SAN DIEGO – For front-office executives and anyone in the upper levels of an organization, the subject of player payroll has become baseball’s version of the “third rail.”

That political metaphor comes from the high-voltage third rail in some electric railway systems in which touching it could lead to electrocution. Touching certain subjects are deemed so controversial it could lead to career suicide.

Discussing your team’s player payroll won’t lead to that drastic of an outcome, but it will make you and your organization trend on Twitter for a good 24 hours.

It’s a subject you simply don’t want to touch because of all that comes with it, particularly in the era of social media. Nothing good comes when talking about how much money you can spend, your spending strategy, your spending plans, your spending limitations and the specifics of a budget that is set by your bosses.

For Mariners president of baseball operations Jerry Dipoto, always verbose in answering a question and unafraid to share his thinking, the topic of his team’s payroll and free-agent spending has become unavoidable in the past few weeks.

He was asked about it in relation to signing free agents on his weekly radio show with Mike Salk and Brock Huard before the recent MLB winter meetings.

“One of the things that really gets lost in the wash right now with some of what we’ve done with extensions for guys like J.P. Crawford and Julio Rodriguez and Luis Castillo, with some of the escalating player costs that we anticipate with the coming arbitration of guys like Logan Gilbert and George Kirby and Cal Raleigh, (is that) we are very aware of what our future payrolls look like,” he said. “Because the decisions you make today – and this is more difficult for someone who’s not looking more broadly – don’t just affect your 2023 payroll. You’re not going to go from $115 million to $215 million in a year, because what winds up happening is two years from that point, you’re at $315 (million). The escalating costs really do start to pile up.”

Gilbert and Kirby are tracking toward Super 2 status, which means they could gain a fourth year of salary arbitration, which means even more money in future salary. Raleigh is bordering on Super 2 eligibility.

“Right now, we have more future commitments – 2024 and beyond than all but two teams in baseball,” Dipoto said. “So we have spent our money, we have built larger payrolls, we’ve just done it in a different way than maybe the front-facing, basic 2023 roster might suggest. That’s where draft and develop and trade comes in … we are sometimes looking for shorter term fits, who won’t affect the 2026 payroll, when all of this really starts to crest, and you’ve got multiple players making $25-plus million, and you’re trying to figure out how to build a team.”

With the recent spending spree at the winter meetings, which included Aaron Judge’s $360 million contract and Trea Turner getting $300 million from the Phillies, the Mariners rank seventh in future financial commitments behind the Padres, Phillies, Yankees, Rangers, Mets and Braves.

Dipoto was asked about his comments – along with other strategic questions – during the winter meetings because the Mariners didn’t make a transaction during their time in San Diego.

“If we’re doing a deal, we’re not going to do a deal because we were emotionally driven,” Dipoto said. “We’re not going to do a deal because somebody else did one and we feel like we have to. We’re also not going to do it just because we can. We’re gonna do it because we think it’s the right thing to do. We want to sustain winning. We’re built on draft and develop and trade. We use free agency in a way to augment our roster, not in a way to build it.”

On Thursday morning, the subject of raising payroll and the Mariners’ payroll ranking was brought up again on his radio show, much to Dipoto’s obvious chagrin.

“I think this is a question that I answered last week,” he said. “We went from 23rd in payroll, to 21st in payroll, to 17th in payroll. We’ve been on a steady climb, and we are a middle market. That’s what we are in today’s Major League Baseball. Our payroll has always been a middle to top-10 payroll market. We’ve always spent commensurate with our market or higher. We’ll continue to do that. Our payroll has risen each year of this rebuild. It’s on that trajectory again.”

Per The Associated Press, which obtains the information sent to teams annually, the Mariners’ payroll finished at $93.7 million in 2022. According to FanGraphs, the Mariners payroll is projected at $135 million as of Thursday, which sources confirm is an accurate number. It is the 17th highest in baseball.

“We are already committed to a payroll that’s 25-30% higher than it was a year ago, if we do nothing else, the rest of this year,” Dipoto said. “Raising payroll is not connected to signing the top-of-the-market free agent. Raising payroll is doing smart things that evenly balance a team. And we are spending more than we spent last year. And as I said last week, we’re doing it a different way.”

Dipoto again mentioned signing Ray and giving extension to Crawford, Castillo and Rodriguez.

“We went out and extended Julio Rodriguez on what has a chance to be the biggest contract in the history of sports,” he said. “We’ve not been tight with a dollar. We’ve spent over half a billion dollars in future expenditures. We just didn’t sign this year’s top free agent. And I don’t think that is reflective of a team that’s unwilling to spend. We’ve actually already done that.”

The highest point of Mariners payroll came in 2018 when they finished the season with $171 million spent, which ranked 10th overall. Of that $171 million, $95 million went to five players – Felix Hernandez, Robinson Cano, Kyle Seager, Mike Leake and Nelson Cruz. After a strong start, that team faded down the stretch and finished with an 89-73 record. It was after that season when Dipoto convinced ownership to embark on a “step-back” rebuild plan.

While sources indicate that the Mariners want to build to that annual level of payroll again, if not higher, with increases in terms of yearly inflation and other circumstances they want to be mindful of the distribution of the dollars. That would likely keep Seattle in the 12-15 range of league payrolls.

Dipoto was asked if the Mariners have to stay a midmarket team in their future payroll commitments or budgets.

“I don’t know that we’ll ever be on the same tier with teams like the Yankees and the Dodgers, just simply because of the media markets and the population in those cities and among their fan base,” Dipoto said.