The True Cost of Draft, Develop & Trade

[Juliooooo]

They are asking him why are there no trades???? Jerry says it is different because more parity. So teams don't want to trade mlb players.

Now he is trying to explain his idiot DH philosophy

So ask him why the fuck he won't sign free agents

lol they have all been signed already...Doh!

So he's just figuring this out?

I like Jerry, and I think he's handcuffed by management when it comes to money. He has to have one philosophy and stick with it. Let the players develop, meaning don't trade your 2 best prospects for a pitcher (your strongest position), go all in by trading what it takes to get some offensive help, or spend the money it takes to sign Free Agents. He needs to get at least 1 more MLB bat

[D-train]

So ask him why the fuck he won't sign free agents

lol they have all been signed already...Doh!

So he's just figuring this out?

I like Jerry, and I think he's handcuffed by management when it comes to money. He has to have one philosophy and stick with it. Let the players develop, meaning don't trade your 2 best prospects for a pitcher (your strongest position), go all in by trading what it takes to get some offensive help, or spend the money it takes to sign Free Agents. He needs to get at least 1 more MLB bat

You be preaching to the choir my friend.

[Captain 97]

There’s no denying that Jerry Dipoto has put together a quality MLB team with a solid foundation. A solid minor league sytem. A solid core at the MLB level. A very competitive team by all accounts.

He has earned accolades for building the team through DDT, Draft, Develop, and Trade. In doing so, Dipoto has cut payroll from $158 million in 2018 to $104 million in 2022. The 2018 team won 89 games, and the 2022 team won 90 games. The team is as competitive now as it was at it’s payroll peak, even while cutting payroll by one-third.

Dipoto clearly deserves credit for putting together a competitive team and keeping the payroll under control. But it hasn’t come without it’s own costs, and there are some pretty obvious reasons that it has taken him 7 years to do so. For every trade Dipoto has made in order to avoid spending market value in free agency, the Mariners have done so at the expense of talent in the system, and many of the players they acquired were still getting paid higher than average salaries. Money that could possibly have been (better?) spent in free agency without giving up prospects.

Since 2016 Dipoto has spent $177.4 million on players that he acquired mostly via trade (some FA pitchers/catchers) and most of them have provided little to no value to the Mariners. There are some obvious wins like Eugenio Suarez. But even Suarez came at the expense of Brandon Williamson, Justin Dunn, and the salary owed, which fortunately is more than reasonable.

The group of players includes Nori Aoki, Adam Lind, Wade Miley, Chris Iannetta, Steve Cishek, Joaquin Benoit, Yovani Gallardo, Drew Smyly, Danny Valencia, Marc Rzepczynski, Carlos Ruiz, Dee Gordon, Juan Nicasio, David Phelps, Yusei Kikuchi, Mallex Smith, James Paxton, Rafael Montero, Adam Frazier, Jesse Winker, Ken Giles, Sergio Romo, and Evan White (included because he was handed a contract).

Those players accounted for 6.2 fWAR for a cost of $177.4 million dollars. Unfortunately, that wasn’t the extent of what it cost the Mariners.

The players they gave up in these trades included:

Mark Trumbo (1.7 WAR the year he was traded, including 47 homeruns, the Mariners missed the playoffs by 1 game)

To replace him, the Mariners traded for Adam Lind, and gave up Freddy Peralta (8.8 career fWAR) in that package.

Enyel de los Santos (for Joaquin Benoit)(0.8 fWAR career, (3.04 ERA, 10.29 K/9 in 2022))

Ryan Yarbrough (for Drew Smyly) (5.8 fWAR career)

Paul Blackburn (for Danny Valencia) (1.7 fWAR career)

Nate Karns (for Jarrod Dyson) (0.5 fWAR)

Pablo Lopez (for David Phelps) (8.7 fWAR career)

Mike Zunino (for Mallex Smith) (0.4 fWAR during remaining control)

Guillermo Heredia (for Mallex Smith) (1.6 fWAR after trade)

There were several other players that have been traded away that have yet to make an impact. Missing the playoffs in 2016 by one game after shipping Trumbo off for a grudge- that trade hurts as much as any in my opinion. But setting that aside, this group of notable players that Dipoto traded away under the DDT model accumulated 28.3 fWAR.

Let’s say that again.

