Baseball America Executive of the Year Jerry Dipoto Joins MLB Network

Baseball America Executive of the Year Jerry Dipoto Joins MLB Network

We want to congratulate our next guest. I, I go to Twitter for this. How about baseball America naming Jerry Dipoto the 2025 executive of the year. Well done a man who has the best hair, no offense to all the G MS out there. But man, you’re in your fifties , bro. That’s unfair, Jerry de Poto who shares a birthday with you when the light hits you. I’m thinking about like making a decision that was real and it grows in multiple directions. I’m opening the club of whatever hair club for men. I am Hair club for men whose hair grows in many different. It’s good. Cows are fine as long as you have hair, it’s good. All right. So I want to talk about why you would be named executive of the year. I have a theory. I think certain front office executives can get the job done in the offseason, but it’s when you have to make moves in season that really shows what you’re worth and the moves you guys made when you knew you had it, you couldn’t be more proud, right? Yeah. And we really got fortunate with the fact that we got the right people. You know, we knew Geno Suarez. We had had him before acquiring Gino in midseason was easy for us because we knew how quickly he’d assimilate to our clubhouse. You know, and josh Naylor coming over from Arizona was just a boon for us. A great guy fit our clubhouse perfectly. We knew the skill set and the intensity was, you know, it’s what we were looking, you knew he was a 30 stolen base guy. You know, I, I actually said to him, that’s a true story. The club came back, we’re in the deadline mode. The club came back from Sacramento and I wasn’t on that trip and I walked in and I said hello to nails for the first time. And I said, I really wasn’t, you know, expecting to get impact baserunner as part of this because he had stolen like three bases in his first two games and he looked at me and just cold stared and said, why I thought I love this guy? I hope he signs here for the next five years. That’s I wanna, I wanna kind of expand. That had to be, I mean, he got paid 92.5 million. He set set for life, but that had to be one of your easier negotiations. It seemed like you guys loved him and he loved the city, loved him back and pretty quick to get that done. Yeah. You know, it was a priority for us going into the offseason. It’s something we probably would have started negotiating a little earlier in the, in the, I guess in the summer headed into the fall, if not for the fact that we were pushing toward the postseason and we didn’t want to create a distraction. So, uh, it was easy business. Josh wanted to be a Mariner. We wanted him to be there, I guess, just ponying up the extra year that that is always required to do something fun like that came naturally and we’re thrilled to have him back. I like how you say that, fun to do something fun like that. That’s a good perspective, good perspective. Uh Obviously, you recently, you’ve, we’ve been afraid to pull the trigger. In fact, I appreciate you finding a little time to sit with us. You got to be Jones and it’s been like a week since your last deal, Jerry. Uh But you did move uh Harry Ford highly regarded prospect for a left dominant, left handed reliever. And jose Ferrer, tell us a little bit about the decision to dip into that fantastic farm system you have. And why Then for Ferrer, you know, Ferrer is a guy that we had identified going into this offseason. He was the number one target for us in terms of bullpen. He is just 25 years old. He’s played two plus years as a major leaguer. He’ll touch 100 sits around 9798 he’s got crazy sink, keeps the ball in the yard on the ground. There’s a lot there to like, and he’s with your club for the next four years or more. And that’s an exciting element, obviously tough to give up a prospect like Harry Ford. We love Harry. Um, born in our system, came through our system, wonderful human being and, and I think he’s got the potential to be an everyday impact player, but it wasn’t going to happen with us. You know, d rose catcher happens to play for the Mariners and the runner up in the MV P I think just had the best year in the history of catchers and, you know, the, the opportunity to break in as a rookie and cut your teeth as a backup catcher getting 2025 plate appearances a month. It’s just really hard and we thought that would be a complicated matter and, and we thought this was the best way to , to cash in and create impact for the Mariners. I’m glad you brought up Cal Riley because I think he had something to do with you winning this award for baseball America. You give a guy $100 million contract extension because his averages are 30 home runs a year , right? He’s deserving of that. Then he goes on hit 60 home runs in the history of player development in, in the way your career has ironed out. Have you ever seen a player break out in such a dramatic way when he’s already had a track record in the big leagues like Cal Raley. You know, I said recently it’s, it’s a pretty remarkable path. Cal came into the season as one of the best catchers in major league baseball, but one who largely flew under the radar of elite, you know, he was considered an above average major league player who maybe in the Pacific Northwest was a star , but more globally hadn’t made an all star team wasn’t, you know, in the national conversation. Now, he’s an international superstar. He goes by one name, you know, and I think it, he’s pretty awesome. He’s, uh he’s deserving of everything that comes his way. He works his tail off, he’s a leader. He plays both sides of the ball and, and even he also an impact on the bases. It’s Cal, you know, Cal and Nails who’d have thought they’re like, oh Ricky won’t, I won’t give him the steal sign. I promise you that there, there , there is no steal sign for Cal. He’s going when he wants, I want to talk to you about third base because you talked about, you locked up Naylor, you brought in Suarez, but he’s a free agent again, you got a top prospect and called Emerson. Like, how do you guys, what do you think in third base wise? You know, we’re still engaged in the free agent market? Um I would venture to guess either via free agency or trade , we will add one more bat, you know, hopefully within the next seven days because I am Joan. There you go. And uh we do have, we do have young infielders like Cole young at second base, you know, like, like Ben Williamson at third base. Ben is we think an elite defender now and, you know, he got us through a rough patch last year and particularly with a team that’s starting to, to gradually shift toward more ground ball orientation than fly ball, which we’ve predominantly been in the past having a third baseman who can pick it is, is really important and Ben can do that. Cole we think is one of the bright young stars that his position, the game, he’s just going to play his 22 year old season and, and he can really hit both of them, got their first taste of it last year would like to continue to give him a taste, but we want to take some of the pressure off with, you know, a veteran bat who’s been through, there could be a third baseman, could be a second baseman or some combination of those positions who can kind of , we’ll call it like a tri tone that, that can, can roll with both players and, and take some of the pressure off their bat, keep us, you know, lead offense. Uh Jerry Iii, I gotta be honest , you got a lot of pitching depth. If there was a team out there, that’s like we need a legit starting pitcher. I’m calling Jerry Dipoto. It’s a surplus and Rick and I were talking, it’s a dangerous game to play when you part ways with some of your depth in this one category of starting pitching that said when, you know, you got it and you have any holes, you must be chomping at the bit to really plug those holes with this incredible surplus. No, no. You know, we, you know, a year ago we came to this meeting and we’ve got five men starting rotation that we’re really confident in that our superpower had been our ability to develop this group and keep them healthy. We came to the meetings last year open to the idea of moving one of those pitchers to fill one of our needs, which were real in the, in the lineup. We didn’t really have a 2nd 3rd of our lineup that was going to be postseason viable and we did listen or talk to other clubs about our, our starting pitch. Ultimately, it didn’t feel like the, you know, the value coming back was enough to make a move and the result was we went into the season and we were banged up as anybody for the first four months we needed every inning those guys could give us and, and finally at the tail end when we got healthy, it headed into the postseason and we had our five men healthy for the first time. It was, it made you think, let’s just keep these guys because they’re pretty good. They are pretty good. We share birthday. That’s pretty good. May 24th. Me, you Joe Montana. You said Bob Dylan? Big ###y Bertola cologne, Tracy mcgrady. You both have amazing hair. I mean you want to be born on May 24th, Jerry Dipoto. Go make a trade. We want something to talk about. Ok, thank goodness, man.

After winning Baseball America Executive of the Year, Jerry Dipoto joins MLB Network to discuss 2025 season and the offseason.

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