Jerry Dipoto makes trades.
Apparently even when the Seattle Mariners' president of baseball operations is in the hospital getting treated for blood clots in his lungs.
That's the story relayed by The Athletic's Zack Meisel in a new feature sharing some of the wildest GM transaction scenarios.
This one was a throwback to 2018, when the Mariners were trying to complete a three-team trade with Tampa Bay and Cleveland.
MORE: These 4 legends played in NFL, MLB, NHL as grandfathers before Philip Rivers
The deal is the one that eventually moved Edwin Encarnacion, Carlos Santana and Yandy Diaz.
This is how Meisel tells the story:
The front offices for Seattle, Tampa and Cleveland spent a few days under the same roof at Mandalay Bay on the Las Vegas Strip at the 2018 Winter Meetings, yet they didn’t finalize their five-player trade until each party had scattered.
Cleveland’s executives completed their end of the deal from Gate C22 at the airport, near a row of slot machines and a Nathan’s Hot Dogs stand. Then, they lined up in the A1-15 business select boarding group for their Southwest flight home. They claimed seats in the plane’s exit rows and, four hours later, after landing in Cleveland, held a mini press conference at the information kiosk in front of the TSA PreCheck area.
Meanwhile, the Seattle Mariners’ top decision-makers signed off on the transaction — which relocated Edwin Encarnacion, Carlos Santana and Yandy Díaz — from a Las Vegas hospital, where Jerry Dipoto was being treated for blood clots in his lungs.
MORE: A chicken sandwich at the Winter Meetings costs way more than you could imagine
Sometimes, a deal just has to get done.
The Mariners got Encarnacion in that trade. He played just 65 games for Seattle, slugging 21 home runs, before Dipoto traded him on to the New York Yankees. The player the Mariners got from the Yanks for Encarnacion was relief pitcher Juan Then, who threw in nine games for the Mariners in 2023 and hasn't been in the big leagues since.
More MLB news:
- Dodgers' payroll is even more loaded with Edwin Diaz
- It's a good day to remember Bob Feller's brilliance and his time in the U.S. Navy
- Pete Alonso's free agency just came into the spotlight
- How Aroldis Chapman is able to pitch for Great Britain in the WBC
- What the Kyle Schwarber signing means for the Pittsburgh Pirates
- Poetic paragraph reveals Cody Bellinger's free agent landing spots