Jerry Dipoto on Building on the Mariners 2025 Season | Seattle Sports

Jerry Dipoto on Building on the Mariners 2025 Season | Seattle Sports

It’s our Mariners Thanksgiving special on Seattle Sports in the Seattle Sports app. Today we are joined by Mariners’s president of baseball operations Jerry Dotto. Jerry, we’re happy to have you. How’s it going? Pretty good, guys. Getting ready for uh Thanksgiving. Trying to wind down the work week. Maybe add a player or two. You never know. Oh, that would be If you could tell us exactly what players, or rather, Jerry, if you could have the deal done between 10 and 2 p.m. Pacific, that would be ideal. Are you a big Thanksgiving guy? I heard you’re a foodie. I am a foodie. You know, I’m relegated to sue chefing, which is in my house. I get to cut the green beans and wash the dishes on Thanksgiving, but no, but that is my wife’s day to to shine. So, I I’m I’m the supporting cast. Nice. Hey, man. I just want to congratulate you on a on a good season. It was uh it was magical, man. I was telling um Sulk that you know I followed baseball for like the last 15 20 years but this year like brought me in on a whole another level just because of what you guys were able to accomplish. When you look back at it I mean are you like a proud father? I mean what what are your feelings after this year? Uh you know I guess a little proud father a little excited kid on Christmas morning. It’s, you know, we we’ve been writing this story for for quite a while now. And I I think this year was just the next step for us. And, you know, we there were some bars that we needed to learn how to crawl over and uh you know, this year we figured out how to get over a pretty sizable bar, you know, and and a lot of the the passers by will point to mid-season when we acquired Naylor and and Suarez and Ferguson at the deadline, but you know, it really started much much sooner than that. and you know the evolution of our team and and what we were able to accomplish you know this season especially but over time is something I think we’re all pretty proud of. What were one of those if not a bar maybe like a landmark change to the season for you cuz I always assumed one of them to me from the outside looking in Jerry I thought well god the series against the Yankees was tough and then they were so resilient they you know rebounded with a great series against Detroit. you hit uh you know the home run derby, Cal wins it, you leave with a series win against the Astros. I’ve always thought of that as being one of those, but what do you think? You know, I definitely think that is one of them going into the All-Star break, the way we played against Detroit after, you know, really taking it on the chin in New York and and especially the way we lost the final game in New York, you know, with uh, you know, Woo having a no hitter late and and coughing the game up in a in a way that usually sticks with you for a while as a team. But, you know, we came back from it. I I think another one of those moments. We had a couple of really difficult East Coast road trips in the the latter part of the season, August into September, and really couldn’t have played worse. And we played leaving Cleveland going into Tampa Bay and and really just getting our butts kicked. And then we went to Atlanta and we faced one of the best pitchers on earth and Chris Sale and and we lost one to nothing. And I don’t think there was a lower point for us in the season than than there was then. And the next day we came out and you know I’ll call it the Julio Rodriguez game. He played a phenomenal game in every way you could and we our offense really came to life and then lo and behold I think we won 17 of the next 18 games and really wrote the story of of this season. You know it all kind of came down to that moment. What are you going to do and and how are you going to respond to the adversity? And the guys responded in as as big a way as you could. They just dominated for the next roughly three weeks. Hey, what role do you play when uh when you do hit those tough patches? Are you the kind of guy to kind of let the players in the clubhouse figure it out? Do you make your your presence fail? What’s your role in all that? Uh, you know, it varies from from time to time. You you will say a word or two, but more often than not, you know, these guys are pros. They they know what they’re dealing with. the manager and the coaches are with the the team every minute of every day. And you know, I think at some point the culture that you develop absorbs, you know, those issues and your clubhouse leaders stand up and, you know, I think that happened for us at the toward the end of our season and, you know, we saw the development of clubhouse leadership, maybe more this year than any year I can remember. You know, we’ve been here a long time now and and we’ve been blessed to have a a group of at the core of our team right now who grew up in our system that we’ve known them since the day they entered pro ball virtually, you know, or we acquired them very early in their major league careers. you know, a guy like JP Crawford as an example, Andre Munoz, and you know, but this year the leaders in our clubhouse really evolved and and I do think that a fair