Mariners decline Bryce Miller option, keep Andrés Muñoz

Seattle had 3 club options to decide on, and the front office split them. Here's how the beat posted it.

The Miller one sounds scarier than it is. Declining the option doesn't send him anywhere. He's still Seattle's guy and heads into his second-to-last year of arbitration, so the Mariners can still keep him. They just won't pay him the $6.075 million number written into the deal. The likely read is that they'd rather go through the arbitration process than lock in that figure, which makes sense after the year he had: 4-10 with a 4.17 ERA over 22 games (21 starts), 119 strikeouts and 38 walks in 118 2/3 innings.

That line doesn't show how strange his season was. Miller opened 2026 on the injured list, pitched well after he came back in mid-May, and then didn't win any of his last 13 starts. Some of that is on the run support and some of it is on him, but you don't hand guaranteed money to a guy whose year ended like that when you can control him anyway.

Muñoz was the easy call, even off his worst season. The 2-time All-Star finished with 28 saves but posted a career-high 4.24 ERA and tied for the MLB lead with 10 blown saves. He still struck out 89 in 57 1/3 innings, he's 27, and $9 million for an elite-stuff closer is a bargain. Seattle also holds another $9 million club option on him for 2028, so this deal stays team-friendly for a while yet.

Robles is the actual goodbye. After his breakout 2024, he played just 97 games over the last 2 seasons, and in 2026 he hit.256/.315/.308 with 0 homers and 10 steals in 65 games. Paying $9 million for that was never going to happen. He goes into a free agent class that already includes Randy Arozarena, Taylor Ward and J.P. Crawford, which means Seattle has a lot of outfield and lineup work to do this winter.

Less than an hour later the Mariners made their first addition of the offseason, and it was a small one.

McCray is a depth flier, not a Robles replacement. He had 11 hits in 77 big league at-bats this year and a.708 OPS at Triple-A, but he still has an option remaining, so Seattle can keep him in Tacoma without exposing him. Getting the 40-man down to 35 leaves room to work. The real offseason starts when the Mariners decide what to do about Arozarena, Ward and Crawford, and whether Miller's arbitration number turns into a bigger conversation about his future here.