Hard to argue with this one. This year seems to be the first time he's hit the IL and that was just for about two weeks. 6 IP/start, 126 ERA+ with no ERA-FIP difference, good K rate. This covers ages 30-34. Roughly Darvish money for a guy as good but a lot less fragile and a year younger than Darvish when the contract starts ... and the commit to fewer years. Obviously he could break tomorrow.

Dave Cameron will be pleased! At least they are beginning to act like the 6th best organisation our there.

They have a long way to go to catch the Braves, Dodgers, Rays, Cardinals and a few others.

OTOH, as a Red Sox fan, I can say without any doubt that I am utterly confused as to what they are doing in Boston.

Good for both parties in this deal:

- The Mariners seem like they've got a good thing going, and they bought out four years of FA with this deal - you don't see that too often.

- Castillo has bounced around a lot as a minor leaguer, and there were probably a lot of time where he wondered how and where he was going to land in the bigs. And now, at 29 years old, he, his kids, his parents, his grandkids, etc., are set for life. I can only imagine what a feeling it must be the morning after you sign a contract like that. Good for him.

The deal includes a $7 million signing bonus, a $10 million salary for next season—when he was due to make around $12 million in his final arbitration season before reaching free agency—and annual salaries of $22.75 million from 2024 to ‘27.

Apparently the contract also stipulates that if Castillo undergoes TJS the Mariners get an extra year for $5 million. You’d think that more contracts would include these kinds of protection for the team.

The Astros have a good core of both pitchers and hitters under 30, but I'll take Seattle's short-term future over the rest of the Division. The Mariners should be in regular contention for a playoff spot.

The marginal utility to the Mariners of adding a really big bat this off-season has to be higher than just about any other team in the majors.

They have a top bullpen. Castillo, Ray, Gilbert, Kirby feels like a top rotation for years into the future.

Building that offense beyond Julio, France, Suarez, Raleigh could be worth a round in the playoffs every year.

isn't he 50 years old?

i don't think he's hit a homerun since i was in high school.

No reason the Reds shouldn't have held onto Castillo and given him this contract.

Ms vs Os ... pretty similar teams in many ways. I like the Ms chances of repeating more. They have a bit better of a track record in terms of their "veteran" position players performing; their rotation looks much better; the bullpens are both bullpens having a good year. It's not a big gap -- the 4 win difference is probably about right -- but it means I'm more confident the Ms will repeat as a "contender" (i.e. more likely to win 85+). My confidence and $1 will still buy you a lottery ticket.

Ms vs Os ... pretty similar teams in many ways. I like the Ms chances of repeating more. They have a bit better of a track record in terms of their "veteran" position players performing; their rotation looks much better; the bullpens are both bullpens having a good year. It's not a big gap -- the 4 win difference is probably about right -- but it means I'm more confident the Ms will repeat as a "contender"

If the Mariners and Orioles had switched divisions what impact would that have had on their records? Seattle would have played the AL East 76 times (.485 winning % this season), and Baltimore would have had just as many games against the AL West (.600 winning % including taking the season series against both the Astros and Mariners). It's somewhere between difficult and impossible to compare two teams in different divisions when they play such different schedules. Hopefully next year's more balanced schedule will even things out.

Dave Cameron will be pleased!

I used to run into him at the dog park. He was nice enough. Awkward, but so was I.

#10: Hardly close to "impossible." For example, b-r's SRS puts the Ms at 0.5 and the Os at 0.1. WAA puts the Os at 6.1 and the Ms at 4.6 but 5 of Baltimore's WAA is due to their bullpen which is unlikely to repeat (because they usually don't). Fangraphs pythagPat puts the Os at 500, 6 games worse than the Ms; baseruns puts them 7 back and 6 games under 500. ESPN's "relative power index" (who knows?) puts the Ms, Os and Guardians essentiallly equal. I thought somebody out there had a "wins based on fancy saber numbers" thing out there but I can't find it.

And then you can just look at personnel. The Os are getting mediocrity at 1B and LF, replacemet level at 2B and traded away Mancini and the bench has been pretty useless. Their rotation has used significant innings from guys with K-rates of 6.6, 6.4 and 5.3 that don't bode well for the future. They are playing very good defense. The Ms aren't exciting either but their guys have a slightly better track record. Mainly their rotation looks better than the Os.

But sure, nobody's so accurate as to really be able to put confidence in a guesstimate of 2-3 wins.

Let's also not overstate the unbalancedness of the schedule. The Os have played 66 in their division and 86 outside of it. They've played 66 against the East and the Ms have played 33 (some against the Os of course). The Os are 30-36, the Ms 16-17. My quick crude estimate puts the ALW Os at ... 83-84 wins, same as the Ms. Oddly, the ALE team that has really beat up on the ALW is the Red Sox (the Os have also done well).

The M’s will be better than the O’s next year. BUT this is only because the M’s will spend more than the O’s this off-season, and/or trade more prospects away to put nearly all the chits in on winning for the next 3 years.