These 7 Jerry Dipoto mistakes cost the Mariners a playoff berth

The Seattle Mariners were able to salvage a game against the Athletics, but even after their win on Sunday, they sit at 67-77 on the year. They are 10 games under .500 and 5.5 games back of a playoff spot as of this writing. They aren’t dead yet, but the odds of them making the playoffs are incredibly slim.

A lot of Seattle’s struggles can be attributed to brutal years from stars like Julio Rodriguez, Cal Raleigh, George Kirby and Andres Munoz (to name a few), but president of baseball operations Jerry Dipoto made his share of mistakes that contributed to this year’s disappointing outcome.

Brendan Donovan trade

The Brendan Donovan trade was completely defensible at the time. The Mariners needed an infielder, and Donovan was as underrated as any in the sport during his time with the Cardinals. The package they gave up to acquire him (Jurrangelo Cijntje, Tai Peete) wasn’t extravagant either, all things considered, especially since Donovan was set to be under control past 2026.

Unfortunately, Donovan has appeared in just 39 games for the Mariners this season as he’s battled various ailments. He’s played pretty well in those contests, but 39 games is roughly 25 percent of a full 162-game season. That isn’t close to good enough, especially when considering he was their marquee offseason addition. Hindsight is 20/20, and if Dipoto knew he’d only be getting 39 games out of Donovan in 2026, he would not have made this trade.

Re-signing Josh Naylor

The other major offseason move the Mariners made was re-signing Josh Naylor to a five-year, $92.5 million deal. What stood out about this contract was not only that it made a lot of financial sense, but also that the Mariners got a deal done before any other major free agent was signed. They were so quick to double down on Naylor after he provided a spark for them in 2025, but it just hasn’t worked out so far.

Naylor has slashed .267/.325/.363 with 10 home runs and 49 RBI. This is a player who hit 20 home runs and drove in 92 runs in 2025. Naylor has stolen 26 bases, proving 2025 wasn’t a fluke in that area, but he was brought back to be a run producer in the middle of their order. Naylor had a pretty decent June, but he has not had an .800 OPS in a single month after finishing with a mark higher than that in 2025.

Again, it made sense at the time, but it has just not aged well at all to this point, impacting Seattle negatively.

Rob Refsnyder signing

The Mariners signed Rob Refsnyder to do one thing: crush left-handed pitching. He hit .302 with a .959 OPS against southpaws in 2025, and had always hit them well in his career. Well, Refsnyder proceeded to slash .147/.222/.284 against lefties with four home runs before being DFA’d in early August. He wound up announcing his retirement shortly after.

One thing Dipoto has consistently struggled with is filling this exact void. From A.J. Pollock to Donovan Solano to Refsnyder, for whatever reason, Dipoto has been unable to find a veteran on a cheap deal to crush left-handed pitching. Maybe that’ll change this offseason, but in terms of 2026, the Refsnyder failure impacted their season negatively.

Entire trade deadline

Refsnyder’s struggles led to the Mariners pursuing a right-handed-hitting outfielder at the trade deadline to crush lefties, and they landed on Taylor Ward, who, while having a down year in the power department, was getting on base a ton and hitting lefties well with the Baltimore Orioles. Neither of those things has happened since the Mariners got him, as Ward has gone 8-for-72 with one extra-base hit (a double) in 23 games with Seattle. Ward has hit .105 in a Mariners uniform, performing as poorly as anybody since the deadline.

He was their big-ticket addition. The other move saw them trade Luis Castillo away in exchange for Seranthony Dominguez. That deal was essentially a bad contract swap, and Dominguez has an ERA approaching 5.00 with Seattle. The Mariners needed a big bat and settled on a platoon bat having an underwhelming year. They needed a high-leverage reliever but settled on a mediocre middle reliever at best. It felt like they didn’t do enough at the time, and it’s only aged poorly.

Delaying prospect call-ups

The Mariners held off from making major blockbusters, but in turn, held onto their top prospects. While that can be seen as a good thing, what good is that if you don’t promote them when they’re ready to fill needs? To their credit, the Mariners did give Colt Emerson a legitimate shot, but why did they wait so long to promote other prospects?

Kade Anderson, Lazaro Montes and Michael Arroyo, three top-100 prospects according to most outlets, who were all having strong years in the upper minors, were given chances in the majors in late August or later despite the Mariners having needs on their roster. The Mariners could’ve used Anderson to replace Bryce Miller in their rotation a while ago. They could’ve used Montes to try to inject life into their lineup a while ago. They could’ve used Arroyo with Donovan injured a while ago.

I’m not here to say these prospects would’ve definitively guided Seattle to a postseason berth, but Dipoto waiting to give them a look while the season was spiraling out of control was certainly frustrating.

Firing Bobby Magallanes

The Mariners have not met expectations all year offensively, and fired assistant hitting coach Bobby Magallanes in late July as a result. While it was nice to see Dipoto search for some accountability, did he really expect anything to change by firing the assistant hitting coach? Not the manager, not the hitting coach, the assistant hitting coach.

Predictably, it’s been more of the same since Magallanes’ firing. In fact, the Mariners’ offense has been even more sluggish without him than it was with him. If Dipoto really wanted a change, why didn’t he simply fire a more prominent member of his staff? It feels like he made the move for the sake of making a move without actually taking accountability, and nothing good has come from this change.

Not firing Dan Wilson

Not everything can be blamed on the manager in a down year. Ultimately, there’s only so much a manager can do from the dugout to impact wins and losses. With that being said, Wilson’s bullpen management has been astonishingly bad really ever since he chose to use Eduard Bazardo over Andres Munoz in a huge spot in last year’s ALCS Game 7, and at the end of the day, someone needs to take the fall for what has transpired.

Firing Wilson wouldn’t guarantee more wins, but there’s reason to believe it could’ve provided a boost. The Red Sox and Phillies rebounded from brutal starts and are now sitting comfortably in postseason spots after firing Alex Cora and Rob Thomson, respectively. Even the Mets have played much better baseball since firing Carlos Mendoza.

This season has been such a nightmare, and firing Wilson would’ve at least shown that what’s gone on is unacceptable. Dipoto refusing to do so adds to the already existing frustration.