OAKLAND, Calif. -- As the Mariners trudge through the final weeks of a 2024 season, trying desperately to have it not end the same as so many seasons past, the looming failure to finish just short of the postseason isn't expected to result in repercussions for the top leadership in the front office.
While the struggles and failures of the Mariners from mid-June to late August ultimately cost manager Scott Servais his job with 34 games remaining, the ownership group had already decided by midsummer to proceed for a 10th season with Jerry Dipoto as the head of the club's baseball operations, The Seattle Times has learned.
Multiple sources with direct knowledge of the decision-making process told The Times that ownership has decided to move forward with Dipoto as the team's president of baseball operations for the 2025 season and possibly beyond.
Dipoto's return is not believed to be contingent on the Mariners somehow making the postseason, which remains a longshot.
General manager Justin Hollander, who signed a multiyear contract on Oct. 2 of last year when he was promoted to his current position, will also return along with most of the top members of the baseball operations staff.
The Mariners have yet to publicly announce a contract extension for Dipoto and there may not be an official announcement in the days ahead. The organization has a long-standing policy of keeping contract details for players and baseball operations staff private.
Given the climate surrounding the Mariners over the past year -- which includes a three-month fall from the top of the AL West to a dip below .500 earlier this week, the details on how Servais learned about his dismissal and the lingering fallout from Dipoto's "54%" comments at the end of last season -- the reticence to announce an extension isn't unexpected.
Mariners chairman John Stanton would not comment publicly on Dipoto's future, preferring to maintain focus on the remaining games of the regular season.
While he's perhaps wisely taken a step back in his public media appearances, ending his weekly appearances on Seattle Sports 710-AM, Dipoto has always operated as if he was returning for another season. If he had any concerns about his job security, he never made it known. Then again, both of his previous extensions came in the months leading up to the current contract expiring.
The decision to keep Dipoto as the leader of baseball operations was made before the team's calamitous 1-8 road trip in August that was ultimately the tipping point for firing Servais.
During Dipoto's tenure, the Mariners' front office typically convenes for annual meetings during a late-season road trip to evaluate the season that was and start developing a strategy for the offseason ahead. This season, those meetings came during the mid-August series in Detroit, and Dipoto led them, per usual.
An organization that was still weighing a major change in the leadership of the baseball operations wouldn't likely go through the process of holding those meetings if there was any doubt about the situation.
Following the firing of Servais, Dipoto acknowledged that he had discussed the possibility of making an in-season change for the manager with Stanton, Hollander, assistant general manager Andy McKay three or four days before they decided to part ways with Servais.
The club's decision to make Dan Wilson the full-time manager -- and not an interim choice -- does speak to Dipoto's return as well. A new president of baseball operations would almost certainly want to bring in their own manager.
For Dipoto, it would be his third contract extension with the organization since being hired in September 2015. Both previous extensions were announced immediately. In the final year of his first contract, he received a multiyear extension in July 2018 when the Mariners were contending for a wild card spot.
In 2021, in what was believed to be the final year of his contract, Dipoto was promoted to president of baseball operations on Sept. 1 of that season after the Mariners restructured their front office leadership model with then-president Kevin Mather resigning under controversy during spring training.
This wouldn't be the first time the organization has made a decision to extend its front office's leader without making it public. Sometime during the 2013 season, general manager Jack Zduriencik, who was presumably working in the final year of his contract, was given a one-year contract extension for the 2014 season by former president Chuck Armstrong without announcing it publicly.
In August 2014, with the Mariners contending for the postseason, the team announced that Zduriencik was given a multiyear extension from Mather.
That team fell short of the postseason that year.
Zduriencik didn't make it through the first season of that multiyear extension. He was fired in August 2015 with the team struggling. Dipoto was hired in late September as his replacement.