bit of that was getting the right mix. You know, every soup requires, you know, a little different spice and and for us like that that is where I think Josh Naylor and Gino were just phenomenal. They they changed the way our team felt. And you know, I think the the talent level obviously rose because those are two pretty awesome players. But, you know, the the group they were joining, we were pretty stacked as it was. And I think it just took us into a different stratosphere in terms of the way we felt about ourselves, what our expectations of ourselves were, and and I guess the the what we were willing to tolerate from ourselves. And and if I if I take it down or or narrow it down to a moment at the end of that second east coast trip, you know, and from Tampa to Atlanta, that’s the hurdle we had to clear. What are we willing to tolerate from ourselves? And and we decided we were no longer willing to tolerate getting close and walking away. We decided to just bust the door down. And and that’s when when it got fun, right? Uh and fun for a lot of people. I mean, we saw history made with this team. um a phenomenal uh ALDS game five to send you guys to the ALCS for the first time since 2001, winning the division for the first time since 2001, and of course the very first game seven we’ve ever seen. I know for me it was there were multiple moments throughout the season where being someone born and raised here. I just kind of paused and thought like like I watched ALDS game five by myself because I was so nervous and so I was in my like apartment just watching it and at the end of the game I just paused and I was like I can’t believe I just saw that. Like what a wow. Did you have some of those moments? I know you’re in it, right? You’re in the thick of it in a very different way. I get to sit back and and talk about your team every day but you have to be in it. But did you have any of those moments where you just pause and you go like, “Wow, like I can’t believe that just happened.” Yeah, I I game five of that Detroit series was was certainly one of those moments, you know. Um I would really bring it back to you know, the hit that Leo got off of Scooball there. And you know, effectively the hit that tied the game in that moment. I think we all felt we were going to win. And you know that that’s pretty remarkable when you’re facing a guy like Scooball who’s he’s the best pitcher in the league right now. And you know Leo is probably about as unheralded as anybody on on the roster in that moment and comes up and has one of the biggest moments not just of our season but of recent Mariners history and and you know kind of takes you to a different level. And then we went through the the agony of the extra innings with so many opportunities and we we couldn’t find a way to push it across. And I guess we’re I don’t have the the benefit of of sitting in a quiet room where I probably would have, you know, bounced off the walls. Instead, we we sat there together, you know, roughly turning into emotional pudding as we were watching this unfold like, my god, please somebody do it and get us over the the hump. And uh you know, that was a big moment. you know, the the the Gino Grand Slam in in the the kind of the what I would say was the leverage game in the Toronto series that gave us, you know, the 3-2 lead. Um, that was a huge moment for us. I could dial back. There was a home run that that Cal hit against Tampa and in a game that we really had no business winning in the time I think we were down 200 and and uh and he hit a huge homer that that just kind of again gave us that next burst. Um, there’s so many of those little moments through the course of a 162 game baseball season that when you when you’re in the moment, you probably don’t appreciate it enough. But then when you’re in the postseason and those moments happen, you recognize what’s happening immediately. And, you know, I think those were those were some that really stood out for me. I travel a lot on the weekends for work, so I find myself watching games in a local pub or something and there’s always some expert sitting next to me saying they should be doing this. This is the way they should play. This is the way this team was built. And I I removed myself from that situation. I’m like, you guys, come on, just give it a break. Um, when you look at your team at the beginning of the season, how did you think this team, what type of style this team was going to play? And at the end of the season, is that the style you were playing or did you feel like this team kind of transformed into something else? Uh, you know, at the start of the season, similar to to the way the team’s been built the last handful of years, we’ve been kind of methodically moving toward a more well-rounded athletic team that could create chaos on the bases that did have, you know, a degree of power and patience. You know, take your walks, hit your homers, steal your bags, you know, don’t make mistakes on defense, take care of the ball type of of mentality. And we we’ve played a disciplined game, you know, in those categories, you know, with with the understanding that we do strike out a bunch. You know, that’s that’s always just part of the tradeoff that we’ve been willing to make. And