Grading Jerry Dipoto and the Seattle Mariners front office at the season’s midway point
Acquired or traded
Dipoto was among the more active GMs in team-to-team swapping this off season. He moved eight players into Seattle via trade, waiver claim or purchase, while trading, selling or waiving seven others. One, infielder Nick Solak, was acquired by Dipoto and then waived a few days later without ever actually donning a Mariners uniform.
His biggest offseason “get” has thus far turned into Dipoto’s biggest offseason mistake. That was the December deal with Milwaukee that landed Kolten Wong to play second base for Seattle at the cost of Abraham Toro and Jesse Winker.
Neither side has been helped by the deal, but the brake that Wong has applied to the Mariners’ hopes of again reaching the playoffs is significant. In 49 games, Wong is hitting .160 with just one home run, a .449 OPS, and negative defensive numbers. That puts his WAA contribution, if you can call it that, at -1.7.
Dipoto also swung a trade with Toronto that brought Seattle outfielder Teoscar Hernandez for pitcher Erik Swanson and a minor leaguer. Hernandez is hitting .254, and he’s already struck out a league-leading 110 times. He’s never been known as a contact hitter. However, at the season’s halfway point, Hernandez is already two-thirds of the way to his career high in that statistic.
Largely because of Wong, the sum of all of Dipoto’s acquisitions amounts to -1.0 WAA.
He’s done markedly better at foisting off non-performers on other teams. Dipoto has unloaded eight players to rival clubs, and seven of those eight have produced negative values for their new teams.
Dragging down the competition isn’t really the job of a GM, but it’s a nice fringe benefit.
Free agency
Unlike a lot of his fellow team execs, Dipoto does not usually prefer straight owner-to-player negotiations. He’s only added seven players this season via free agency, extension or re-signing.
The most obvious and notable of those seven moves was internal; the locking up of second-year All-Star center fielder Julio Rodriguez.
Dipoto and Rodriguez came to terms on a $210 million contract that will keep Rodriguez occupied in Seattle through at least 2034 (there are player options, but they don’t kick in until 2030).
With Rodriguez doing his usual exceptional job in center field — he’s carrying a +1.1 WAA through the season’s first half — that’s a win for Dipoto.
The problem is that Rodriguez is literally the only win. Dipoto swung six other free agent deals, and all six of them have thus far worked out badly for the Mariners.
From both a name and a results standpoint, the worst was the signing of A.J. Pollock for $7 million. At 35, Pollock is giving every indication that he has nothing left; he’s hitting .155 with a disastrous .506 OPS and only saw the field a dozen times since June 1. He’s carrying a -1.0 WAA and the only question is whether there’s any market left for him.
Farm system
Four of the five first-year players who have seen action with the Mariners in 2023 are still on the active roster as this is written, so there’s hope for the Dipoto Class of 2023. But it’s a safe bet that there are no Julio Rodriguez types in this class.
The only position player who graduated from the Mariners system this year is infielder Joe Caballero. Called up in April, he’s been in 52 games with a .242 average. But he’s also shown some power and enough baserunning savvy to steal 11 in 13 tries. All of that leaves his WAA at an impressive +1.1.
Bryce Miller is a rotation starter called up in early May and given 11 starts since then. He’s held his own, producing a 5-3 record and 3.97 ERA in 59 innings, good for a +0.2 WAA.
Ty Adcock is a bullpen filler piece off to a spectacular start. Called up from Arkansas in mid-June, Adcock hasn’t allowed a run or walked a batter in seven appearances encompassing nine innings. It would be hard to do much better than that.
Dylan Woo, a starter, got the call in early June and has a 4.37 ERA in 23 innings across five starts.
Darren McCaughan has been up and down twice this spring, and is presently sentenced to the IL with an arm injury.
Overall
Unusually for Dipoto, the strength of his 2023 season hasn’t been any of the deals he’s swung but his system products. Although none are as glamorous as Rodriguez, together they’ve provided +1.4 WAA worth of help to a team that has needed that help.
Here’s the first-half report card on the Mariners front office. Note that grades for players departing the organization are based on the reverse of those players’ WAAs with their new teams.
Mode WAA Grade
Acquired -1.0 D
Traded +0.4 C
Signed -0.9 C
FA Lost -0.1 C
Rookies +1.4 B
Overall -0.8 C
As previously noted, Dipoto has made 32 personnel moves since the end of the 2022 season. Those moves have split almost equally: 14 have been positive, 15 negative and three neutral. His overall rating, while modestly negative, is within the normal range.
A curious note regarding Dipoto: While he is generally recognized as an excellent trade negotiator, he’s never actually produced a trade class that delivered a positive WAA for his team the following year. His 2023 trade class (Wong, Hernandez and the rest) is following in that pattern with its -1.0 score at the season’s midway point.
In fact if you were somehow able to magically erase every trade Dipoto had ever made since becoming general manager of the Seattle Mariners prior to the 2016 season, his teams would have been about 24 games better off.
dark. Next. Staying in the division and grading the Angels