Why did the Seattle Mariners just give Dylan Moore $8.895 million?

The Seattle Mariners just gave Dylan Moore a three-year, $8.875 million extension.

Wait, let me fix the punctuation on that sentence.

The Seattle Mariners just gave Dylan Moore a three-year, $8.875 million extension? Why?

I understand that cash is cheap in MLB these days but, even so, can somebody explain why a totally replaceable 30-something career utility guy deserves a multi-year deal that involves more than a 100 percent salary bump?

That’s the extension Moore and Mariners exec Jerry Dipoto jointly announced this week.

There are so many reasons to look askance at this announcement that one is forced to conclude the Mariners simply don’t care about something as piddling as $8.875 million across three years. But to begin the itemization of head-scratching details:

• Moore will be 30 years old and starting his fifth season with the Mariners when Opening Day occurs. He earned, if that is not too strong a word, $13 million last year. And unless there is an injury he will celebrate Opening Day in his usual spot … on the bench.
• He is nothing if not versatile, having played every position except catcher. But he has never been able to hold down a regular job despite having been given the opportunity.
• Offensively there’s no more accurate way to describe Moore than sub-par. He’s a career .208 stick whose best season was the shortened 2020 season when he got it all the way up to .255, albeit in just 38 games. He’s averaged just nine home runs per season on a 97 OPS+, that on a scale where 100 equals league average.
• His average annual WAR is 1.9 on a scale where 2.0 is about average.
• He has no position. The Mariners’ own website projects Moore to be at best the backup (to Ty France) at first base and (to J.P. Crawford) shortstop. He’s listed as an emergency outfielder and third-string second baseman, which is probably his natural position. How many teams, do you suppose, pay their third-string second baseman $3 million a year?
• Moore is coming off a season in which he made just 64 starts and batted .224 with six home runs and 24 RBI.
• The Marcels projection system used by Baseball-Reference doesn’t foresee any performance step-up in 2023. It pegs Moore as a .216 hitter in half-time duty with a .698 OPS, that in a league where the average last season was .706.

In the context of all of that, the extension given to Moore can only be read as a good sign by Mariners fans if they view it through the following context: We’re going for it and we’ll spend any amount for anybody.

The extension announcement does represent one of the headline highlights of a generally quiet offseason in Seattle, but even that fact involves irony. Prior to the Moore extension, Dipoto had arguably made only four personnel moves impacting the big league roster (including a trade for Daulton Varsho), and all four of those involved acquisitions whose arrival will shove Moore further down the team’s bench.

In December, Dipoto consummated a deal with the Brewers that will bring in Kolten Wong to play second base. That deal came at the cost of Abraham Toro and Jesse Winker.

Then in January, the Mariners signed free agent infielder Tommy La Stella, whose 2022 experience in San Francisco includes playing time at three of the four infield positions.

On the Seattle depth chart, Wong is the projected starter at second, followed by La Stella and then Moore.

Theoretically, Moore still has value as a backup outfielder, but that theory overlooks the team’s other two offseason personnel moves of significance. They signed free agent A.J. Pollock to play left field and acquired Teoscar Hernandez from Toronto to hold down right.

Does Moore look like a fit for time in center field? Not with rookie of the year Julio Rodriguez in place.

In sum, the Mariners just gave a three-year, $8.875 million extension to a player who has generated no meaningful value and who they have spent the entire offseason marginalizing.

Things must be going very well in Seattle.