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# The Mariners’ Front Office Continues to Make Mistakes It Can’t Afford
- URL: https://www.emeraldcityspectrum.com/mariners-front-office-failures/
- Published: 2025-06-12T17:03:16.000Z
- Updated: 2026-10-08T05:59:12.000Z
- Author: Corbin Smith
- Tags: Mariners, Jerry Dipoto, Justin Hollander

[Embed from Getty Images](http://www.gettyimages.com/detail/2218644678?ref=emeraldcityspectrum.com)

Blame ownership.

If you're searching for the root of the Mariners’ chronic mediocrity, look no further than the top. Majority owners John Stanton and Chris Larson — along with the rest of the club’s board of shareholders — have stubbornly throttled the team’s potential by refusing to meaningfully increase payroll. The result? A self-imposed ceiling that limits what president of baseball operations Jerry Dipoto and general manager Justin Hollander can actually do when it's time to improve the roster.

But you already know this. Anyone who's been paying even casual attention to Mariners baseball knows this. At this point, detailing every instance of the organization’s penny-pinching would be about as illuminating as watching Uncle Ben’s fate play out in yet another *Spider-Man* movie. On top of that, it’s no secret that attracting players and their families to the Pacific Northwest can prove difficult even when money isn’t an issue, especially since the Mariners carry the reputation of being the only active team in MLB to never make the World Series and currently play half of their games in the most hitter-suppressive ballpark in the sport.

In other words: there are plenty of factors that have played a role in Seattle failing to be anything more than just a middling baseball franchise through the years. That’s not to mention some of the key issues that have led to the club’s struggles in 2025 specifically, which include a laundry list of injuries to major contributors such as Victor Robles, Luke Raley, and Logan Gilbert. But the 2025 roster is also just poorly constructed, and while that can be largely attributed to the parsimony of Stanton and friends, a considerable amount of the blame has to fall on the shoulders of those who put the pieces in place as well.

Dipoto, Hollander, and the rest of the Mariners’ current front office have accomplished some great things in the near 10 years since Dipoto was first hired as the club’s general manager in September of 2015\. In addition to building the roster that broke the organization’s 21-year playoff drought in 2022, they have drafted and developed very well, growing multiple star players such as Gilbert and Cal Raleigh, as well as several prospects who were eventually leveraged to land established big-leaguers like Luis Castillo and Randy Arozarena via trade. 

For every accomplishment, however, there is a mountain of hiccups, embarrassing quotes, and abject failures. No front office is perfect, of course, and mistakes are bound to happen — that’s how it works in any sport, not just baseball. It’s even easier for a front office to make mistakes when it’s being financially hamstrung by its owner or ownership group. All of that is fair and necessary to acknowledge when discussing the duo of Dipoto and Hollander, but the longer into their tenure we get, the more it feels like the conversation has to eventually shift.

While there is an inarguable unfairness that comes with the job of being the Mariners’ general manager and/or president of baseball operations, the job is the job at the end of the day, and the nature of the job isn’t changing anytime soon. Whoever fills that role has to excel at identifying and acquiring major-league talent on the margins and can’t afford to be wrong too often on the few financial bets they’re allowed to take. The current regime has fallen short in both areas, particularly over the last 18 or so months. 

For as good as the organization has been on the amateur scouting side of things, it’s hard not to question their talent evaluation at the major-league level. Sure, they’ve had a few hits like Robles, Arozarena, and Raley, but they’ve also had some huge misses — and not just on the players they’ve brought into the fold. 

There is a common misconception that the team’s decision to trade Eugenio Suárez in the winter of 2023 was strictly due to his $11 million salary and $2 million buyout the following season. The money certainly played a role, and being able to dump the entirety of Suárez’s contract was clearly a top priority for the Mariners considering how lackluster the trade return from the Diamondbacks was, but the Dipoto regime also genuinely believed the 31-year old at the time had reached the tipping point in his career given his 30.8 percent strikeout rate in 2023 and his regressing bat speed. 

They appeared to be right for a while, then Suárez went nuclear in the second half of 2024, going from an abysmal .196/.279/.312 slash line through the end of June to hitting .312/.357/.617 with 24 home runs and 69 RBI the rest of the way. As a result, the Diamondbacks picked up his $15 million player option for 2025 without hesitation. This year, he’s slashing .233/.305/.514 with 19 home runs, including a grand slam against the Mariners on Wednesday, which handed them their eighth loss in nine games and dropped them below a .500 winning percentage for the first time since early April. Mariners third basemen, meanwhile, have combined to slash .221/.310/.345 since the start of 2024.

It’s obviously impossible to determine exactly how the $13 million in savings from the Suárez trade was redistributed through the roster, though just about any possible combination you could put together from the 2023-24 offseason will result in a bad look for the Mariners. The easiest connection to make is to the signing of Mitch Garver, who agreed to a two-year deal with Seattle for a grand total of $24 million — or $12 million per season. Garver’s time with the Mariners has been an unmitigated disaster, headlined by a -0.6 fWAR in 154 games played as he’s essentially turned into a grossly overpaid backup catcher and weakside platoon hitter who doesn’t hit for any power against lefties. So not only were the Mariners terribly wrong about Suárez, but they were doubly wrong on Garver as well, and they’re still feeling the effects of that (in)direct swap of salaries.

