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According to a report from Jeff Passan of ESPN, confirmed by Ryan Divish of the Seattle Times, the Seattle Mariners and T-Mobile Park will host the 2023 MLB All-Star Weekend, including the All-Star Game and Home Run Derby.
Sources confirm Jeff’s report. The Mariners started working on a bid to host another All-Star game in 2018. They submitted an official bid/presetation in 2019 and have been waiting.
— Ryan Divish (@RyanDivish) September 14, 2021
The hope was for 2023 or 2024. https://t.co/QPWoo7SkqA
While it’s yet to be confirmed by the Mariners or MLB, this seems like a fair bet to be correlated to a cryptic tweet from the M’s social media.
— Seattle Mariners (@Mariners) September 14, 2021
The All-Star Game for the 2022 season will be held in Los Angeles at the home of the Dodgers, giving Seattle a couple years of preparation time. The Mariners have made a series of improvements and restorations around T-Mobile Park in recent years, many in aid of luring the All-Star Game. Additionally, clubs have often made an effort to develop the area around the stadium, an area of Seattle obviously among the most heavily impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic that at present lags well behind many cities in terms of pre/post-game activity opportunities.
Seattle has not played host to the MLB ASG festivities since 2001, when the club had eight All-Stars en route to their record setting 116 wins. In my objective, journalistic opinion as a seven year old at the time who attended all the events, it freaking ruled. The All-Star Game is the big ticket, of course, but if recent scheduling holds true, the entire weekend will be full of activity, as the All-Star Week of 2021 included, among many activities, the High-School All-American Game, a massive convention with discussions and games of all sorts, the All-Star Futures Game featuring top minor league prospects, the MLB Draft, the Home Run Derby, the Celebrity Softball Game, and of course finally the game itself.
Excitingly as well, in theory the 2023 Mariners should be a competitive bunch. Expecting perpetual excellence is a tough ask for a club with as shaky of a history as the M’s, however the 2023 club should have several of its most talented prospects with a few years of MLB work under their belts, and the club will have hopefully invested significantly in their roster to ensure contention in the short and long term.