Sports

Jerry Dipoto just admitted the Mariners’ roster may be too rigid to improve

Seattle Mariners On SI · Jul 21, 2026 03:35 · 3 min read

Jerry Dipoto Just Admitted the Mariners’ Roster May Be Too Rigid to Improve — Dec 9, 2024; Dallas, TX, USA; Miami Marlins president of baseball operations Jerry Dipoto speaks with the MLB Network at the Hilton Anatole during the 2024 MLB Winter Meetings. Mandatory Credit: Jerome Miron-Imagn Images | USA TODAY Sports via Reuters Connect

The Mariners should prioritize offensive impact over positional fit as Jerry Dipoto searches for upgrades before the MLB trade deadline.

The Mariners need more offense. We know it. Jerry Dipoto knows it. And anyone who has watched the Mariners stumble through the first half of the 2026 season knows it. With the trade deadline approaching, you’d think that should make the next step pretty simple. Find a better hitter.

Instead, Dipoto made the problem sound far more complicated than it needs to be. While discussing Seattle’s needs before the trade deadline, the Mariners president of baseball operations acknowledged the lineup hasn’t been good enough. He pointed to the club’s struggles against left-handed pitching, admitted the offense has been underwhelming against just about everyone and said Seattle would like to address it. Then he followed that up with explaining why that may be difficult.

“Obviously, we want to solve the offensive question,” Dipoto told The Seattle Times. “At some point we just have to be better offensively against all pitching. We do have a clear flaw for facing left-handed pitching, and that’s something we’d like to resolve, although there are no really clear and obvious places we can fit those players on our roster, and there are no clear and obvious players who are available who can upgrade us in that way. The best players we can acquire are the players we have.”

Even if there’s truth to that statement, the answer should bother Mariners fans. The idea that Seattle has no obvious place to fit another hitter is something else entirely.

Mariners Have Built a Crowded Lineup, Not a Complete One

The Mariners have players assigned to every position. That doesn’t mean every one of those players should be protected from an upgrade.

There is a difference between having a full roster and having a good roster. Seattle appears to be treating the first as evidence of the second.

There are plenty of known names on the roster, yet they’re still looking for more production. The Mariners entered the second half below .500 because their pitching could only drag them so far.

A lineup ranked 25th in WAR isn’t a group that should be considered too settled to disrupt. If the Mariners acquire a hitter who is clearly better than one of their current options, somebody loses playing time. It shouldn’t be treated as a roster crisis because that is the entire point of making a trade.

Dipoto shouldn’t need to identify an empty position before adding offense. He needs to identify the weakest collection of at-bats and replace them with something better.

The Mariners Cannot Make Internal Improvement Their Only Deadline Addition

Dipoto’s final point may be the most unsettling one.

“The best players we can acquire are the players we have,” he said.

We have heard some version of this before. The Mariners believe their established hitters can perform better. They expect injured players to return. They can point to career numbers and argue that the offense should eventually normalize. Maybe it will. A lot of times it doesn’t.

Several current players have produced more in the past than they did during the first half. That’s a reason for optimism. But it’s not a real deadline plan. Unless…the plan is to do nothing.

Waiting for players to rebound is not the same as adding a hitter. Hoping the current roster starts performing closer to expectations doesn’t erase the need to protect against the possibility that it doesn’t.

At some point, the front office has to stop waiting for production and go acquire it.