It’s officially gloves off for Jerry Dipoto as the Mariners seek elusive World Series

It’s officially gloves off for Jerry Dipoto, and Seattle Mariners fans should be loving it. For years, the running joke in Seattle has been that the front office talks about “windows” and “runway” and “long-term sustainability,” while the fanbase just wants a parade down First Avenue. 

But the Josh Naylor press conference didn’t sound like the same old hedged, careful Dipoto who once lectured fans about 54 percent. This sounded like a president of baseball operations who knows his team is close, knows his fanbase is restless, and is finally talking like someone who intends to kick the door down instead of patiently knocking. If you’ve been waiting for a sign that the organization is truly all-in on chasing a World Series in this core’s prime, this is it.

 Mariners’ bold Josh Naylor deal proves Jerry Dipoto is done playing it safe

And it’s not just the money, though giving a motivated winner like Naylor real security in Seattle absolutely matters. It’s the way they did it, and what Dipoto said out loud. This was an aggressive, convicted signing from a front office that has usually preferred to wait for the market to come to them. Instead, the Mariners identified the heart of their lineup and their clubhouse, saw how much he meant to the fans, and moved fast. They didn’t slow-play it. They didn’t talk themselves into “value” over vibes. They stepped up and locked in the guy who helped make T-Mobile Park feel like a party again down the stretch. That’s a different tone. That’s a front office acting like it expects to win something big — and soon.

Dipoto basically admitted as much when speaking at Josh Naylor’s official press conference at T-Mobile Park.

“To me, it would have been negligence if we went into the offseason and the first thing we did was let Josh walk away because of some, you know, business decision, instead of just stepping up and doing the thing that kind of kept the band together,” he said. 

That’s not the language of a spreadsheet GM trying to squeeze every last marginal dollar out of a roster spot. That’s a guy who understands chemistry, understands momentum, and understands what it would’ve felt like in that clubhouse (and in those stands) if Naylor had been allowed to test how crazy the market might get. Calling it “negligence” says a lot. It says the Mariners recognize this group is special, and that keeping a player who clearly loves the city, the team, and the stage isn’t some luxury. It’s the baseline for a contender.

He doubled down on that theme again and again. “We just finished up what was perhaps the best season in our organization’s history,” Dipoto said, before ticking off the boxes any fan has been begging to hear: good farm system, excellent major-league team, fewer holes than ever, and — here’s the big one — actual payroll flexibility to go after more help.

Then he added the part that should be echoing in every fan’s brain: the Mariners are “pretty tenacious” in their desire to find the right players and “do the things to put the team on the field.” That’s not subtle. That’s a front office telling you they see the same path you do, they believe in the roster they’ve built, and they’re not satisfied with “just missed” anymore.

Maybe the most fun part? Dipoto admitted that Naylor and the fans pulled them out of their comfort zone. “We behaved in a way that’s a little different than we would normally behave,” he said. Normally, they’d wait out the market, slot a player into some carefully drawn price band, and wait. This time, “we just knew we wanted him back, so we were willing to do something uncomfortable very quickly.” That’s how real contenders operate. That’s how you treat a guy whose energy, production, and big-moment swagger helped flip the end-of-season “vibe” into something this franchise hasn’t felt in a long time.

Dipoto even said the fanbase’s adoration for Naylor mattered, and that they wanted to lean into how good everything felt when the season ended. When a front office publicly admits the fans moved the needle, that’s not nothing. That’s a relationship.

And because they got it done early, the Mariners don’t have to spend the rest of the winter "drinking from a fire hose," as Dipoto put it. They have their first baseman. They have a clubhouse tone-setter locked in. They have the freedom to be selective and opportunistic with the rest of the roster instead of scrambling to plug a massive hole at the last minute. That’s how you build on “perhaps the best season in franchise history” instead of letting it become a one-off.

Coming from the same executive who in previous years had fans groaning over talk of patience and percentages, this sure sounds like a shift from stability mode to attack mode. The gloves really do feel off now, and if you’re a Mariners fan, you don’t just love to see it; you should be ready for what comes next.