However, following the subsequent success stories of Raley, Robles, Arozarena, and Justin Turner, as well as Edgar Martínez spearheading the club’s offensive coaching efforts, there was hope the Mariners’ front office had finally identified and addressed whatever had previously led to so many hitter acquisitions failing in Seattle. That hope has quickly flamed out. 

Re-signing Jorge Polanco to a one-year, $7.75 million contract looked like one of the Dipoto regime’s very best moves as the 31-year old posted a 247 wRC+ over his first 80 plate appearances of the 2025 campaign. But since the start of May, Polanco has statistically been the Mariners’ worst qualified hitter by far, slashing .182/.237/.236 to the tune of a 40 wRC+. Additionally, Donovan Solano, who Seattle signed to a one-year deal worth $3.5 million, has been worth -0.5 fWAR while slashing .195/.237/.253 and Rowdy Tellez, who made the team as a Spring Training invitee, is currently sporting a -0.4 fWAR with a .208/.253/.429 slash line.

Seattle’s biggest whiff, though, occurred after the season started. With Raley and Robles hurt, the Mariners had outfield playing time to give and decided to take a shot on Leody Taveras, who was designated for assignment by the division-rival Rangers in early May. Relative to their financial restrictions, this was an expensive flier for them to take as Taveras was still due roughly $3.5 million of his $4.75 million salary for the year. Just a little over a month removed from claiming him, the Mariners designated Taveras for assignment after he posted a 32 wRC+ in 98 plate appearances with shaky outfield defense and a whopping -1.0 fWAR, making him the least valuable position player to don a Mariners uniform in the Dipoto era. For what it’s worth, you can also find Garver (-0.6), Solano (-0.5), and Tellez (-0.4) in the bottom-20 of [that 327-player list](https://www.fangraphs.com/leaders/major-league?pos=all&stats=bat&lg=all&type=8&month=0&ind=0&startdate=&enddate=&season1=2016&season=2025&team=11&qual=0&sortcol=21&sortdir=asc&pagenum=1&pageitems=30&ref=emeraldcityspectrum.com). 

What’s even more concerning about the Mariners’ issues on the margins, though, is that it’s no longer just a position player problem. The Dipoto regime had earned a reputation over the years for being able to build bullpens on the fly, thanks in large part to their keen ability to get the most out of relievers who had flown under the radar such as Paul Sewald, Austin Adams, and several others. But that hasn’t been the case in 2025 — a year in which Seattle’s bullpen ranks 17th in ERA (4.02), 22nd in FIP (4.30), and 24th in fWAR (0.1). 

In fact, the Mariners have notably moved on from a trio of relievers over the past two years who’ve since found better success elsewhere. The greatest example of this is Luke Weaver, who, despite being on the injured list with a hamstring injury at the time of this writing, has gone on to become the Yankees’ de facto closer and one of the game’s best relief arms since leaving Seattle. He made five appearances for the Mariners in late 2023 and posted a 6.08 ERA before being designated for assignment and eventually landing with New York, where he’s thrown 123 quality innings with a 2.56 ERA, 3.39 FIP, 10.46 K/9, and 2.63 BB/9.

On a smaller scale, the Cubs have turned the Mariners’ “trash” into treasure twice over the past year. In May of 2024, Seattle designated Tyson Miller for assignment despite him pitching fairly well in 11.2 innings and later traded him to Chicago, where he went on to post a 2.15 ERA in 49 appearances. About a week after trading Miller, the Mariners swung a small deal with the Orioles to acquire Mike Baumann, who threw just 16.1 innings for them to the tune of a -0.4 fWAR. 

History has more or less repeated itself this year, as the Mariners traded Drew Pomeranz to the Cubs in late April after he exercised the upward mobility clause in his minor-league contract. Seattle never gave Pomeranz a look at the major-league level, which was head-scratching at the time given his strong showing in the Cactus League and the lack of talent in the back half of the club’s bullpen. Now it’s even more baffling of a decision in hindsight as Seattle continues to shuffle through numerous relief options while the veteran lefty has yet to surrender a run — earned or otherwise — in 16.1 innings pitched for Chicago. 

It’s hard not to wonder if these misses are at all related to the departure of former pitching coordinator Max Weiner, who accepted a job on Texas A&M’s coaching staff midway through the 2023 season. Per Adam Jude of the Seattle Times, [an unnamed Mariners staff member considered Weiner to be “a huge, huge loss”](https://www.seattletimes.com/sports/mariners/pitching-coordinator-max-weiner-leaves-mariners-for-texas-am-a-huge-loss-for-seattle/?ref=emeraldcityspectrum.com) for the organization.

On the surface, losing out on the likes of Miller and Pomeranz shouldn’t be that crushing of a blow. But for a front office that has to get these kinds of decisions right and can’t just make their warts disappear with money, it is. 

Fair or not, there is an unavoidable question revolving around the Mariners right now: is there someone who can navigate the organization’s self-imposed restrictions better than Dipoto and Hollander?