50 in 50: What Do M’s Manager Failures Say About Future Skipper Needs?

Though he made clear that the process would extend “as long as it takes”, Mariners president of baseball operations Jerry Dipoto set out a checklist of sorts when he described his ideal manager hire for 2027 during his end-of-season interview in late September.

“Generally speaking, we're just looking for someone who has high character, growth mindset, has the ability to think strategically in the context of a major league game,” Dipoto said.

While the front office head said it would be preferred for the incoming skipper to have big league experience, he made explicit that it was not an out-and-out requirement.

Dipoto has overseen two skippers in his long tenure as first the Mariners’ general manager and then the POBO, and neither was someone who really fit these criteria. Scott Servais was probably closer from an analytical standpoint, but he came in as Dipoto’s in-house guy rather than as someone to both understand and challenge him. Dan Wilson was hired - it’s still not clear at whose request - due to his long tenure with the Mariners, rather than an interview process to find the best candidate, and he had evident issues with understanding and applying principles of modern analytics.

Neither of those managers were people outside the Mariners’ or Dipoto’s general remit. Perhaps the most significant of the promises the POBO made was that the new skipper would come from the outside.

“There are a lot of good people out there, and most of what we've done, in recent years especially, has been insular,” Dipoto said. “And I think this year's failure requires that we look outside to find someone who might be able to poke holes in what we're doing and help us see something that perhaps we're blind to.”