Raley and Davis Head to the Operating Table. Seattle's Offseason Starts Here.

Luke Raley and Brennen Davis are both on the 60-day IL, and the season isn't finished yet. Whatever surgeries the offseason brings for that pair, the Mariners are already doing the math on what next spring looks like without a reliable answer in right field or a healthy depth bat behind Randy Arozarena in left.

The durability problem isn't new. Raley appeared in just 51 games before his season ended, Davis in nine. Between them they gave Seattle a combined 60 games of outfield depth — not nothing, but nowhere near enough for a team that needed every body it could find during a brutal August that went 7-13. Dominic Canzone held right field together reasonably well, but the margin behind him is thin, and that's before accounting for any surgical recovery timeline that pushes either player into May or June.

The third base situation adds to the offseason workload. J.P. Crawford has been the primary starter there and hasn't produced at a level the position requires — Brendan Donovan, who hit .311 in 44 games, is the more interesting option but has his own injury history to manage. My read is that third base is the cleaner fix of the two problems, because the outfield depth question depends heavily on what Raley and Davis look like coming out of surgery, and that won't be clear for months.

Seattle made the playoffs at 64-64. That's the floor. The ceiling depends on whether this offseason is about patching the same holes again or actually filling them.