Updated Player Rankings for Athletics vs Mariners – August 22nd, 2025

Athletics

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Seattle Mariners

As the Seattle Mariners host the Oakland Athletics on August 22, 2025, both teams come into the matchup with contrasting momentum. The Mariners are performing well this season with a record of 68-60, sitting above .500, while the Athletics, at 59-70, are struggling to find their footing. In their most recent games, Seattle faced a tough loss, falling 11-2, while Oakland secured a win with an 8-3 scoreline, signaling their potential to create some noise despite their overall disappointing season.

Seattle plans to send Bryan Woo to the mound, who ranks as the 16th best starting pitcher in MLB according to advanced stats. Woo boasts a solid 3.02 ERA and has shown remarkable consistency throughout the year with a 10-7 record over 24 starts. His ability to pitch 6.0 innings while allowing an average of just 2.3 earned runs highlights his caliber. However, he has struggled with allowing an average of 4.9 hits, making him vulnerable to a potent Athletics lineup that ranks 5th in home runs with 178 this season.

On the opposing side, Luis Morales, despite his excellent 1.86 ERA, is only projected to pitch around 4.7 innings and has seen predictive metrics suggest he might regress. Morales’s high flyball rate (50 FB%) may benefit the Mariners, who also rank 3rd in MLB in home runs.

The Mariners’ offense, while ranked 12th overall, possesses considerable power that could exploit Morales’s weaknesses. Their current offensive leader is in the midst of a strong stretch, recording a .333 batting average over the past week, complementing the team’s high slugging potential. This game carries significant weight, especially for the Mariners, who look to recover from their last outing and chain together wins against a struggling opponent.

Athletics Insights

• Luis Morales – Over/Under 14.5 Pitching Outs (-170/+130)
  Compared to the average pitcher, Luis Morales has been granted a shorter leash than the typical pitcher this year, throwing an -8.3 fewer adjusted pitches each game.
  Explain: Pitchers with a shorter leash are more likely to get pulled earlier in games and record fewer outs.
• Nick Kurtz – Over/Under 1.5 Total Bases (+100/-130)
  The leading projection system (THE BAT X) estimates Nicholas Kurtz’s true offensive talent to be a .350, indicating that he has experienced some positive variance this year given the .086 discrepancy between that mark and his actual .436 wOBA.
  Explain: Players that are overperforming should be expected to play worse going forward, which can create value on prop Unders if the lines are too heavily weighing the lucky, to-date overperformance.
• It may be smart to expect negative regression for the Athletics offense in the future, given that the leading projection system (THE BAT X) sees them as the 5th-luckiest offense in MLB this year.
  Explain: When teams overperform their projected talent level, markets may overvalue them even while they are likely to perform worse in the near future.

Seattle Mariners Insights

• Bryan Woo – Over/Under 6.5 Strikeouts (-110/-120)
  It may come as a surprise, but fastballs are generally a pitcher’s least effective pitch. Bryan Woo has relied on his fastball a lot this year, though: 72.4% of the time, checking in at the 100th percentile.
  Explain: Fastballs are the one easiest pitches to hit and generate few strikeouts, so pitchers who rely too heavily on them tend to be less effective than they otherwise would be.
• Jorge Polanco – Over/Under 0.5 Hits (-150/+120)
  Jorge Polanco is projected to hit 6th in the batting order in this matchup, which would be a downgrade from his 74% rate of hitting in the top-half of the lineup this year.
  Explain: The lower in the order a player bats, the fewer plate appearances he will get and the fewer opportunities he will get to hit the Over for every market. A player who hits lower in the order than he normally does may provide extra value opportunity since the market may be based on him hitting higher.
• Seattle Mariners – 2H Moneyline
  The Seattle Mariners bullpen projects as the 3rd-best in Major League Baseball, according to the leading projection system (THE BAT).
  Explain: Most bettors only consider the starting pitcher, but a strong bullpen sneakily creates a tougher matchup for the opposing offense and suppresses a game’s runs.

Betting Trends

• Over/Under 8.5 Game Total (-105/-115)
  The Seattle Mariners have hit the Game Total Over in 60 of their last 108 games (+11.70 Units / 10% ROI)
• Athletics – Moneyline (+185)
  The Athletics have hit the Moneyline in 33 of their last 60 games (+11.75 Units / 19% ROI)
• Josh Naylor – Over/Under 0.5 Home Runs (+460/-750)
  Josh Naylor has hit the Home Runs Over in 3 of his last 5 games at home (+14.70 Units / 294% ROI)