Jerry Dipoto’s 5 Best Moves as Seattle Mariners General Manager

Seattle Mariners GM Jerry Dipoto has come under fire in recent days, thanks in large part to a completely made up hysteria that he somehow misleads fans about the team time table. Today, we give him some props.

Since taking over as the Mariners General Manager in October of 2015, Jerry Dipoto has been the busiest GM in the game. At least, right up until this winter. With so many moves being made in his 4+ years at the helm of the Mariners, it is hard to remember them all. But some stick out above the rest.

Today, we are going to focus on 5 of the best moves Jerry Dipoto has made as GM of the Mariners. With the sheer volume of moves, some are bound to be good, just as some are bound to be bad. But despite what narrative the uniformed and disinterested masses wish for you to believe, Dipoto has done a nice job thus far.

Now, keep in mind, this is an editorial. Meaning the 5 moves I would call as Dipoto’s best may not be the 5 you would choose, and that is okay. Dipoto has made dozens of moves that have worked out well for Seattle, so narrowing it down to 5 isn’t an easy task.

And notice, that I haven’t used the word “transactions” before now. So while most of the following moves are a trade, in house roster decisions are still eligible for this list. Some of my choices are for personal reasons, others will be based purely on production and thought process behind the move itself. With that in mind, let’s get started.

5. Trading Taijuan Walker & Ketel Marte for Jean Segura & Mitch Haniger

Entering 2019, this deal looked like an absolute steal for the Mariners. Mitch Haniger was coming off an All-Star season and Jean Segura had turned in two All-Star level quality seasons before being shipped off to Philadelphia for a package that ultimately turned into J.P. Crawford, Isiah Campbell, 3 months of Edwin Encarnacion, and Juan Then.

But Ketel Marte had a coming-out season and Haniger missed most of the season with various injuries and the deal lost a bit of its shine amongst Mariners fans. At least to some. But at the end of the day, the Mariners got at least 2 All-Star seasons from Haniger and Segura and Dipoto’s valuation of both was spot on.

While Segura was coming off a big season in Arizona, there were still questions surrounding him. Many wondered if he could repeat his previous seasons’ numbers and most were convinced he couldn’t be an everyday shortstop. Dipoto gambled that he could and he was right.

All Haniger had done at the time was have a strong minor league season and flash in a short September call-up stint, but looked more like a 4th outfielder than anything else. Haniger almost immediately became the best all-around player on a good Mariners team.

Whether the Mariners get any more value out of Haniger, which is a relatively safe bet, or not doesn’t really matter. In this trade, Dipoto thought he knew more about upside in these two players than the rest of baseball did, and he was absolutely right.

This may be his best “pre-rebuild” move as Mariners GM and it was a damned good one too.

4. Tyler O’Neill for Marco Gonzales

I love this trade because it showed that Jerry Dipoto had some definable skill in identifying pitching talent that may have been overlooked. This deal was also a mic drop type of deal after many, myself included, ripped him for trading away one of the just 2 or 3 real prospects in his system for a soft-tossing lefty coming off Tommy John surgery.

I couldn’t even believe the return when it flashed across my screen. I assumed there had to be a third team involved or at least another player coming back to Seattle. And when that didn’t happen, I was borderline furious.

Now, after 2 full seasons of seeing a healthy Marco Gonzales, I would like to formally invite Mr. Dipoto to tell me just how wrong I was. Not only has Gonzales been the lower-end number 4 type of arm many predicted was his ceiling, but he has actually been a lot closer to a number 3 and may have entrenched himself as the only holdover from the last good Mariners team to the next one.

Over his first 2 full seasons with the Mariners, Gonzales has posted a 3.99 ERA, a 1.27 WHIP, a 106 ERA+, and 7.1 fWAR. Meanwhile, O’Neill has flashed the big-time power he always had but has struggled to make consistent enough contact to be a full-time regular.

But even if O’Neill reaches his ceiling as a power-hitting starter, Dipoto still did remarkably well in a deal so many assumed he lost. There is a bit of, “I told you so” vibes to this trade, which is why it sticks in my mind as one of Dipoto’s best.

I honestly love it when players prove me wrong. And in this case, both Marco Gonzales and Jerry Dipoto did just that. And for those reasons, I ranked this move as Jerry’s 4th best.