we were hoping to to reel that in a little, but generally do those things. You know, create chaos on offense, take care of the ball on defense, hammer the strike zone. And and then, you know, lo and behold, the season started and our and our pitching staff was, I guess, uncharacteristically banged up. You know, maybe our our secret power in recent years has been the ability to run starting rotation out there and maintain good health. You know, guys taking 30 plus starts, throwing their 160, 180, even 200 innings in an era where that doesn’t happen so much anymore. And um they were the backbone of our team. And then for the first half of this year, you know, we were without Logan Gilbert for two months. We were without Bryce Miller for, you know, more than two months in the middle. We missed George Kirby for two months. And and and to put ourselves in position at the end of the season to to not just get into the playoffs, but win a division championship and earn a buy while we were battling through all that, I think took a lot of, you know, grind from a team. And and that’s the thing about this team that I think really developed as the season went along. I I I always feel like we’re willing to grind, get in, do the extra inning thing, win the close game, you know, somehow pull some one-run, you know, wins out of our backsides. But, you know, at the at the end of the day, this team showed a real resolve when the thing that we were most identified with, you know, quality and durable starting pitching really wobbled and and the rest of the team picked it up and ran with it. And what was different about this team is that when you look up at the end and you look at the, you know, the advanced metrics, WRC plus, OPS plus, things like that, we had one of the two best offenses in the American League, you know, and I think we were tied with the Dodgers as the second best team in the big leagues in WRC plus. And I don’t know if anybody would have pointed at the Mariners on opening day and said that’s the second best offense in the league. And but that’s what the guys went out and did and and they proved they could win games in other ways and and it wasn’t with, you know, the the the notion that we did anything different than what we’ve been doing in recent years. We just did it better and and we had stars rise up and and you know, and create, you know, stars became stars. You know, Cal was a really good player coming into this year who just became like a an international celebrity. you know, now he’s identifiable by one name and neither of them are his. That, you know, I think that our Julio, I think, is is cementing himself as as if not the best center fielder in the game, maybe, you know, evolving into one of the best center fielders of his generation. And our starting rotation did did come back at the end. And and you know, they were intact as we went into the postseason. and they showed why that we were we should be a team that’s that’s not just good now but good for years to come. Uh by the way we’re talking with Jerry Dotto Mariners president of baseball operations. If you’re trying to get in on the 2026 action single game tickets for the 2026 Mariners season are on sale now. Visit mariners.com/tick to reserve your spot at uh some of the season’s biggest games including Randy Johnson’s jersey retirement on May 2nd and the Mariners 50th anniversary weekend August 7th through 9th. You can get your seats today at mariners.com/tick. Uh, taking a a slight look ahead here. The winter meetings seem chaotic to me. I have no like I have to imagine it is just pure chaos. Take us kind of behind the scenes and and tell us what that experience is is like from your point of view. You know, it used to when I first started going to the winter meetings, you know, shortly after I retired as a player, I I think the first winter meeting I went to was 2002. um you know and then 03 04 I was with the Red Sox. We had big groups and and they’re really like cultural development centers. It’s a it’s like learning in a in a fishbowl because so many things are happening so quick for for younger you know front office executives or you know decision making uh I guess personnel scouting people and and you know over the years the way it’s changed for me is that that now in the position I have with the Mariners we get to the winter meetings and I and I feel somewhat like you know Marlon Brando and the Godfather. I hide in a chair in the corner of the room and I don’t leave for three days because I’m afraid of what’s downstairs. It’s uh we we you know in today’s time we get together we’ll have you know 30ish mariner people that that are in our traveling group sit in on meetings talk about ways that we can plug holes on our roster. we will we’ll we’ll wheel in multiple portable whiteboards and start going through anything from, you know, subtle free agent signings to magnificent trades that no one will ever do. And it’s like it’s like every fan’s dream of of what it’s like in that moment. And more often than not, we leave in three days and we do something small and and everybody feels like they just wasted 72 hours of their lives. But, you know, you learn and and you learn fast. It is non-stop phone calls coming in and out. Um, you