Mariners focus on Bryce Miller after agreeing terms with 6 players

The Seattle Mariners have avoided arbitration with Logan Gilbert, Randy Arozarena and others, but what will happen with Bryce Miller?

Thursday saw the Mariners take another step towards rounding out their roster for the 2026 season, as Executive Vice President and General Manager of Baseball Operations Justin Hollander confirmed terms had been agreed with six arbitration eligible players. This included Randy Arozarena, Matt Brash, Logan Gilbert, George Kirby, Luke Raley and Gabe Speier.

Arozarena receives a jump in his salary from $11.3 million to $15.65 million in his final year of arbitration eligibility, while Brash improves to $1.55 million. Gilbert goes up to $10.927 million, but will continue to be worth keeping an eye on as the Mariners ideally want to get him signed to a long-term contract extension sooner than later.

Kirby improves from $4.33 million to $6.55 million, Raley will get $2.05 million and Speier deservedly gets a bump up to $2.125 million. This leaves Bryce Miller as the only arbitration eligible player not to agree terms on his salary for 2026.

Bryce Miller and M’s not THAT far apart

Miller had been projected to receive around $2.4 million, but as per multiple reports filed for $2.625 million. The Mariners responded by offering $2.25 million, making for a gap of $375,00, which while not significant still leaves the two sides in limbo as things stand.

It will be interesting to see if the Mariners and Miller can agree terms ahead of a potential arbitration hearing in the coming weeks. Heck, if they split they split the difference we come out at $2.4375 million, which is certainly something the organization can afford.

In this respect though, it’s not as if $2.625 million will exactly put the Mariners in the poorhouse either. As such, what they have offered Miller does seemingly allude to still needing to see more from him, in what is a delicate situation.

Miller was in the ascendancy entering last season, coming off a 2024 campaign where he led a quality Mariners rotation with a 3.4 bWAR and was second with a 2.94 ERA and 126 ERA+. He also produced a career-low 0.976 WHIP, to establish himself as an underrated and invaluable pitcher in Seattle.

However, the 2025 season turned out to be an extremely tough one for Miller, as he continually struggled with right elbow issues dating back to the end of the previous year. He endured two stretches on the injured list and was limited to 18 regular season starts.

As a result it was no surprise Miller suffered, with him laboring to a 5.68 ERA, 5.17 FIP, 1.406 WHIP and unsightly -0.8 bWAR. His Baseball Savant page offered more insight on his struggles, highlighted (lowlighted?) by ranking in the first percentile for Avg Exit Velo and second percentile for Hard-Hit %.

Big rebound helps the Mariners in the playoffs

In fairness to Miller though he rebounded tremendously in the playoffs to help an injury-impacted pitching staff, as he produced a 2.51 ERA in 14.1 combined innings over three starts. The highlight of this was a stunning performance in Game 1 of the ALCS versus the Toronto Blue Jays, when he allowed just two hits and one run over 6.0 sterling innings in what was ultimately a 3-1 win.

On top of all this, as reported in late October by Adam Jude of The Seattle Times, Miller is no longer expected to need surgery and should be ready to go from the start of the season. At the same time though the Mariners are still taking a cautious approach, which will likely include at least one gel cortisone injection.

This cautious approach has now extended to the Mariners’ approach in respect of the $2.25 million they have offered Miller for the 2026 season. It remains to be seen how this all plays out, but one thing which might help the righty is that the organization usually prefers to avoid going to arbitration hearings.

Overall, in addition to the six aforementioned players who did avoid arbitration, the Mariners already had nine players under contract for the 2026 season and 24 pre-arbitration eligible players who were already tendered a contract. As a result, the M’s Major League 40-man roster is currently full at 40 players.

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Photos court​‌esy of Tim Rogers Photography

What’s your take on Miller? What do you predict he will end up receiving whether via arbitration or through an agreement with the Mariners beforehand? Let us know your thoughts in the comments section below.