What Dipoto says Mariners are looking to do at trade deadline

The Seattle Mariners know they have a strength – pitching – that could make them a tough out if they reach the postseason. The tricky part for the 52-50 team is finding a way to add offense before the Aug. 1 trade deadline that doesn’t take away from the team’s future.

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“I’ve said this before: Our pitching is good enough that if we can get on the dance floor for the postseason, we can do some damage. And we’re aware of that,” Mariners president of baseball operations Jerry Dipoto said Thursday. “We want to put ourselves in a position to do that over the course of the season’s final two months.”

The trade market hasn’t yet picked up, and the Mariners are still looking for an opportunity to make the kind of move they’re aiming for.

“We’re always focused on, ‘How do we do the responsible thing in making sure we’re constantly building our core?'” Dipoto said. “If we have a chance to do that through the course of these next six days, we’ll do it. If we have a chance to make ourselves meaningfully better without putting ourselves in a precarious position moving forward, we’ll do it. We’ll try to be responsible in how we address our roster’s needs with what’s available on the market.”

Dipoto said the team has “needs we would like to address” for this season, but he also noted that a lot of the team’s needs are for helping the organization “moving forward.”

“Our general plan has never changed. The thing that changes day to day is how much clearer it becomes on who’s available, do they fit us, are they actually acquirable based on what we have?” Dipoto said. “That’s what makes it fun, and that’s why it changes day to day, because there might be three more teams that enter the fray on either side of the ledger tomorrow or later today.”

Dipoto said the Mariners have had some “back and forth” talks with other teams, but nothing that’s gotten close to a deal coming together.

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“We’ve expressed interest in players we think fit for us and do make us better in ’23 and moving forward. We have received incoming calls about players on our roster,” he said.

At the end of the day, Dipoto said it’s about being responsible.

“If left to our own devices, we’re all competitors … Every one of the players in our clubhouse, we want them to get excited by what happens at the deadline and and feel motivated. And sometimes they do and sometimes they don’t,” he said. “But you’ve got to do the smart thing. There’s 30 (MLB) teams, and I would say most of them are going to make some type of transactions that are going to affect their major league club in the next six days, and that’s kind of an exhilarating time. You can do things to make it impact from an organizational standpoint, but you can’t do stupid things if you intend to sustain. And that’s what we’ve really built this on is the desire to sustain, and we’re going to try to avoid stupid things.”

Listen to the full Jerry Dipoto Show at this link or in the podcast player near the top of this post. The Jerry Dipoto Show airs live at 8:30 a.m. each Thursday during Seattle Sports’ Brock and Salk.

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