Mariners' latest plunge isn't the only reason Jerry Dipoto should be on the hot seat

Like any sports executive in today's lightning-fast news cycle, Seattle Mariners president of baseball operations Jerry Dipoto has a tendency to rile up the fans of the very team he's in charge of running.

Two years ago, it was the infamous 54 percent monologue that got him into hot water with fans. This past offseason, he cited his confidence in the team's existing roster as a reason for the lack of activity over the winter. Now that the Mariners have lost eight of their last 10 games and are 4.0 games behind the AL West-leading Houston Astros, it seems like the fans were right to be upset.

Jerry Dipoto's seat should be heating up as the Mariners' losses pile up

To begin with, it's somewhat unreasonable to believe that a team coming off an 85-win season can somehow become a legitimate postseason contender through the power of sheer will and determination, especially since some of the most valuable players on the 2024 team were either due for regression (Bryce Miller) or have since departed (Josh Rojas, Justin Turner).

Sure, baseball is a chaotic sport and the Mariners have demonstrated that they are capable of going on runs — notably having done so this year already. However, there are few names on the roster who should be expected to contribute more than they already have.

To Dipoto's credit, some of the team's recent struggles can and should be attributed to injuries. Logan Gilbert being shelved amidst another outstanding season has deprived the team of their ace and Miller's ongoing struggles with elbow inflammation may be why his ERA has ballooned to 5.73. Victor Robles and Luke Raley were two of the lineup's best bats in 2024 and both have missed significant portions of time, with Robles not projected to return until September.

But even these cases could support the argument that the front office should have added more depth to begin with rather than hoping that the A-team would remain healthy for an entire season, a rare occurrence in a grueling 162-game season.

Outside of a flawed approach to roster construction, others have criticized the way the organization has developed its hitters. In a recent interview with Brock & Salk, ESPN's Jeff Passan highlighted that the Mariners have failed to carry the success they've had in the draft over into facilitating growth at the big league level.

"And clearly, when a model is working it – as it has in drafting (for the Mariners), and when certain techniques are working as they have in player development – you try to spread those out a little bit, right? You try to see what other areas of the organization (where) the tenets that you use can be replicated...They have not figured out how to do that on the pro side quite as effectively as they have on the amateur side yet, and that has hindered them."

Jeff Passan

The Mariners haven't hesitated to release underperforming players or even managers in the case of Scott Servais. Could Dipoto be the next to go? The details of his contract are murky but it has been made public that he's on some sort of short-term contract.

If 2025 is another year of disappointment for Seattle, a changing of the guard could be exactly what the team needs to get to the next level.