50 in 50: Mariners’ Self-Inflicted 2026 Disaster Most Disappointing in Team History

There have been many bad seasons in Mariners history, far more in fact than there have been good years. It took Seattle 15 seasons to have a winning record, after all, and this is the team that won 116 games in a season and didn’t make the World Series. The Mariners, of course, have never made the World Series, the only team in baseball with that dishonorable feat on its name.

The 50-year history of the Mariners has been defined, more than that of any sporting club this side of the Buffalo Sabres, by unceasing failure. And yet the game has cultivated an unyielding nostalgia in Rain City for days that did not end in glory.

And yet out of all the seasons the team of failure has played, 2026 found a way to be the most singularly disappointing. What happened was laughably preventable and cartoonishly immense, at once utterly unforeseen and perfectly predictable, and until baseball starts again - an unknown date courtesy of the coming labor war - it will be all that the M’s can think about.

Last year, the Mariners came closer than ever to their first world series berth, only stayed by a former Astro’s gut-punching home run to send the Blue Jays to the Fall Classic. One rival, it seemed, was replaced by another, and a not insignificant portion of the Emerald City found themselves rooting for the hegemonic Dodgers’ eventual repeat.

When the 2026 season began, the message from the clubhouse and the organization was clear: World Series or bust. The Mariners set out for a mandate, to take their place in the sun, to become baseball’s next dynasty. More resonant with the long-beleaguered fans was the simple idea of finally going to the mountaintop.