Dipoto’s underperforming trade acquisitions and the relief pitcher/catcher free agent signings he did make accumulated 6.2 fWAR at a cost of $177.4M from 2016-2022.

The players he traded away for these players have accumulated 28.2 fWAR at near league minimum salaries.

Draft, develop and trade is a catchy phrase. But in practice, Dipoto has not gotten good results overall. There is a reason it has taken 7 years for him to put a quality team on the field. The majority of the players he has acquired performed very poorly, and the players he traded away have proven to be substantial losses.

One has to wonder if holding on to our young players and actually augmenting the roster through free agency would have produced better results. Regardless at this point management has saved a large amount of money since taking a step back in 2022, Jerry Dipoto was given a promotion, and the product on the field is a sustainable winner. But given the path to get here, it’s not surprising to see ownership tighten the reins on payroll.

He also traded away Diaz, Taylor, Walker and Marte who put up a combined 40.2 bWAR between them with their new teams.

I would also argue with your note that they have a solid minor league system. It was solid a couple years ago but they graduated Julio, Raleigh Gilbert and Kirby to the bigs. Guys like Kelenic, White and sheffield have flamed out And the rest has been pillaged by trades. The system is looking pretty bare at the moment. We have nobody in the top 50 and just one in the top 100 in baseball. 3 of our top 4 prospects are 19 years old and won't be seeing the big leagues any time soon.

[bpj]

Devils advocate response, should be be judged on WAR for players during years when winning want the priority and goal? His goal for 2018-2020 was to build up depth and lower payroll, and he was successful at that. Much of the money he traded for in those years was to get rid of larger salaries.

As for the trades when they were competing, he traded lottery picks that had maybe a 10 % chance of racing MLB, and the other team struck big on that lottery. Hopefully he doesn't go that route, but that was my worry trading Marte and Arroyo last year. At least this time it was a higher end player.

Fair enough, but they made some very odd moves in that timespan.

-At the end of 2017 they added Mike Leake and the $50M remaining on his contract.
-Before 2018 they added Dee Gordon and the $38M remaining on his contract.
-Before 2019 they traded away Robinson Cano and the remaining $120M on his contract, and included $20M cash to the Mets.
-In that trade they took on Jay Bruce and his $28M contract.
-They traded Nicasio ($9.25M) and Segura ($58M) for Carlos Santana (who was flipped) and JP Crawford (pre-arb).
-In turn sent Santana +$1M net for Edwin Encarnacion ($22.6M)
-Before 2019 they added Yusei Kikuchi for 3 years, ($41.5M)
-Traded Leake and got out of $18.5M due
-Traded Bruce and got out of $18.25M due

So in that timeframe, Jerry did trade away $200M in salary obligations, but he also took on $180M that they didn't really have to if they weren't trying to win.

I know they probably had their reasons for doing things, but Jerry wasted a lot of money, in addition to the above moves that he didn't really save much on. And lost Edwin Diaz in the process of all the shuffling deck chairs.

[bpj]

There’s no denying that Jerry Dipoto has put together a quality MLB team with a solid foundation. A solid minor league sytem. A solid core at the MLB level. A very competitive team by all accounts.

He has earned accolades for building the team through DDT, Draft, Develop, and Trade. In doing so, Dipoto has cut payroll from $158 million in 2018 to $104 million in 2022. The 2018 team won 89 games, and the 2022 team won 90 games. The team is as competitive now as it was at it’s payroll peak, even while cutting payroll by one-third.

Dipoto clearly deserves credit for putting together a competitive team and keeping the payroll under control. But it hasn’t come without it’s own costs, and there are some pretty obvious reasons that it has taken him 7 years to do so. For every trade Dipoto has made in order to avoid spending market value in free agency, the Mariners have done so at the expense of talent in the system, and many of the players they acquired were still getting paid higher than average salaries. Money that could possibly have been (better?) spent in free agency without giving up prospects.

Since 2016 Dipoto has spent $177.4 million on players that he acquired mostly via trade (some FA pitchers/catchers) and most of them have provided little to no value to the Mariners. There are some obvious wins like Eugenio Suarez. But even Suarez came at the expense of Brandon Williamson, Justin Dunn, and the salary owed, which fortunately is more than reasonable.

