The Seattle Mariners were a surprise last season, but for all the wrong reasons. The expectations were high for the Mariners, coming off a year in which the postseason berth was lost on the final day of the 2014 season. They added power bat Nelson Cruz, who was coming off a 40 home run season. Cruz proceeded to hit 44 home runs in 2015, but it wasn’t enough to save the Mariners’ season.

Jerry Dipoto came in as the new GM and made plenty of changes, but the core of the roster is still the same. Robinson Cano is still the face of the offense, with Kyle Seager and Cruz still backing him up. Felix Hernandez still anchors the rotation that includes familiar faces Hisashi Iwakuma and Taijuan Walker. For some reason though, the high expectations of last season are lost with only hope of a fight for a playoff berth.

The PECOTA rankings (a well-known sabermetrics system for predictions) have the Mariners at 84-78, just missing the last Eild Card spot to the Toronto Blue Jays. Fangraphs has the Mariners even worse at 76-86 with no hope of a playoff spot. On CBS Sports, all but one of five analysts have the Mariners missing the playoffs.

The Mariners have somehow kept most of their core but have extremely worse expectations. I’m not sure I understand the logic of the analysts who they were burned last year by their predictions and won’t be fooled again, but also say that Cano is going to bounce back and Walker is set for a breakout year. If Cano has a bounce-back season and Walker breaks out, I don’t see how the Mariners struggle.

While I’m not comfortable saying the Mariners will make the playoffs, they will definitely be in the hunt until the end this year. Last year has somehow created this situation where the Mariners are underrated although they seem to look like a better team on paper. Losing Brad Miller, Logan Morrison and Mark Trumbo seems like a blessing when their replacements are effectively Nori Aoki, Adam Lind and Ketel Marte.

The rotation is better as well, adding innings-eater Wade Miley and newcomer Nathan Karns. The bullpen, which was the major flaw of the Mariners in 2015, has been completely overhauled. Personally, I would take the bullpen this year (minus the injuries so far) over last year’s any day.

But being underrated will be a blessing this year, as it will hopefully give the Mariners a chip on their shoulders. Being seen as the front-runners didn’t help one bit in 2015, so one can only hope that being the underdog will prove to be successful in 2016.