One day after being swept by the Los Angeles Dodgers, the Seattle Mariners have fired longtime manager Scott Servais and has replaced him with former Mariners All-Star catcher Dan Wilson.
Earlier on Thursday, The Athletic reported that Servais losing his job was imminent. Mariners president of baseball operations Jerry Dipoto confirmed in a statement that Servais will be replaced by Wilson.
Wilson, a member of the Mariners’ Hall of Fame, has no previous managerial experience. He has been a special assignment coordinator for spring training with the club over the past few years.
“We believe that we need a new voice in the clubhouse,” Dipoto said in the statement, praising Wilson as “a key member” of the organization. “He is well respected within and outside of the 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.”
Per the statement, Wilson will manage his first game Friday, as the Mariners hope to reverse a midseason collapse with a home series against the San Francisco Giants. Dipoto told reporters Thursday that Wilson will not have an “interim” title, but that he is the manager moving forward.
In the statement, Dipoto also thanked Servais for his nine years with the team. “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 his hard work,” Dipoto said.
While Dipoto lauded the Mariners, Servais himself learned of his firing in the coldest possible way, as Adam Jude of The Seattle Times reported he got the news from social media, hours before a scheduled meeting with the general manager.
Servais, who has managed the Mariners since 2016, helped end the team’s postseason drought in 2022 but has been unable to reverse the tide on another mediocre season and a disastrous midseason slump in 2024. The Mariners, who at one point held a 10-game lead in their division, have since fallen to five games back of the Astros in the AL West.
The Mariners also fired hitting coach Jarret DeHart, who has been with the team since 2018 and who was promoted to the position in 2021.
The team has lost eight of its past 10 to fall to .500 with a 64-64 record.
Despite some incredibly strong performances on the mound from star pitchers such as Logan Gilbert, Bryce Miller, George Kirby and Luis Castillo, Seattle has struggled immensely on offense. 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.
The Mariners fired bench coach and offensive coordinator Brant Brown in May, but the initial improvement on offense quickly fell apart as Seattle’s lineup reverted back to struggling.
Seattle fans will still fondly remember Servais for his management in 2022, when he led the long-suffering Mariners to the postseason for the first time since 2001 — ending a 21-year playoff drought, the longest active drought in 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.
Servais’ tenure was also filled with seasons that failed to meet expectations. In 2016, his first season with the team, Seattle fell just short of the postseason after an unexpected playoff push. The same thing happened in 2021, when the Mariners were in playoff contention until the final day, and in 2023, when Seattle finished one game out of a playoff berth.
With its lead suddenly lost, Seattle looks to be hurtling 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 secure a playoff spot. But they sit five games back in the AL West and 7.5 games back of the final AL wild-card spot entering Thursday.
Seattle has not won a World Series in the team’s 47-year history, one of only five teams that has failed to win the championship. But the other four teams — the Colorado Rockies, Milwaukee Brewers, San Diego Padres and Tampa Bay Rays — have all won either NL or AL titles and advanced to the World Series. As a result, the Mariners are the only team in MLB that has failed to win a league pennant.
If the Mariners fall short again, it’s likely that Dipoto — who has already infuriated fans with comments implying that the team wasn’t aiming for a World Series — will be on the hot seat next.
The team will now turn to Wilson, who caught for Seattle from 1994-2005. Per The Seattle Times, Wilson has become a mentor and good luck charm for current Mariners catcher Cal Raleigh during his tenure as a special assignment coordinator.
Additionally, per Adam Jude of The Seattle Times, Mariners legend Edgar Martinez will join Wilson, his former teammate, on the coaching staff. Martinez, a seven-time All-Star who played with the Mariners from 1987-2004, served as the hitting coach in Seattle from 2015 to 2018 and has been a special adviser since then.
Hearing Edgar Martinez is expected to join old teammate Dan Wilson on the Mariners coaching staff for the rest of the season.
Martinez was the M’s hitting coach from 2015-18 and he’s been a special adviser for the club since.
— Adam Jude (@A_Jude) August 22, 2024
Seattle will look to these two former players to help the team navigate the final 34 games of the regular season.
