Mariners’ Jerry Dipoto: Trade helps future without hurting present
Jul 23, 2016, 1:25 AM
The trade of Mike Montgomery helped the Mariners' future without hurting much of its present. (AP)
(AP)
The Mariners may have sent one of their more reliable pitchers this season away to bring back two prospects in a trade Wednesday, but that by no means was general manager Jerry Dipoto’s way of pulling the team out of the playoff race.
The trade of versatile left-handed pitcher Mike Montgomery to the Cubs, along with minor-leaguer Jordan Pries, for Triple-A slugger Dan Vogelbach and Double-A starter Paul Blackburn shouldn’t have an impact on the Mariners’ chances at qualifying for the postseason in 2016, Dipoto said during his weekly interview on “Danny, Dave and Moore.”
“We have a very realistic view of where we are in the grand scheme of this. We believe we are a part of this playoff race. We are close enough to the action that we’re going to stay in tune with it, but we have been geared toward putting the pieces in place that are going to allow us to extend our window (for success),” he said.
The prime reason the trade made sense for Seattle is that age isn’t exactly in its favor right now, and the acquisitions of the 23-year-old Vogelbach and 22-year-old Blackburn help the Mariners’ long-term plan.
“For the first 90 games of the year, we lined up as the oldest position-player club in the league, and we need to solve that at some point,” Dipoto said. “Some of it’s going to come from internal promotion over the months and years to come. Guys like D.J. Peterson, Tyler O’Neill, Guillermo Heredia will be a part of what we’re doing, and there are others without looking too far into the future. And now you add to that a Dan Vogelbach, you add Andrew Moore, you have Paul Blackburn. We’re starting to build up a little bit of a younger core that is in back of our present team, and you have to be able to create the next wave and we have to stay focused on that.”
The best part for Dipoto is that the Mariners were able to add to that next wave without abandoning what the current team is trying to accomplish.
“I love the fact that we’ve been able to stay where we are despite the injuries, despite the shortcomings,” he said of the Mariners, who are still within striking distance of a Wild Card berth. “We had a rough six-week stretch, and we’re right there. Monty did a great job for us, and in the end, the fact that he was able to deliver us something that is presently valuable to us and inherently valuable to our future, you have to acknowledge that and we had to act on it, and we did.”
