Matt Calkins: Why Jerry Dipoto's best moves with Mariners came well before trade deadline

Matt Calkins, The Seattle Times on Aug 5, 2025

Published in Baseball

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SEATTLE — Gallup doesn’t monitor the approval rating of MLB executives. But if it did, Jerry Dipoto’s would look like a seismograph during an earthquake with its sharp spikes and sudden drops.

There have certainly been times when the court of public opinion was ready to throw the book at the Mariners president of baseball operations. His “54%” comments following the missed-playoff season of 2023 sunk his popularity to its nadir.

But now? He’s got the scepter — or better yet, trident — to the city. Now, after acquiring Eugenio Suárez, Josh Naylor and Caleb Ferguson for minimal cost at the trade deadline, he’s got Seattle thinking about checking the World Series off its bucket list.

But I want to talk about two deals that took place well before this late-July haul — two team-friendly contracts that set the Mariners up for potential postseason success well beyond this year. The first involved catcher Cal Raleigh; the second Julio Rodríguez. Last week’s revamping of the roster was exhilarating, to be sure — but Cal and Julio’s signatures are Dipoto’s signature moments.

First, the Big Dumper. Most of us could see that Raleigh was the Mariners’ most consistent player, even if his ceiling didn’t seem stratospheric. He had a WAR of 3.9 in 2022, 3.4 in 2023 and 4.7 last season — all productive but never enough to earn him an All-Star bid. He looked like a top 50, maybe top 40 MLB player. So when the M’s inked him to a six-year, $105 million extension last March, it seemed commensurate with his value. Now it looks like it could go down as the best contract in team history.

With a league-leading 42 home runs, Raleigh is second only to Yankees center fielder Aaron Judge in the AL MVP odds, and it’s hardly a distant second. With a 6.3 WAR according to FanGraphs, Cal is on pace to have a season nearly twice as fruitful than anything he has done in the past.

Could his 2025 be an outlier? Maybe. We’ve seen a lot of MVPs and Cy Young winners over the years whose pinnacles came amid a whole lot of pretty goods. But Cal is locked in right now, and if the M’s didn’t lock him up last spring, he might command a deal netting him between $25-30 million per year in free agency. Possibly more. So the Mariners getting the 28-year-old for under $18 million per year for the next six seasons? Could go down as Dipoto’s finest work.

Then there’s Rodríguez. I feel as if there is a common thought that the three-time All-Star is paid like a superstar. He isn’t. His 12-year, $210 million contract pays him less than $18-million per season. Yes, there are performance-escalators and team options that could raise that contract to upward of $470 million, but the Mariners probably want him to hit that number. It would mean he’s playing at or near an MVP level.

In the meantime, he’s performing like an elite player for not-quite-elite money. Some fans who watch him flail at pitches miles out of the strike zone, or who are flustered by his perpetually slow starts to the season might question his value. But his 4.5 WAR — fueled in large part by his defense — says he is the 15th best player in baseball right now, and given that he averaged a 5.3 WAR in his first three seasons, one could argue he’s vastly outperforming his contract. The fact that he has six home runs since the All-Star break suggests another second-half surge is well under way — something the Mariners will need if they want to secure a wild-card spot or make a run at the American League West crown.

Look, the Mariners’ front office has had more than its share of shortcomings. The Dipoto era started before the 2016 season, and just once has Seattle made the playoffs. Most of the criticism levied toward ownership and the execs over the years has been warranted.

But credit must be given when it is due. Dipoto’s moves at the trade deadline positioned the Mariners to compete for MLB’s top prize. Doesn’t mean it will happen — there are too many competitive teams and too many variables in this game to predict much of anything.

But Dipoto also made sure his team’s two best players will be here for years to come at a price low enough to surround them with talent if ownership is willing to spend. The immediate future is bright. The long-term one isn’t so gloomy, either.

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