SEATTLE – In the first significant shakeup of local baseball broadcasts in more than a decade, the Mariners are bringing back familiar voices to replace longtime TV partners Dave Sims and Mike Blowers.
Aaron Goldsmith will take over as the Mariners’ lead play-by-play voice for TV, and veteran ROOT Sports broadcaster Angie Mentink is set to be named the first woman in club history to serve a regular role as an in-game color analyst, sources with knowledge of the team’s broadcasting plans told the Seattle Times.
Mariners Hall of Fame right fielder Jay Buhner has also agreed to return to the TV booth as part of a four-person rotation of analysts, joining Mentink, Dave Valle and Ryan Rowland-Smith.
Blowers, the club’s lead analyst since 2007, will not return to Mariners broadcasts this year, sources said.
Sims, one of the Mariners’ lead play-by-play voices since 2007, was hired in November to be a New York Yankees’ radio broadcaster.
Rick Rizzs, the team’s popular radio play-by-play voice, is back for his 35th season calling Mariners games.
Rizzs will be joined in the booth by Gary Hill, who has been promoted to radio analyst. Hill has been part of Mariners radio since 2010, serving as the executive producer/engineer for the past seven seasons.
Veteran ROOT Sports reporters/hosts Brad Adam and Jen Mueller are also returning to Mariners broadcasts this season.
Goldsmith has been a play-by-play voice for the Mariners since 2013, splitting TV time with Sims and radio with Rizzs. He will now be the leading voice on TV.
In August 2021, Mentink became the first woman to work as a color analyst for a local Mariners broadcast. An All-American softball player at UW in the 1990s, she has since filled in for Blowers for dozens of games on various occasions.
Blowers, a popular Mariners third baseman in the ‘90s, did not return a message seeking comment.
Buhner, after his retirement as a ballplayer in 2001, spent the next four seasons as a part-time broadcaster for the club. He was inducted into the team’s Hall of Fame in 2004.
Valle, the Mariners’ catcher for 10 years from 1984-93, served as a regular analyst for M’s games from 1998-2006. Since then, he’s worked as part-time analyst for ROOT Sports, and has served in a similar role for Texas Rangers broadcasts. He has also worked as a broadcaster for MLB Network.
Rowland-Smith, the left-handed pitcher from Australia affectionately known as “Hyphen,” appeared in 115 games for the Mariners from 2007-10.
He’s been an analyst on ROOT Sports for pre- and postgame shows, and a fill-in analyst for game broadcasts. MLB Network also hired him as a part-time analyst last year.
Mentink, Buhner, Valle and Rowland-Smith will split up in-game duties and are also scheduled to join pre- and postgame shows.
The Mariners are working to finalize agreements with the broadcasters and are expected to announce the new lineup next week.