Mariners’ Jerry Dipoto: ‘Appropriate time’ to spend is ‘closer than it’s ever been’

After a lot of speculation over the last few months about their futures, Mariners manager Scott Servais and general manager Jerry Dipoto received contract extensions last week to keep them in Seattle for the next few years.

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Dipoto, who also received a promotion to Mariners president of baseball operations, joined The Mike Salk Show on 710 ESPN Seattle for the weekly Jerry Dipoto Show on Thursday and discussed his new deal and the future of the Mariners.

The Mariners made it clear that they wanted Dipoto around for the long haul given his recent extension, but Salk wanted to know why Dipoto chose to stick around in Seattle.

“I love this job. I love the city, I love the people I work with,” Dipoto said. “I’ve said this to just about anybody who’s asked me the question over the last three years, especially: What (we have been) doing since 2018 with this organization, the plan we’ve had and focusing on executing it everyday, has been the most rewarding thing I’ve ever done professionally. It has been so much fun to watch people grow, to watch a plan come to fruition. And to have hope. I think that’s plenty for me. I love it here and I hope that we are at the precipice of great things, because we all believe that is more real today than it’s ever been.”

Dipoto has built one of the best farm systems in baseball since the Mariners kicked off their rebuild after the 2018 season, but something that the team hasn’t done much of in the last few offseasons is spend big in free agency.

Salk asked Dipoto if he had any concerns about ownership preventing him and the front office from spending money on free agents to add talent to the young players he’s accumulated.

“It doesn’t worry me because we have a history of doing the opposite of those concerns,” he said. “… In recent history, the Mariners have been really aggressive, really since the opening of first Safeco (Field), which has obviously now become T-Mobile Park. In that era, we’ve been a really aggressive team in terms of payroll. And that has sunk over the last 2.5 or three years since we started to take our team down and rebuild it, and that’s a natural happening.”

The last few years, the Mariners have stayed on the sidelines for the most part regarding bigger-name free agents. Dipoto said that shouldn’t be the case going forward.

“My first three years here – and I know the years prior to my arrival – we were always one of the top 10 or 12 payrolls in baseball, and I’m confident we will be back there at the appropriate time, and we feel like the appropriate time is again, closer than it’s ever been,” he said.

Listen to The Jerry Dipoto Show at this link or in the player below.

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