Why versatile Brendan Donovan may be the Mariners’ missing piece | Commentary
SEATTLE – A sign says plenty about Brendan Donovan’s approach.
The Mariners’ do-everything All-Star is the son of retired U.S. Army Col. Jim Donovan, and was raised with immense respect for the military community. After being drafted by St. Louis in the seventh round of the 2018 MLB draft, Brendan gravitated to Cardinals mental skills and well-being coordinator Brian Alazzawi, whose background included 18 years with the Navy SEALs.
In 2022, Alazzawi gifted the revelatory rookie a sign the SEALs hung during training. Which is how this motivational memento lived for years in Donovan’s locker:
THE ENEMY THANKS YOU FOR NOT GIVING 100% TODAY
The point was not to draw impossible parallels between military service and MLB, a glorified children’s game with comparably insignificant stakes. The point was to emphasize that, for Donovan, effort is everything. It’s how he got here, with unremarkable measurables but a relentless motor. It’s why he might be the Mariners’ missing piece.
“It was that reminder that when I show up to the field every day, it doesn’t matter how you’re feeling or how the team’s doing. It’s a reminder for me to give my best today,” Donovan said last month. “It’s kind of cool, because (Mariners manager) Dan Wilson was just saying, ‘We don’t ask anything of you guys but your best.’ ”
Donovan’s best should make the AL West champion Mariners even better. The 29-year-old was a first-time All-Star in 2025, when he slashed .287/.353/.422 and struck out just 13% of the time (14th in MLB). He’s a tailor-made leadoff man and bat-to-ball machine with reliable defense at three separate spots. Which means, on a team with World Series aspirations, he’s exactly what the Mariners missed.
With a career .282/.361/.411 slash line in four seasons and 492 games, he’s also a proven commodity in his prime. He’ll join catcher Cal Raleigh, center fielder Julio Rodríguez, first baseman Josh Naylor and left fielder Randy Arozarena as mainstays in a menacing Mariners lineup.
But it wasn’t always this way.
“When you get to the minor leagues, you never really know (if you’ll make it),” said Donovan, once an unheralded prospect out of the University of South Alabama. “2019 was my first full minor league season, and I got off to a pretty rough start and had to claw out of that hole. Then we had COVID and I wasn’t sure. Then I came back in 2021 and knew I needed to have some sense of urgency. That was the year I realized, ‘I think I can make it.’ I jumped from High-A to the taxi squad of the big leagues.”
He stuck because of that indomitable daily drive … and because of an ability/willingness to play anywhere. Even at South Alabama he bounced between third base, first base, shortstop, left and right field. With the Cardinals, he became the first MLB player since 1900 to make his first four starts at four different infield positions. As a rookie, he won the National League’s inaugural utility Gold Glove Award.
He’s a jack of all trades, and a master of many.
But he prepares like an unproven prospect clawing to make the club.
“I don’t think that’ll ever leave me,” said Donovan, who Seattle acquired in a three-team deal with St. Louis and Tampa Bay. “I think it’s important to have a chip on your shoulder. My goal every year is to make the team out of camp, and that’s a goal I set for myself. Obviously I was traded over here, but I still look at that as an opportunity. I want to make the team first.”
As opening day looms, Donovan is a mortal lock to make the Mariners. He’s expected to start the season at third base, with the flexibility to flip to second or left field as well. The performance of 22-year-old second baseman Cole Young and ascending 20-year-old third baseman/shortstop Colt Emerson could impact his primary position.
But that’s the beauty in Donovan’s transferable defensive talent. He has a rare ability to make the Mariners right.
Offensively, Seattle – which has searched for a cemented leadoff man for several seasons – need look no further. Donovan entered the weekend with a .429 average and a .500 on-base percentage in 35 at-bats this spring.
“He’s a pro, a stinkin’ pro,” Mariners hitting coach Kevin Seitzer raved in a recent interview with 710 AM Seattle Sports. “Fans are going to love this dude. They’re going to soak him up the way they did Naylor last year.”
He’s a pro and an All-Star, thanks to that approach, and a sign that has yet to travel to T-Mobile Park. It’s currently displayed on a shelf in his home office in Alabama, though Donovan noted “I would like for it to make its way to Seattle.”
Regardless, it’s about the sentiment more than the sign.
For Donovan, effort is (still) everything.
“It’s still something that I live by,” he said. “This game is so volatile and anything can happen. So I just show up each day and try to be a great teammate and attack the day.”