The group of players includes Nori Aoki, Adam Lind, Wade Miley, Chris Iannetta, Steve Cishek, Joaquin Benoit, Yovani Gallardo, Drew Smyly, Danny Valencia, Marc Rzepczynski, Carlos Ruiz, Dee Gordon, Juan Nicasio, David Phelps, Yusei Kikuchi, Mallex Smith, James Paxton, Rafael Montero, Adam Frazier, Jesse Winker, Ken Giles, Sergio Romo, and Evan White (included because he was handed a contract).

Those players accounted for 6.2 fWAR for a cost of $177.4 million dollars. Unfortunately, that wasn’t the extent of what it cost the Mariners.

The players they gave up in these trades included:

Mark Trumbo (1.7 WAR the year he was traded, including 47 homeruns, the Mariners missed the playoffs by 1 game)

To replace him, the Mariners traded for Adam Lind, and gave up Freddy Peralta (8.8 career fWAR) in that package.

Enyel de los Santos (for Joaquin Benoit)(0.8 fWAR career, (3.04 ERA, 10.29 K/9 in 2022))

Ryan Yarbrough (for Drew Smyly) (5.8 fWAR career)

Paul Blackburn (for Danny Valencia) (1.7 fWAR career)

Nate Karns (for Jarrod Dyson) (0.5 fWAR)

Pablo Lopez (for David Phelps) (8.7 fWAR career)

Mike Zunino (for Mallex Smith) (0.4 fWAR during remaining control)

Guillermo Heredia (for Mallex Smith) (1.6 fWAR after trade)

There were several other players that have been traded away that have yet to make an impact. Missing the playoffs in 2016 by one game after shipping Trumbo off for a grudge- that trade hurts as much as any in my opinion. But setting that aside, this group of notable players that Dipoto traded away under the DDT model accumulated 28.3 fWAR.

Let’s say that again.

Dipoto’s underperforming trade acquisitions and the relief pitcher/catcher free agent signings he did make accumulated 6.2 fWAR at a cost of $177.4M from 2016-2022.

The players he traded away for these players have accumulated 28.2 fWAR at near league minimum salaries.

Draft, develop and trade is a catchy phrase. But in practice, Dipoto has not gotten good results overall. There is a reason it has taken 7 years for him to put a quality team on the field. The majority of the players he has acquired performed very poorly, and the players he traded away have proven to be substantial losses.

One has to wonder if holding on to our young players and actually augmenting the roster through free agency would have produced better results. Regardless at this point management has saved a large amount of money since taking a step back in 2022, Jerry Dipoto was given a promotion, and the product on the field is a sustainable winner. But given the path to get here, it’s not surprising to see ownership tighten the reins on payroll.

He also traded away Diaz, Taylor, Walker and Marte who put up a combined 40.2 bWAR between them with their new teams.

I would also argue with your note that they have a solid minor league system. It was solid a couple years ago but they graduated Julio, Raleigh Gilbert and Kirby to the bigs. Guys like Kelenic, White and sheffield have flamed out And the rest has been pillaged by trades. The system is looking pretty bare at the moment. We have nobody in the top 50 and just one in the top 100 in baseball. 3 of our top 4 prospects are 19 years old and won't be seeing the big leagues any time soon.

Yep, I agree with all of that. Hard to not sound like it's just Jerry bashing if I didn't throw in some sort of positive notes.

He's done a terrible job overall in my opinion.

[Juliooooo]

Devils advocate response, should be be judged on WAR for players during years when winning want the priority and goal? His goal for 2018-2020 was to build up depth and lower payroll, and he was successful at that. Much of the money he traded for in those years was to get rid of larger salaries.

As for the trades when they were competing, he traded lottery picks that had maybe a 10 % chance of racing MLB, and the other team struck big on that lottery. Hopefully he doesn't go that route, but that was my worry trading Marte and Arroyo last year. At least this time it was a higher end player.

Fair enough, but they made some very odd moves in that timespan.

