With his club continuing to perform at “very average” levels, Mariners president of baseball operations Jerry Dipoto said Thursday morning that he’s open to selling off roster parts before the Aug. 1 MLB trade deadline.
And he said that before news broke of Jarred Kelenic’s fractured foot Thursday morning, creating a “dark cloud” over the team, as manager Scott Servais put it.
The Mariners entered Thursday with a 47-48 record and sat 10 games back of the AL West lead and 5.5 games out of wild-card contention, with four teams in front them and just 12 days to go before the trade deadline.
If the Mariners don’t make significant headway over the next week — a task made more difficult with Kelenic’s injury — there would be little justification for the front office to make a major trade.
“We’ve not really separated ourselves in a meaningful way to be aggressive on the buying end,” Dipoto said on his weekly radio show on Seattle Sports 710 AM.
The Mariners’ inconsistent offense could use an upgrade in several areas, and the Mariners have been linked to New York Mets veteran outfielder Mark Canha.
As the front office has done in the past, the Mariners could be both a buyer and a seller at the deadline. It’s possible they could shop right fielder Teoscar Hernandez, a free agent after this season, and perhaps a veteran relief pitchers or two such as Paul Sewald or Justin Topa.
“We are always one foot in the camp of buyer and one foot in the camp of the seller, believing that the best way to approach any trade deadline is with the mindset of, how do we make the Mariners better?” Dipoto said. ” … Last year we were very aggressive in the trade market for what I would call the big fish — we were able to land Luis Castillo. This year we’re probably not going to be in that market. We’re going to be more in the ‘margins’ market. We are trying to find a way that we can get a little bit better in ’23 and better situate ourselves for ’24.”
The Mariners offense has been a steady source of frustration. Among regulars, only J.P. Crawford has performed above expectations this season, and the biggest offseason acquisitions — AJ Pollock, Kolten Wong and Tommy La Stella — have been busts, even as ancillary pieces.
“There are a lot of young, evolving major-league players,” Dipoto said, mentioning core figures Julio Rodriguez, Cal Raleigh and Kelenic, “and to think that there wouldn’t be bumps in the road for these guys would have been foolish.”
He pointed the finger at himself for what, in hindsight, was a rough offseason.
“Some of the struggle that we have had is simply on me,” he said. “I didn’t do a good enough job of building a group around that core to support the bumps and the bruises. And that’s played out. Now we are four clean months into the season, and that’s been a real hole for us.”