know, we used to travel in groups of three or four and go visit with teams live. Now we just text or call and if we get close to a deal, you might make a live visit to another team. Uh, but it it’s become so secluded in that way. And the best part of the winter meetings for me are the downtimes. you know, the think tank moments where, you know, we we’ll bring a football in the room with us and just flip a football around from side to side in the suite, coming up with ideas, you know, while we try not to drop the ball. And and uh, you know, and sometimes it will devolve or or, you know, kind of crash into some type of weird trivia contest, you know, as we get late in the night and we’re not getting, you know, any uh any incoming calls. But it’s it’s pretty awesome, you know. I love it. It’s very much like just sitting around with a group of people you know and you trust and and you’re bouncing ideas off of one another and and inevitably somebody’s going to call in with an idea you didn’t think about and that’s going to keep you up till 4 in the morning. Uh but it’s it’s uh it’s three days that I’m glad happened between Thanksgiving and Christmas because it’s definitely a calorie burner. I hope it just gets down to comparing like rarity scores on Immaculate Grid. Alex Mayer told us by the way that you That’s every day for me. I know. He said I I was like, “Okay, who in the organization’s the best?” He said, “Cal’s pretty good like among the players.” Like he’s And then I was like, “But who’s like the freak? Like who’s got like the crazy scores?” And he said, “Oh, Jerry.” Absolutely. Jerry, I probably spend way too much time uh pondering it every morning as I work through my coffee. But it’s it’s a lot of fun. and I do it with some people around the league and um it’s Alex is remarkable in his ability to drift back to you know like the black and white mustachioed era of baseball where it’s he’s pulling out guys with the cake cake bread hats and you know it’s he’s he’s pretty awesome at that. I want to talk about uh the MVP race. Um going into it, at the end of the year, I’m thinking, look, I understand if Judge gets it, but obviously I’m a big advocate for uh for Cal. And my argument with people, I say, man, I want you to squat and stand up about 120 times, and then I want you to put your your gear on. Then I want you to run out and talk to uh your best friend across the street or something like put yourself in something that Cal could possibly do. And to me, that made him the most valuable player. He did more for his team than I think anyone did in the league. When it all when it was all said and done, just what were your thoughts around that? I’m sure you felt Cal should have gotten the award, but just how important is Kyle or was Kyle to this team and how do you feel about the MVP race? Uh, I guess that I’m like you. I understand, you know, that why Aaron Judge garnered so much interest. He’s one of the best players of his generation. He’s playing in the biggest market. He had an unbelievable year uh doing things that guys just don’t do. But I say that and Cal did something that guys just don’t do that guys have never done. And you know to to hit 60 homers as a catcher like you hit on all of the nuances that go with that. I I think the one thing that nobody can truly appreciate, you know, the the physical demands of everything that you just described, you know, from getting up and down and and squatting for 140 pitches a night, you know, hopefully less than that if our guys are efficient, but, you know, I think doing all the things that he does physically, the fact that he’s out there catching 125 games a year in an era where not many guys still do that or can do that, he’s picking up DH days on his days down to to continue to make the team better. That’s all physically demanding. What what is emotionally or mentally draining is that he he comes to the game every day and and we’ll get there. He’s one of the first guys to walk through the doors and the preparation that goes into being a catcher, taking care of 13 pitchers, being in tune with the that day’s starting pitcher and then eight relievers, what each of their stuff sets do in in matchups against the the nine 13 hitters on the other side. Um, putting all of that in order, remembering it for, you know, the better part of we’ll call it 10 hours from start to finish. in his day and not forgetting in the biggest moment, oh, this is what I wanted to create between Carlos Vargas and a left-hand pinch hitter that someone might use. That’s a grind, you know, and then he does it the next day. And while the eight relievers, you know, are the same, the opposing lineup probably changed and the starting pitcher is different. So, you know, it’s a every day is a complete reset, you know, mentally, emotionally, and I the the way I would equate it in in thinking about sport is all that goes into being an NFL quarterback and preparing to play on Sunday. And and looking at at the opposing defense and looking at Cal has to do it every day of the week. And, you know, it’s pretty fascinating because when when you’re looking at that many reps, you know, it’s it’s not one pitch, it’s 140. It’s it’s not it’s not caring for just yourself. It’s caring for you know 13 