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Last year was a welcome to the show for Troup alum Ryan Bliss as he made his MLB debut. This year will be all about trying to solidify himself as a regular or even full-time starter for the Seattle Mariners.

The Mariners are heading into the 2025 season without locked-in starters in the middle of the infield and the former Auburn Tiger showed flashes in limited duty in 2024.

Bliss appeared in 33 games a season ago for Seattle, in which he hit .222 with two home runs and nine RBIs. On defense, he committed just one error.

It was a bit of a slow start to life in the major leagues, but Bliss put himself on the map when he scored the winning run in the eighth inning of a 4-2 win over the Los Angeles Angels. 

Bliss made his debut on May 28 and earned his first hit in the sixth inning of a game against the Angels on June 1.

“For me, it’s just being a spark plug,” Bliss said after that game. “However I can get on base, whether that’s a hit or there’s a walk, getting on base and letting my speed and my baserunning affect the game.”

It was a whirlwind to start his MLB journey, but Bliss eventually found his footing.

We had a day game in Tacoma yesterday, and John Russell, our manager, called me and said, ‘You won’t be making the flight to Sacramento because you’d be staying here with the big league team,’ so it was a pretty cool moment. It was awesome,” Bliss told reporters after getting the call to the major leagues in May of last season. “It was actually a great experience because my (family) was here in Tacoma for the holiday weekend and that’s about to take them to the airport to head back to Atlanta and I called them, they canceled everything and now we’re here.  

“I had a few tears coming down myself.”

The former Troup Tiger would split time between Seattle and its AAA team, Tacoma. Bliss would play in his final game in the MLB in 2024 on Aug. 9, going out with a bang, hitting a 410-foot home run in front of a home crowd in Seattle.

The 5-foot-7 infielder might not be the biggest player on the field, but he possesses blazing speed, clocking in at a high of over 28 MPH last season. Bliss stole just five bases during his debut season, but Seattle fans can expect to see more of him kicking up dirt on the base paths. He had back-to-back 50+ steal seasons in the minor leagues. 

The stop-and-go nature of Bliss’ 2024 season did not allow him much consistency. That will be key this season, finding consistency and staying in the major leagues. 

Seattle will play 33 games during spring training, starting on Feb. 21. 

Outside of baseball, it was a busy 2024 for Bliss, who has put his newfound status as an MLBer to good use. Bliss, who got engaged to his fiancée   Katelynn Hadjopoulos this offseason, originally from Greeneville, Tennessee, has been spending his offseason helping the people affected by Hurricane Helene last fall.

“The water plant that’s there, that’s been up for years, it’s no longer even a water plant. It’s just mud. Her family, luckily, were in an area that got hit. But … they have their house, they just have no running water so they’ve actually been living on their campground. (We) didn’t know what to do because we were literally across the country,” Bliss said in a social media post.

Bliss donated $1,000 and raised over $10,000 for people affected by the hurricane.