MLB front offices aim to remodel rosters while avoiding total upheaval

NASHVILLE ― Seattle Mariners general manager Jerry Dipoto stepped down from the TV set and patted his jeans in search of his iPhone before remembering a public relations assistant had been entrusted with its care during his on-air appearance. “I feel naked without it,” he quipped.

Rare has been the time in his 2 1/2 months on the job that his cellphone hasn’t been pressed to his ear or under his thumbs as Dipoto has made seven trades involving 25 players — with another reportedly in the works — while turning over more than a quarter of the 40-man roster he inherited from Jack Zduriencik.

About the only other occasion during this whirlwind offseason that Dipoto’s been without his phone came Monday, when he visited another club’s front office. “Dare I say that we are going to meet face to face with a club?” he jokingly asked his subordinates. “Which is now unheard of.”

Whether by text, call or visit, Dipoto is remaking the Mariners roster to his liking after Seattle’s 76-win season and fourth-place finish. Rather than rely on so much right-handed power and elite bullpen arms, he sought more depth and talent in the outfield (Leonys Martin, Nori Aoki), in the rotation (Wade Miley, Nate Karns) and behind the plate (Steve Clevenger, Chris Iannetta) by leveraging his stockpile of relievers (Carson Smith, Tom Wilhelmsen) and first basemen (Mark Trumbo, Logan Morrison).

“I probably wouldn’t have anticipated that it would have turned around this quickly — so many players, so many bodies in such a short amount of time — but we did, even from the day I was hired, talk about a desire to change the way we play,” he said.

That, Dipoto noted, inherently required a change in personnel. Now the club’s roster page is full of players but largely barren of uniform numbers, which have not been issued to newcomers because of timing or — in anticipation of others such as lefty C.J. Riefenhauser, who was acquired and dealt onward four weeks later — because Seattle might be a mere way station.

The Mariners’ moves constitute baseball’s most pronounced makeover this offseason. The question is, how much is too much?

In Dipoto’s case, the answer is easy: gut the interior, landscape the yard and leave only the foundation — pitchers Felix Hernandez and Taijuan Walker; infielders Robinson Cano, Kyle Seager and Ketel Marte; and designated hitter Nelson Cruz — intact.

“That’s the point,” Dipoto said of the wholesale changes. “We are a new general manager, mostly new front office, new manager (Scott Servais) and coaching staff and a different group of players who play in a different way.”

Dipoto, who resigned from the Los Angeles Angels in July, still trails another American League West Division rival, the Oakland Athletics, from a year ago for drastic change. Under the direction of top executives Billy Beane and David Forst, the A’s swapped out half of their 40-man roster — and subsequently fell 20 games in the standings. Some of that owes to ill-fated trades (such as moving 2015 AL MVP Josh Donaldson to the Toronto Blue Jays) and much of that to the market pressures of Oakland, which can’t afford a robust payroll and must always seek better value because experience correlates with higher salaries.

“I don’t know that we set out with any target,” Forst said. “You ultimately see what the options are for improving the club, and it’s sort of a fluid situation. We didn’t set out this time last year to turn over 50% of the group. It’s just kind of how it turned out.”

“Especially for some of the veteran guys to move around a bit, it’s a pretty transient industry and more and more so, it seems like now,” Oakland manager Bob Melvin said, adding: “As a staff, we try to keep the clubhouse pretty light and make them feel at home so it’s that much easier to perform on the field.”

The fear is such attrition can be destabilizing. The Blue Jays made huge additions before the 2013 season, but as one of them, pitcher R.A. Dickey, recounted of that club, “It didn’t fuse well, you know what I mean?”

When A.J. Preller took over the San Diego Padres last year, he made a staggering nine trades involving a total of 41 players (and a draft pick), acquiring remarkable star wattage in Matt Kemp, Justin Upton and Craig Kimbrel, not to mention free agent signee James Shields. The club, however, underachieved and went 74-88.

The trend of huge turnover is particularly apparent among younger executives in quantitative-leaning front offices, though that doesn’t mean chemistry is devalued. Forst said it’s certainly a consideration in Oakland.

“Yeah, without a doubt,” he said. “It’s something we discussed a lot over the past six months and how it affected our club. The reality is that we didn’t get off to a great start and that in itself was going to hurt any sort of ability our guys had to come together as a new group.”

In Tampa Bay, the Rays regularly rely on very young, cost-controlled players and trade the coveted ones before they complete their arbitration-eligible seasons to reset the process.

“We like the young guys, we like the new guys,” Rays manager Kevin Cash said. “They always seem to provide a lot of good energy. But the guys that will be back, they provide such a positive vibe in the clubhouse that I think they are very equipped to handle anybody that we bring in new or new addition.

“It's a welcoming group and very quickly with the leaders on our staff or on our team, it will kind of show the way, and we get a lot of buy-in because it's such a good culture and such a good atmosphere.”

The man who previously ran that franchise, Andrew Friedman, has subsequently left his post running the Rays to take over as president of baseball operations with the Dodgers. He has gone from the smallest average payroll to the largest, yet seems to have retained his wheeling and dealing ways.

Last year the Dodgers used 55 players — second only to the rebuilding Atlanta Braves — though that churn may have slowed this winter.

“This is a group that won the division three years in a row,” new Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said. “So I think that we've got a nice core. Obviously, when we lose Zack [Greinke], that's a big deal, but I don't expect too much turnover.”

Some turnover, it’s universally argued, is good to avoid complacency.

Hall of Fame executive Pat Gillick won two World Series with the Blue Jays and one with the Philadelphia Phillies, with whom he remains an adviser after recently stepping down as president, and says he thinks annually injecting new characters with a high degree of competitiveness is helpful. The signings of outfielder Dave Winfield and pitcher Jack Morris before the 1992 season, for instance, were so motivated, Gillick said. Similarly, shortstop Tony Fernandez, DH Paul Molitor and left fielder Rickey Henderson were brought on for the second of Toronto’s back-to-back World Series titles.

“It’s sort of an instinct call,” Gillick said about how many new faces to introduce to the clubhouse each year. “You don’t want too many players that are satisfied on the roster — when I say satisfied, [I mean] too many long-term contract players.”

The modern Jays added an influx of talent at the trade deadline, acquiring five players including ace David Price and star shortstop Troy Tulowitzki. Three of them — Price and two relievers — are now gone after helping Toronto end a 22-year playoff drought.

“I think every year you probably need a little bit of change,” manager John Gibbons said, adding: “There’s an opportunity for somebody else to step up and do your thing.”

But a lot of change can simply be too much.

“Turning it over as much as they turn it over, I don’t know,” Gillick said.

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