teammates and then you have to go take your at bats which is you know the thing that maybe he is most recognized for but so much else goes into it and that’s I think there’s no question he was the most valuable player in the league because of all that. Uh, you guys have an amazing farm system. And speaking of looking ahead, I’m not going to ask you like when are we going to see some of these guys? But it’s to me a new kind of philosophical fun conversation to have for us at least because you’re now introducing these great prospects into a playoff ready roster as opposed to kind of like building up. And so, uh, Justin Hollander had mentioned kind of leaning on young players is always a good problem to have. I’m wondering what it actually looks like. like what’s the possibility of introducing those young players relatively early next year and then how do you balance getting them that time and then leaving room for their lumps and oh we’re still trying to get to a World Series in 2026 like what’s that process like you know this is you know for for those of us of a certain age I I remember through throughout my you know my playing life which was primarily in the 90s the you know the the Atlanta Braves did this better than anybody. You know, for years and years, the Yankees have done this very well. You can go out and you can make acquisitions. You can each team is going to be built in a slightly different way, whether it’s through draft and development, it’s draft development and trade, you know, as as the most of our roster is built. Um, you don’t find too many teams that are built primarily through free agency. That’s where you add your your difference makers that that kind of change the the score at the end of the roster build. But, you know, the Braves in the 90s had an unbelievable feel for when to introduce the next new player. And, you know, it’s a and often they’re they’re replacing an MVP third baseman, Terry Pendleton, who they just let walk as a free agent so they can bring up young Chipper Jones, and let him start playing. And, um, you know, and the same thing happens on the other end of the diamond with future Hall of Famer Fred McGriff. And when they feel like Ryan Klesko is ready, they let him start playing. and and it it goes on throughout the the course of their roster. You have to have a feel for when that that time is coming and and the best way to adapt your roster to it is to acquire as many versatile players as you can. You know, so you know, in our case and and I’ll point at our field of play, you know, have as many guys on your team as possible that can move to different positions so that you can accommodate the next young player that that is going to be implemented. Um, and it’s part of the reason why, you know, one of the 50 reasons I could give you as to why Josh Naylor was such a wonderful fit for our team is that Nails can hit the righties, he can hit the lefties, he’s everyday first baseman, and that’s something we really didn’t have. But, you know, most or all of our outfielders can play multiple or or all of the positions. All of our infielders are trained at the minor league level to play as many different positions as they can for these reasons. And you know that allows us to look at this year and I’ll use Jorge Palano. You know our two years with Jorge as an example. You know he might play second, he might play third. He could predominantly be a DH. We’ve now talked, you know, in the past year about him playing some first base. And this is essentially how do we keep impact bats in the lineup while we introduce players like Cole Young and Colt Emerson and and Ben Williamson and give them the opportunity while the lineup keeps churning to go win a championship in in that given year. And I think that’s the place we are in our current development and and we have to figure out how to straddle that line. It’s going to be very very fun to watch. Uh it’s our Mariners Thanksgiving special on Seattle Sports and the Seattle Sports app. Jerry, we have so appreciated your time. Uh we’re probably speaking for Mariners fans, too. Speaking of gratitude, we’re grateful for this season. It’s been so fun to watch what you guys have done. Uh we know we’re coming up on uh 50 years uh in 2026 and sky-high expectations for a really exciting team. So, thank you so much for taking the time. Thanks, Eric. Thank you guys. Happy Thanksgiving. Happy Thanksgiving.

Mariners President of Baseball Operations joins Michael Bumpus and Stacy Rost (Bump & Stacy) to recap Seattle’s historic 2025 season and how the M’s can build on it for next season.

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0:00 – intro
1:06 – Taking the next step this year
2:01 – important moments in the 2025 season
3:45 – Importance of clubhouse leaders
6:15 – Pivotal moments in the season
8:50 – Mariners team identity
13:23 – What the Winter Meetings are like
17:25 – Cal Raleigh’s Value to the Mariners
20:30 – Balancing young players with contending

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Listen to The Bump & Stacy Show weekdays from 10 a.m. – 2 p.m. live on Seattle Sports 710 AM and the Seattle Sports App, or on-demand wherever you listen to podcasts.

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