3. Converting Edwin Diaz to a reliever

See, I told you not all 5 moves were going to be trades. Instead, Dipoto gets credit for moving one of his few legitimate starting pitching prospects out of the rotation and into the bullpen. The result of such a bold move? The creation of one of the best relief seasons in baseball history and an insanely valuable trade asset.

The decision to move Diaz from the AA rotation to the bullpen was not a no-brainer. Diaz was (and still is) young and was on a good trajectory to join the Mariners rotation sometime in 2017. But the Mariners were somewhat surprisingly a playoff contender in 2016 and was in desperate need of bullpen help.

Dipoto’s decision to move Diaz to the bullpen, as well as the player development staffs tweak of speeding up his delivery, took Diaz from a 92-94 MPH fastball to a 96-99 MPH fastball with tremendous arm side run and he almost immediately became the best arm in the Mariners pen.

In his rookie season, Diaz appeared in 49 games, saving 18 and striking out 88 batters to just 15 walks in 51.2 innings pitched. Diaz followed that performance up with a good but not great 2017 before becoming nearly unhittable in 2018.

The decision to move Diaz to the bullpen was tremendous on every level. It helped Diaz reach the big leagues faster and significantly raised his ceiling and floor. It helped the Mariners win more games in the short-term. And it helped the Mariners to later capitalize on his tremendous value on the trade market.

Very rarely does one decision help the player in the short and long-term, as well as the team both in the short and long-term, but this decision by Dipoto did exactly that. Can you imagine if Dipoto hadn’t pulled the trigger and Diaz was kept in the rotation to see if he could finally develop that changeup?

Maybe he would still be in Seattle, penciled in as the #4 starter entering this season. Or maybe he’d still be in the minors trying to put everything together. But instead, Dipoto took a calculated risk and it paid off in every conceivable way.

1. Trading Edwin Diaz, Robinson Cano, & cash for Jarred Kelenic, Justin Dunn, Gerson Bautista, Anthony Swarzak, and Jay Bruce

It isn’t an exaggeration to say that this one move has the potential to be the biggest move in the franchise since the drafted Ken Griffey Jr. in the late 80s. Those are the potential ramifications. After falling short in 2018, Dipoto convinced the Mariners’ new ownership group to finally commit to a true rebuild and wasted no time reshaping his franchise.

In his first off-season, he traded most of his tradable assets for young talent and wasn’t afraid to send money and other pieces along in the deals to make them happen. But perhaps his coup de maitre was the acquisition of Jarred Kelenic and Justin Dunn from the New York Mets for Edwin Diaz and Robinson Cano.

Not only did Dipoto cash in on Diaz’s high water mark and gain 2 valuable prospects, including one potential superstar, he also found a sucker to take on half of Robinson Cano’s remaining 5-year, $120 million commitment without costing him any value whatsoever.

To be blunt, Dipoto more or less abused rookie GM Brodie Van Wagenen and took the rookie to school in a masterful trade that has the potential to drastically change the future of an entire franchise. That is the level of talent that can be contributed to Kelenic as well as the tens of millions of dollars now stripped off their books by finding a taker for Cano.

If everything works out as it reasonably could, Dipoto acquired a multi-year All-Star outfielder with a .300/.400/.550 upside, 30+ home run power, and an above-average centerfield glove, a #3 starting pitcher, a flamethrowing 7th inning reliever, and about $54 million in extra payroll space for a closer and an aging second baseman. Simply incredible.

Dipoto even extracted some value from Jay Bruce before shipping him to Philadelphia for Jake Scheiner. There is quite literally nothing to complain about in this deal. Even the most pessimistic of baseball analysts look at this deal and chuckle at the value Dipoto extracted from the Mets.

Even if this deal doesn’t live up the hype, the process behind the deal was simply incredible. Kelenic could very well be the face of the franchise and its best player since Ichiro was in his prime.

There you have it, 5 of the best moves Jerry Dipoto has made as Mariners GM. The crazy thing is, 4 of the 5 on this list may be pushed off by this time next year. Like him or not, Dipoto has done a good job of building a talented farm system and perhaps the greatest group of young stars in the Mariners system since the early 90s. And that isn’t nothing.