After winning 90 games and reaching the postseason in 2022, things aren’t going as well for the Seattle Mariners in the 2022 season.
Seattle is currently 30-31 and has lost six of its last eight games. The Mariners are 10 games back in the AL West and 5.5 games back in a crowded AL Wild Card picture. FanGraphs’ current projections have the Mariners winning 82 games, with a 14.9 percent chance to make the playoffs.
Mariners president of baseball operations Jerry Dipoto appeared on Seattle Sports radio’s Brock and Salk on Thursday and spoke about the team’s current performance, as well as the Aug. 1 MLB trade deadline.
Dipoto described the Mariners as “struggling madly” and said that he should get the blame for the team’s struggles. Additionally, he said that he doesn’t think the Mariners’ record makes them a “bad team,” but rather a “a very talented team who has struggled a lot.”
“I don’t really know anybody to blame but me. This is what we put together, and we’re a .500 team. I don’t think we intended to be a .500 team by the time we got to this point in this season, and I don’t think this makes us a bad team. I think it makes us a very talented team who has struggled a lot, especially in the batter’s box, and we have to find our way out of it because we do have the talent.”
On the topic of the trade deadline, Dipoto acknowledged that it’s “impossible to assess” where the Mariners will be in the standings and performance wise come Aug. 1, but added, “And this is just being honest, we could go out and acquire prime Babe Ruth and it’s not going to help us. We’re not one player away or one magic spell from fixing this.”
“It’s impossible to assess where we will be (at the Aug. 1 MLB trade deadline). And this is just being honest, we could go out and acquire prime Babe Ruth and it’s not going to help us. We’re not one player away or one magic spell from fixing this. This is a commitment from 26 players on a roster to reverse our course, and between now and the end of July, if we show progress in that way, then we’ll go out and solve what problem or problems we can solve. But we’re not going to flip out our roster for six or eight new players. Again, I feel we are young, we are sustainable, and we are struggling. The worst time to make decisions is when you’re at your worst. So I think the appropriate measure is take a deep breath, watch what’s happening around the league for these next 30-40 days and put yourself in a position to make a difference when it comes that time. But to think, ‘Oh my gosh, we need to trade all these guys and start over,’ that’s absurd. We built this, it’s a good team, we’re coming off back-to-back 90-win seasons, we’re .500, we don’t have 15 wins (on the season) today. We just had a really crummy week.”
So, unless the Mariners significantly turn things around in the coming weeks, it’s hard to see Dipoto going all-in to acquire a star ahead of the Aug. 1 trade deadline.
