SEATTLE – When Jerry Dipoto took over baseball operations for the Mariners a decade ago, his initial goals were fairly modest.
“To somehow create a level of stability,” he said, looking back in a recent interview. “To be a consistent contender.”
He’s built a team with designs on something more now. Much, much more.
“This team has the talent to go win a World Series,” Dipoto said. “And that’s the first time since I’ve been here that we can say that with a degree of confidence.”
There is a growing belief, and determination, among players and coaches inside the Mariners clubhouse that the franchise’s first World Series berth is not merely possible … but an expectation.
And that might be the greatest thing this front office regime has achieved.
“It’s not easy to build stability, and if you look back 10 years ago, that wasn’t a hallmark (for the franchise),” Dipoto said. “Credit to a lot of people who have been here for many, many years, including our players. It’s a very stable roster now. In our early years, it wasn’t like that. There was a lot of what seemed like chaos at times, but we managed to work our way through it.
“Now we have an expectation of ourselves, and that’s been a big difference.”
He doesn’t expect to slow down now.
With the best catcher (Cal Raleigh) and best center fielder (Julio Rodríguez) in baseball, and with what he still believes is an elite pitching staff – on top of one of the sport’s best farm systems – Dipoto is ready to push expectations to a place they’ve never been in Seattle.
“I would be embarrassed,” he said, “if our next 10 years aren’t better than our last 10 years.”
‘Watershed moment’
One of the most important conversations Dipoto has had over the last decade came at a steakhouse near the Mariners spring training facility in Peoria, Arizona, not long after a disappointing 2023 season ended.
Over lunch, Dipoto and Raleigh sat down for a frank discussion.
“I think he needed to hear what we were trying to get to,” Dipoto said.
Publicly, Raleigh had made his feelings known at the end of the ’23 season, when he questioned the organization’s commitment to winning.
Privately, Dipoto wanted the future All-Star catcher and clubhouse leader to have a better understanding of the organization’s broader vision.
The Mariners had ended a 21-year playoff drought in 2022, the culmination of a three-year rebuilding effort that marked a new high point for Dipoto’s front office.
But much of the goodwill created among the fanbase was lost late in ’23, when the team collapsed in September and missed the playoffs by one game. Raleigh’s public criticism was followed a few days later by a news conference during which Dipoto asked fans to be patient as the club constructed a sustainable roster.
That was the backdrop of the lunch meeting for Dipoto and Raleigh, and the conversation they had that day helped them uncover common ground.
Since then, they’ve had an open line of communication, and Raleigh will often check in with Dipoto about the front office’s thinking.
“That was a watershed moment,” Dipoto said. “I’ve said it before, and I mean it sincerely: He had the courage to step out and say something, and I think it led to a much clearer and better relationship, not just between he and I, but between he and the organization at large.”
A little more than a year later, Raleigh signed a six-year, $105-million contract extension with the Mariners, and his historic 60-homer season this season culminated Wednesday night in the franchise’s first AL West title since 2001.
During a Champagne celebration, Raleigh and Dipoto shared a bear hug and a vision for where this team could be headed.
“He’s been here a long time and he’s done a great job putting this team together and just sticking with the process,” Raleigh said. “He wants to win just as bad as any of us in this clubhouse.”
It’s trade season (always)
Named the Mariners general manager on Sept. 28, 2015, Dipoto has been one of MLB’s most active executives on the trade market, executing 190 trades over the last 10 years.
The Mariners have built a strong reputation for their pitching development, and Raleigh and Rodríguez are the superstar homegrown talents who have signed long-term extensions to stay in Seattle.
It’s telling that players who were Seattle’s first-round picks in five consecutive drafts – Logan Gilbert (2018), George Kirby (2019), Emerson Hancock (2020), Harry Ford (2021) and Cole Young (2022) – are all on the M’s active roster. A sixth first-rounder – 20-year-old shortstop Colt Emerson – could be knocking on the door to open the 2026 season, further evidence that the Mariners have hit on a viable formula in their draft-develop-trade operation.
Much of the rest of the roster has arrived via trade – Luis Castillo, Andrés Muñoz, Matt Brash, Randy Arozarena, Eugenio Suárez, Josh Naylor, Jorge Polanco, Dominic Canzone, Luke Raley, among others – and Dipoto doesn’t expect the club’s roster-building philosophy to change anytime soon.
“Trading is a foundational part of what we do,” he said.
The Mariners have been particularly successful at acquiring players during the July trade-deadline window, when they tend to have access to the type of players not necessarily available over the winter.
The latest example of that is Naylor, the first baseman acquired from Arizona this summer who quickly became a fan favorite (and, yes, someone the Mariners are hoping to re-sign this winter when Naylor tests free agency).
“The deadline has been a really productive time, and I don’t know what the difference is, to be honest with you,” Dipoto said. “But it has proven to be a more productive thing for us, so we’ve just leaned into it.”
Dipoto, promoted to president of baseball operations in 2021, was asked how he has evolved over the past decade.
“I’m more patient than I’ve ever been,” he said.
In his early days as an executive – first with the Diamondbacks and Angels, and the Mariners – Dipoto acknowledged he had to be “in the driver’s seat” with everything. He’s learned to cede control, leaning more and more on general manager Justin Hollander, who took the lead on a several high-profile deals the past couple years – notably Raleigh’s extension, plus the Polanco, Suárez and Naylor trades.
Around Dipoto and Hollander, the Mariners have created stability in their front office with long-tenured executives in key areas: VP/assistant GM Andy McKay; Scott Hunter, VP of amateur scouting; assistant GM Joel Firman; David Hesslink, VP/baseball product; Jack Mosimann, VP of operations; Frankie Thon Jr., senior director of international scouting; Tim Stanton, VP of baseball administration; Dave Cameron, senior director of player procurement, among others.
That front-office stability has led to a level of stability on the field, too.
“I look back and there’s certain things I wish we could have done better. I wish we could have won, you know, one or two more games in a number of different years,” Dipoto said. “But we can’t go back and redo it. It’s about moving forward. We’ve developed stability in how we draft. We’ve developed stability in how we develop players. We’ve developed a system that actually churns (major-league players). You have to build a foundation, and that takes time, and I’m pretty proud of what we’ve done.
“I think we’ve done a lot of the things that we needed to do to build a better future for the Mariners.”