You be the G.M. as we do something about Seattle's futility

We’re going to have a fairly long chat today, but I think it will lead to a lot of fun.

See, I believe this truly is baseball country — the real deal — with way too many fans just beaten down by the Mariners’ long, long futility.

Let’s get right inside the game and see if we can turn that long drought around.

Now…

Let’s say you’re building a new home on a fabulous waterfront lot.

You wouldn’t spend all your cash on a sunroom and a sparkling kitchen — then quit construction until an angel appeared to give you a loan to keep going.

Good luck with that plan.

At the end of the day, you’d be out a lot of money and have a skeleton house that would be hard to unload.

We’re using that analogy because it pretty well sums up the challenge facing Mariners GM Jerry Dipoto.

Dipoto has made a public declaration of tearing down most of the current team, all with an eye toward bringing an exciting, successful young team to Seattle around 2021.

If you read my Cheap Seats edition on Friday, you know I despise the entire idea of trading players — anyone in any sport — during the season.

SO LET’S call this Part II, where I grudgingly accept American sports in the goofy manner they’re run and say, “If this silliness must exist, then our goal is to use the system to build a winner.”

Dipoto can look across town and observe the Seahawks, who are in that unique position of rebuilding, yet trying to win now at the same time.

But that’s football, and Seattle has the luxury of an elite quarterback — and in the NFL, just one Russell Wilson makes you a serious playoff contender.

The Mariners, though, have to be built like that luxury home we described.

Money has to be spent wisely, and player development managed with everyone on the same page.

You don’t want to build half a team, then watch your next group of stars arrive as the first group departs — and sadly, the Mariners have done a lot of that since their last playoff appearance in 2001.

As a good lesson here, let me submit a club I got to cover right up close — the Kansas City Royals of 2014-15, participants in back-to-back World Series and winner of the whole shebang in 2015.

Lots of teams develop excellent players, but the Royals were sharp enough and fortunate enough to wind up with almost all the organization’s talent arriving in the major leagues around the same time.

Bingo!

CAN THE Mariners turn that same trick?

Dipoto got off to a great start by giving up on the notion of selling a little, then buying a little in hopes of reaching a one-game wild card spot.

That’s a useless exercise (see Oakland) and Dipoto understood it.

The hard part was telling the fan base — and there is a baseball madness dying to break out in the Northwest — to please, please be patient.

Again.

Dipoto is aiming for a deep, solid organization (think of Houston) which can win sometime soon — then remain an elite club far into the future.

To make that happen, Jerry has to get two things right, and he has to do them at the same time.

First, he has to stock the farm system with bona fide prospects who can impose themselves in the big leagues.

He’s doing it right so far, but as always in baseball, it comes down to pitching — and thus it’s depressing that the top projected arm the Mariners have acquired belongs to Justus Sheffield, who has struggled mightily in the minors so far this year.

Worrying but not fatal.

Pitchers can have the light flick on almost instantly.

The second issue is being right most of the time when deciding what current players can contribute — in terms of talent and age — when the prospects arrive in a couple of years.

LET’S SAY you get to be the Mariners general manager in this exercise.

You feel good about your young core (J.P. Crawford, Mitch Haniger and so forth), but you have to decide where else to spend money on members of the current roster.

It’s tough.

You love Dee Gordon, but he will be very much on the downside of his career when you’re ready to compete for titles.

Dee will be 32 next season, earning $13.8 million, with a contract that calls for a $14 million team option in 2021 with just a $1 million buyout.

Hate to do it, but you probably have to take the best trade offer for Gordon you can get.

Right now.

Dipoto has shown you the model, getting young (and inexpensive) talent in return for players like Mike Zunino, Jean Segura, James Paxton, Edwin Diaz, Robbie Cano, and most recently, Edwin Encarnacion.

You may not know Juan Then right now, but you very well might down the road.

And you’ll say thanks to Edwin and his parrot.

LET ME toss out just one player, and you decide if we should consider him one of our future building blocks, or a guy we ought to peddle now while the market looks great…

Domingo Santana.

He’ll be 27 in August, a proven banger who hit 30 homers two years ago and right now leads the American League with 59 RBIs (along with 17 home runs).

Like most mashers, Santana strikes out a lot — 100 times so far this year — but he’s learning his craft to the point that he’s no longer an automatic out against good pitchers.

He’s a terrible left fielder, absolutely awful, but he’s looked far more comfortable in right (albeit in a small sample size).

And despite that defensive trouble, he’s carrying a career WAR of 4.5, a number which gets your attention.

Domingo is earning just $1.9 million on a one-year deal, and he’s under club control through 2022, so there are serious arguments on both sides here.

Do you keep Santana as your inexpensive right fielder who surely WILL hit, whaling away in the middle of your pennant-contending lineup — or try to grab a special young arm (plus draft picks) from a team that’s run-starved in a wild-card race?

You tell me.

My email address is right there at the bottom.

I want to see how this hungry baseball region would build a team.

We’re already committed to waiting until 2021 for a serious push. So given that and everything else you know…

Domingo Santana.

What’s your move with him?

Steve Cameron’s “Cheap Seats” columns for The Press appear on Monday, Wednesday and Friday. Steve also contributes the “Zags Tracker” package on Gonzaga basketball once monthly during the offseason.

Email: scameron@cdapress.com