Grading Jerry Dipoto and the Seattle Mariners front office at the season’s midway point
By Bill Felber
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.