.... if you told me Luke Raley was on this roster on Opening Day, I wouldn't be completely shocked. If you told me they tendered him a contract and they traded him, I wouldn't be completely shocked. And if you told me they non-tendered him, I wouldn't be completely shocked. I think it is totally up in the air."