-At the end of 2017 they added Mike Leake and the $50M remaining on his contract.
-Before 2018 they added Dee Gordon and the $38M remaining on his contract.
-Before 2019 they traded away Robinson Cano and the remaining $120M on his contract, and included $20M cash to the Mets.
-In that trade they took on Jay Bruce and his $28M contract.
-They traded Nicasio ($9.25M) and Segura ($58M) for Carlos Santana (who was flipped) and JP Crawford (pre-arb).
-In turn sent Santana +$1M net for Edwin Encarnacion ($22.6M)
-Before 2019 they added Yusei Kikuchi for 3 years, ($41.5M)
-Traded Leake and got out of $18.5M due
-Traded Bruce and got out of $18.25M due

So in that timeframe, Jerry did trade away $200M in salary obligations, but he also took on $180M that they didn't really have to if they weren't trying to win.

I know they probably had their reasons for doing things, but Jerry wasted a lot of money, in addition to the above moves that he didn't really save much on. And lost Edwin Diaz in the process of all the shuffling deck chairs.

There was a clear switch in philosophy after 2018 where they traded away money. Leake and Gordon were moves to contend before that. They couldn't that year, so they switched philosophy and started rebuilding.

The problem before 2018 is Jerry was working with a shit farm system, so they had to do bandaids to try to compete. Trading 18 year old lottery picks for ho hum players. Their best prospect at the time (Niedert) would probably be their 8-9th best right now, if that.

[bpj]

And in 2021-2022 he followed it up by wasting $35M on Paxton, Montero, Giles, Frazier, Winker, Romo and White.

If 90% of his moves weren't terrible, we wouldn't be having this conversation.

But when we can point to only three or four good moves in 7 years when he's been the most active GM in baseball, it's a problem.

[Captain 97]

And in 2021-2022 he followed it up by wasting $35M on Paxton, Montero, Giles, Frazier, Winker, Romo and White.

If 90% of his moves weren't terrible, we wouldn't be having this conversation.

But when we can point to only three or four good moves in 7 years when he's been the most active GM in baseball, it's a problem.

The reason the team is in the position it is in is because Jerry hit on guys like Julio, Cal, Gilbert and Kirby and because he struck it rich with some great reclamation projects in the bullpen. I give him props for that but they could have signed/drafted those guys without all of the rebuild garbage. All of the trades and salary dumping that is considered the heart of what a rebuild is all about has mostly just resulted in treading water. Literally every young prospect that he traded for as supposed major keys of the "rebuild" has bombed.

[D-train]

And in 2021-2022 he followed it up by wasting $35M on Paxton, Montero, Giles, Frazier, Winker, Romo and White.

If 90% of his moves weren't terrible, we wouldn't be having this conversation.

But when we can point to only three or four good moves in 7 years when he's been the most active GM in baseball, it's a problem.

The reason the team is in the position it is in is because Jerry hit on guys like Julio, Cal, Gilbert and Kirby and because he struck it rich with some great reclamation projects in the bullpen. I give him props for that but they could have signed/drafted those guys without all of the rebuild garbage. All of the trades and salary dumping that is considered the heart of what a rebuild is all about has mostly just resulted in treading water. Literally every young prospect that he traded for as supposed major keys of the "rebuild" has bombed.

Slight exceptions with Swanson who was the key to the Teo trade and Dunn who was one of the pieces that got us Geno. But yeah JK, Bautista, Sheff, Dom Thompson Williams all busts.

[bpj]

And in 2021-2022 he followed it up by wasting $35M on Paxton, Montero, Giles, Frazier, Winker, Romo and White.

If 90% of his moves weren't terrible, we wouldn't be having this conversation.

But when we can point to only three or four good moves in 7 years when he's been the most active GM in baseball, it's a problem.

The reason the team is in the position it is in is because Jerry hit on guys like Julio, Cal, Gilbert and Kirby and because he struck it rich with some great reclamation projects in the bullpen. I give him props for that but they could have signed/drafted those guys without all of the rebuild garbage. All of the trades and salary dumping that is considered the heart of what a rebuild is all about has mostly just resulted in treading water. Literally every young prospect that he traded for as supposed major keys of the "rebuild" has bombed.

Yeah, I agree, that's pretty much what I'm trying to show in this post.

Nobody has a problem with the results of the draft and international signings. They definitely could have done worse. Other teams have probably done better. But, no complaints about their performance in those areas.

The clear problems have been the players that Dipoto has brought in and spent $180 million on that were terrible, while at the same time a few of the players he traded off for the underperformers went on to put up some fantastic numbers. Both of those have put the team in a weaker position. And here we are.

About where we were in 2018 in terms of wins, just with a lower payroll.