Logan Gilbert, Seattle Mariners.
General manager Jerry Dipoto is the architect of the Seattle mariners rebuild.
Let’s take a quick trip back a few years. It’s spring Training 2019, a new baseball season has begun with high hopes and dreams of a bright future for the Seattle Mariners. You sit there, pondering the ripple effects of an offseason where stars Robinson Cano, Edwin Diaz, and more are traded away or lost to free agency. Then you sip your morning beverage and reflect on the choices made by General Manager Jerry Dipoto and ownership. After 18 years of mediocre performances at best, the M’s pivoted. Changing the ripple effect.
To some fans and experts alike, the Mariners are in a “show me” phase. The 2021 season is nearly upon us, making the M’s 20 years removed from the last postseason appearance. Fans are again asked to be patient with a team that struggled to make the postseason with regularity since their inception.
Drop a rock in a pond, and you create a 360-degree circle of ripples that travel in any number of directions without regard for the final destination. Throw a rock in a pond, and you intentionally create the direction of the ripples. Dropping is passive. Throwing is intentional. The rebuild is a change in Dipoto’s previous method of dropping lots of rocks into a pond, to now throwing rocks into a pond with a specific destination for the ripples.
It is April 2019, and the Mariners are 13-2, an abundance of accidental hope abounds. Giving rise to the idea that the Mariners are winners. We don’t have to suffer through the agonizing idea of losing through a rebuild. The league quickly catches up with the Mariners and disposes of them in the standings.
We are reminded of the ripple effects. It was not until the Mariners came back down from this hope driven euphoria in 2019 that the rebuild became clear. Those veterans Dipoto brought in, from Jay Bruce to Dee Gordon, were not brought to the Emerald City to fill gaps. They were brought here to allow the prospects to develop at their own pace. That was the change in the thought process required to foresee the impact of the rebuild.
This mindset change included an understanding that the Seattle Mariners organization has to keep its prospects in an arena of success-driven confidence. Motivating them in a forward direction without a specific timetable to maintain that confidence. Then grow these young men as a team, building chemistry and a winning attitude. Thereby creating an atmosphere that creates success.
Justin Dunn, Seattle Mariners.
As a loyal fan, you search box scores, read scouting reports, and watch the development of players named Justus Sheffield, Cal Raleigh, Logan Gilbert, Justin Dunn, and Julio Rodriguez. Daily, you scour the internet for anything that shows you the development of Seattle’s young players. You have searched prospect specific websites for more information about the success of each of these prospects. This became more important than anything at the big-league level. You actually care about the box scores of Minor League, Winter League, and International baseball games.
As you gain more information, you distance yourself from the naysayers. So you steer clear of those fans with a win-now-at-all-costs mentality. Without Jerry asking you to, you have jumped on board the “Rebuild Train.” Now you are obsessed with it. Why? You know this time it’s different. It feels different. As a fan base, we’ve never experienced something like this.
The Mariners haven’t fully committed to rebuilding since the 116 win season, until now. As Jason A. Churchill from Prospect Insider put it “In the minds of the frustrated, Dipoto’s statement reaffirmed their long-held belief the Mariners have been in a perpetual rebuild for two decades. That is a myth.”
Every year the Mariners tried to reload. This resulted in suffering through a recipe of mediocrity wrapped in constant failure. To get past this rut of mediocrity, a team has to overspend or rebuild. Option 1 wasn’t working. The Seattle Mariners tied themselves to several large overpriced contracts that didn’t work. Then Dipoto changed the trajectory of the ripples. He threw rocks.
Jarred Kelenic is a cornerstone of the Seattle Mariners rebuild.
May 30th, 2021, a rare Pacific Northwest sun-filled sky graces the heavens above T-Mobile Park. The Seattle Mariners are about to take the field to conclude their four-game series with Texas. The Rangers, mired in years of their own mediocrity, have started the rebuild process. Public address announcer Tom Hutyler reveals the starting line-up for the third-place Mariners. A position of familiarity amongst most Mariner’s fans but a hopeful exuberance resonates in the hometown dugout.
The ripple effects lead to a starting line-up littered with players Dipoto acquired through the rebuilding process. Ty France leads the team in home runs with a batting average just north of .300, nearly two months in. Rookie-of-the-Year candidate Logan Gilbert toes the rubber as he goes for his third consecutive win. 2020 Gold Glove winners J.P. Crawford and Evan White continue to make strides with their bats. Not to mention the season’s feel-good story, Mitch Haniger is a contender for comeback player of the year.
It is not all good news; Kyle Lewis left his bat somewhere between August and September of last year, though he shows signs of a pending breakout. Also, second base continues to be a position of volatility. Even with those speed bumps, hope springs eternal. Jarred Kelenic plays in his nineteenth game since arriving in the Majors up from Tacoma. The Phenom takes his spot in left field, giving all Mariner fans a reason to obsess about the rebuild.
Dipoto will soon be in a position where the M’s core talent will need an extra boost to compete for the playoffs and beyond. The most comparable models at present are the Braves and Padres. Both teams amassed a stable of pitching prospects littered with upper-tier offensive talent. From there, it’s on Dipoto to make additions, and that is likely to happen during the 2021 offseason unless this young Mariners team forces the GM’s hand by being successful this year.
Eventually, you will hear new names and forget about prospects that never materialized. Study the ripple effects, and you’ll find plenty of reasons to obsess over the Seattle Mariners rebuild.
Lifelong Seattle sports fan Joe Swenson is a published author, as well as a writer, producer, and director at Broken Arts Entertainment.