It is time to face the music.
Just 24 hours after being manhandled and swept by one of the best teams in all of baseball, the Los Angeles Dodgers, the Seattle Mariners have reportedly fired longtime manager Scott Servais, according to multiple reports. Earlier on Thursday, The Athletic came out with the story that it was not if but when Servais would lose his job.
Servais, who has been at the helm with the Mariners since 2016, helped put an end to the team’s extended postseason drought in 2022 but has been unable to lead the troops out of the darkness of another mediocre season and an unacceptable and disastrous midseason slump in 2024. The Mariners, who at one point held a comfortable 10-game lead in their division, have since nose-dived to five games back of the Houston Astros in the AL West.
Per The Athletic, Servais will be replaced by former Mariners All-Star catcher Dan Wilson. Wilson, a member of the Seattle Mariners Hall of Fame, has no previous management experience at any level.
“I appreciate the faith that Jerry, Justin and the Mariners organization have placed in me” Wilson said, “and I’m eager to get to work. I believe this team is capable of playing great baseball this season and look forward to the opportunity to work with this group of players and coaches.”
Seattle started the season on fire but has fallen on hard times as of late. Under the regime of Servais and president of baseball operations Jerry Dipoto, the team is now looking up at the Astros and has lost eight of its past 10 games to fall to .500 with a 64-64 record.
Embed from Getty Images“We believe that we need a new voice in the clubhouse,” general manager Dipoto said. “Dan knows our team and has been a key member of our organization working with players at every level over the past 11 years. He is well respected within and outside of our clubhouse and we are confident he will do a great job in leading our group over the final six weeks of the season and moving forward.
“I do want to thank Scott for all his efforts here in Seattle over the past nine seasons. He has poured his passion into the team and our community and I know I speak for the entire Mariners organization in thanking him for has hard work.”
Despite some incredibly strong performances on the rubber from star pitchers such as Logan Gilbert, Bryce Miller, George Kirby and Luis Castillo, the Mariners have struggled immensely when it comes to swinging the bat. The Mariners lead the league in strikeouts with 1,308 and have recorded the fewest hits (903) and lowest batting average (.216) in the league.
This is not their first rodeo in the firing business this season. The Mariners relieved their bench coach and offensive coordinator Brant Brown in May, but the initial spark and improvement fizzled out as quickly as it began, when Seattle’s lineup reverted back to their old habits, struggling.
The Mariners fans will still fondly remember the Servais era for his management in 2022, when he led the long-suffering franchise to the postseason for the first time in since 2001, ending a 21-year playoff drought, the longest active drought in all of North American professional sports at the time. Seattle clinched a wild-card berth that year and advanced to the AL divisional series before getting swept by the Astros.
But Servais’ tenure was also mired with seasons that failed to meet expectations. In 2016, his first season on the job, Seattle just barely missed the playoffs after an unexpected postseason push. More of the same occurred in 2021, when the Mariners were in playoff contention until game 162 on the final day, and in 2023, when Seattle finished one game out of a playoff berth.
With its lead suddenly vanished in thin air, Seattle looks to be heading toward a similar fate this season. Given that the AL West is one of the weakest divisions in baseball, the Mariners would likely need to win the division to lock up a coveted a playoff spot. But it will not be easy. They sit five games back in the AL West and 7.5 games back of the final AL wild-card spot as of Thursday.
Seattle has not won a World Series or tasted the champagne in the organization’s 47-year history, and it is one of a handful of teams in MLB that has failed to win a pennant. If the Mariners fall short yet again, it is likely that Dipoto, who has already gotten on the fans bad side with comments suggesting that the team was not trying to win a World Series, will be the next one to go.
The team will now reportedly turn to Wilson, who caught for Seattle from 1994 to 2005. The Mariners brought Wilson on board as a special assignment coordinator for spring training, and according to The Seattle Times, he has become a mentor and a big brother of sorts for current Mariners’ catcher Cal Raleigh.
Also, per Adam Jude of The Seattle Times, Mariners’ legend and Hall of Famer Edgar Martinez will join Wilson, his former teammate, on the coaching staff. Martinez, a seven-time All-Star who played with the Mariners from 1987 to 2004, served as the hitting coach in Seattle from 2015 to 2018 and has been a special advisor since that point.
Seattle will lean on these two former players to help the team navigate the home stretch, (34 games) of the regular season.
