SEATTLE — Mariners president of baseball operations Jerry Dipoto started Tuesday's press conference by saying that while he was disappointed his team missed out on the playoffs, the season overall was a "step forward for us."
For Mariners fans who later saw remnants of soundbites and quotes on social media, it was one step forward and two steps back.
Dipoto, General Manager Justin Hollander and Manager Scott Servais spoke for 75 minutes. The press conference wasn't streamed live because of MLB rules forbidding it with playoff games in action.
For Dipoto, it wasn't a filibuster. But he was fishing for the right answer.
"We have talked for many years about the desire to create a sustainable roster that had the ability to compete for championships year in and year out," he said.
Dipoto began with support for the comments made by his catcher Cal Raleigh on Saturday.
Cal had called out the front office, urging them to spend the offseason spending in free agency, after the Mariners had been eliminated from playoff contention.
"The one thing he kept saying when we talked privately was 'I just want to win and I can't take that back.' We all do," Dipoto said, while then pushing back on the value of splashy free agent signings. "There are a number of teams that I guess are evidence today that that might not be the only way that you build a roster."
He rejected the idea that ownership is stingy with spending money.
"We've actually signed three of the top 40 contracts over the last two years with Robbie Ray and The Rock (Luis Castillo) and with Julio (Rodriguez)," he said.
Servais, for his part, spent considerable time analyzing what went wrong on the field.
He pointed to strikeouts from his hitters and their inability to consistently hit breaking pitches.
"Julio can crush the spin when it's in the strike zone. Nobody crushes the spin when it's out of the strike zone," he said.
Servais then spun the season into rosier terms.
"We're good. Contrary to what some people think here, we're really good. We came up one game short," he said.
Dipoto didn't shy from breaking down his big-picture vision.
He touted a third year in a row of a win percentage over .540.
"I can't tell you what year we're going to win the World Series. I can tell you that if we win 54 percent of our games over the course of a decade, you're going to play in the World Series," he said.
His message to fans is that he's working as fast as he can.
"The narrative has been that we're pushing the patience of a fanbase or of our support. We've turned this around in about two and a half years," he said.
Yet Dipoto also asked fans to sit tight, as permanent progress is still a work in progress.
"We're actually doing the fanbase a favor in asking for their patience to win the World Series while we continue to build a sustainably good roster," Dipoto said.