Seattle Mariners President of Baseball Operations Jerry Dipoto did his best to enrage M's fans on Tuesday afternoon at the end of the season press conference.
Let's back up first and establish a few facts:
1) One year after making the playoffs for the first time since 2001 and winning a playoff series, the Mariners missed the playoffs by one game. After winning 90 games each of the last two years, they won 88 games this year, again, missing the playoffs by one game.
2) The Mariners are the only team in baseball to have never appeared in a World Series.
3) After the M's were eliminated from playoff contention, Mariners' team leaders spoke up and encouraged ownership to spend more money to try to make the team better, similar to what the Texas Rangers have done.
Now, to Tuesday, and Dipoto's comments:
Jerry Dipoto says focusing on winning the World Series could have left the Mariners “stuck in the mud”
“We’re actually doing the fan base a favor in asking for their patience to win the World Series.”
Dipoto said that he's essentially playing the long game with the franchise and that if the team were to win 54 percent of its games over a 10-year period, they'd have a great chance of eventually landing in the World Series. He added that the team is doing the fanbase a favor by essentially building a team that's always good, as opposed to selling out for one year.
Time and place, Jerry.
That's not what the fanbase wants to hear. Why it may be true that the M's have built something sustainably good over the last three years, the fanbase wants to know how the team can get over the hump. This offseason, fans were told that the franchise wanted to win the World Series, and now its being told by its front office that it needs to be more patient?
The M's fans have been patient for nearly 50 years of existence.
Either Dipoto thinks his process is smarter than the fanbase and is talking down to it, or he's been sent by ownership to justify the team's lack of spending.
Either way, M's fans aren't happen.
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