Mariners primed to wipe out playoff drought – but lockout needs to end
PEORIA, Ariz. – The man who has barely gone a week, let alone 48 hours, without making a trade, is now going on three months without a major transaction. Jerry Dipoto, Seattle Mariners president of baseball operations, looked surprisingly calm last week on the first day of workouts at their spring training complex.
The first day of spring training is always an adrenaline rush for every front office executive, manager, coach and player, getting together for the first time in four months, and dreaming about the potential of the next six months.
It was no different last week in Peoria. You saw players giving each other hugs, asking about their winters, hearing the sound of cleats on the pavement and dirt, balls popping into mitts on the pitching mounds, and balls being hit in the batting cages and back fields.
It felt almost like any other first day of spring training – except there were no major league players in sight.
The only star player at the complex was 48-year-old Ichiro Suzuki, and although he may have been in the best shape of any of the 50-some players in camp, he retired three years ago.
The major league players are prohibited from entering the Mariners complex because of the lockout by MLB owners.
They can’t train at the complex. They can’t speak to the trainers. They can’t even say hello to the coaches or front office executives.
It didn’t stop the handful of fans waiting at the front gate for autographs, or asking when there will be spring training games. But with no major leaguers around, it was a little difficult for them to get excited about a season in which they have no idea when it will start.
Dipoto knows that baseball’s fate is completely out of his hands, just as it was in 1994 when he was pitching for Cleveland when the players went on strike in August, with baseball games not returning until eight months later.
Still, despite all the uncertainty, and the ensuing chaos once the lockout ends,
Dipoto refuses to let the inconvenience dampen his enthusiasm.
This could be the year.
This should be the season the Mariners finally end the 21-year drought, the longest skein without a playoff berth in North American professional team sports.
Dipoto knows it. The minor league players in the Mariners camp know it.
And so will the Mariners’ major league players once they’re permitted into camp.
The Mariners, the lovable but forgotten team in the Pacific Northwest, soon could be the darlings of baseball.
“It’s nice that people are noticing what’s happening,” Dipoto tells USA TODAY Sports. “Good things are happening here. It was nice to see them cross that threshold last year and become a contending team. We proved that we can be good.
“Now we’ve got to go out and take the next step.”
This is a team that started scaring the daylights out of everyone a year ago, finishing with a 90-72 record – its best since 2003 – and in playoff contention until
the final day of the regular season.
The Mariners did this with the second youngest team in the American League with an offense that scored 697 runs, with only three AL teams scoring fewer runs.
They added Cy Young winner Robbie Ray on a five-year, $115 million contract and acquired All-Star second baseman Adam Frazier before the lockout. They now are on the lookout for a right-handed power bat, preferably a third baseman to replace Kyle Seager, and a left-handed hitting multidimensional outfielder.
“We wanted to get better and address some needs, and we did that,” Dipoto says. “We know we still have things left we need to address.”
Dipoto certainly will be ultra-aggressive once the lockout lifts, but for the past 2 months he has been relegated to only social calls with his peers. He has fed his competitiveness by attending every single home game of the NHL expansion Seattle Kraken.
“Thank God for the Seattle Kraken,” Dipoto says. “I love hockey. It gave me a relief, something to do. It’s been great to watch. The wins and losses haven’t been great. But it’s easy to root for the players. I see what they’re doing. It’s not terribly different than what we did when I got here.”
Dipoto, who arrived in 2016, finally has the Mariners on the brink of greatness, knocking on the postseason door, while having the top-ranked farm system in the game, according to Baseball America.
They have four of the top 50 prospects in baseball with outfielders Julio Rodriguez, shortstop Noelvi Marte, right-hander George Kirby and catcher Harry Ford.
Now, Dipoto can finally see much of his prized collection of minor league talent in person with their minicamp beginning at their spring training complex. They have about six of their top 10 prospects in camp – including Kirby, Ford and pitchers Emerson Hancock and Brandon Williamson – and several of those could be called up during the regular season. Others could be used in potential trades.
“I haven’t seen a lot of these players since 2019 other than watching on MILB TV and video because of the COVID and quarantine protocols,” says Dipoto. “I haven’t seen our (Class AA) team in Arkansas since 2019. I haven’t been to (Class A) Modesto (California). It’s been a really weird two years. A lot of these guys haven’t even played a full minor league season.”
Now, these minor leaguers have the camp all to themselves, with Mariners manager Scott Servais and his entire major league coaching staff watching every move.
Dipoto and his staff are just like everyone else, waiting for the lockout to end and hoping their players show up prepared to take the Mariners where they have never gone in two decades.
“We have yet to see all of our guys, and that’s where you really get excited,” Dipoto says. “Obviously, there’s still some offseason left in a lot of ways. We’re not done building our team. We have to assess where we are before determining how excited we should be.
“But at the end of the day we’re going to focus on what we can control, which is this group, and providing them with an opportunity to better themselves.
“Anything else, well, we just have to wait.”