One day after being swept by the Los Angeles Dodgers, the Seattle Mariners are planning to make a major staffing change. The team is reportedly firing longtime general manager Scott Servais, according to the Athletic.
Servais, who has managed the Mariners since 2016, broke the team’s postseason drought in 2022, but has been unable to reverse the tide on another mediocre season and a disastrous mid-season slump. The Mariners, who at one point held a 10-game division lead, have since fallen to five games back from the 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.
Seattle started the season strong, but have slumped mid-season. Under Servais and president of baseball operations Jerry Dipoto, the team is now well behind the Astros and has lost eight of their last 10, with a 64-64 record.
Despite some incredibly strong performance on the mound from star pitchers like 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, while holding the lowest number of hits (903) and the 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 began to struggle again.
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 — breaking a 21-year-old 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 his tenure was filled with seasons that failed to meet expectations. In 2016, Servais’ first season with the team, Seattle fell just short of the postseason after an unexpected playoff push. The same thing happened in 2021, where the Mariners were in playoff contention until the final day, and in 2023, when Seattle was one game back from a playoff berth.
With its lead suddenly lost, Seattle looked to be hurtling toward the same fate this season. Given that AL West is one of the weakest divisions in baseball, the Mariners will likely need to win the division in order to ensure a playoff spot. They sit 7.5 games back of the final AL wild-card spot as of Thursday.
Seattle has not won a World Series in the team’s 47-hear history, and is one of only five teams in the MLB that has failed to win a pennant. If the Mariners fall short yet again, it is likely that Dipoto — who has already infuriated fans with comments implying the team wasn’t aiming for a World Series — will be on the hot seat next.
The team will now reportedly turn to Wilson, who caught for Seattle from 1994-2005. The Mariners have brought Wilson in as a special assignment coordinator for spring training and, per The Seattle Times, has become a mentor and good luck charm for current Mariners catcher Cal Raleigh.
