'Our organization needed this': Analyzing Servais' dismissal

SEATTLE -- The Mariners’ decision to part ways with manager Scott Servais on Thursday represented a tipping point within a season that, barring a massive turnaround, is on pace to be among Seattle’s most disappointing in recent memory.

A 10-game lead atop the American League West has been squandered in historic fashion. A built-for-October rotation faces a significant uphill climb to actually get there. The front office’s reimagining of the offense has led to a lineup that’s been far more inconsistent than last year.

A smorgasbord of shortcomings led to Thursday’s decision, yet dismissing Servais and installing Dan Wilson in the permanent role has created more questions than answers.

Why did the Mariners move on now?
President of baseball operations Jerry Dipoto said on Thursday that the blame is wide-ranging -- including himself. But Servais and hitting coach Jarret DeHart were the only personnel dismissed, along with offensive coordinator Brant Brown, who was let go in late May.

Dipoto declined to get into specifics beyond saying that the clubhouse “needed a new voice,” on the heels of a 1-8 road trip that dropped Seattle to .500 (64-64) for the first time since April 12.

“It's something that we talked about collectively for a little while now,” Dipoto said. “Obviously, it escalated here lately. And as I said, where we were in the middle of June, and where we were today, it's hard to believe, actually -- how quickly it all dissolved for us and the way our team has played.”

Dipoto added that the decision was arrived at with general manager Justin Hollander and assistant general manager Andy McKay, among others, and with the approval of Mariners chairman and managing general partner John Stanton.

“Collectively, we determined that our organization needed this,” Dipoto said, “and we needed to do something to create a different theme, a different vibe in our clubhouse.”

What led to the decision on Dan Wilson?
Dipoto approached Wilson “three or four days” leading up to Thursday, “once we decided that we were going to make this move.” But, given the sensitivity of the matter, no interviews were conducted or other candidates considered.

No interim tag was affixed, either -- Wilson is the club’s full-time manager for now and beyond.

“He embodies the traits that I think will go a long way toward paving the road at the next stage in our journey,” Dipoto said. “I also believe that walking in the door as an interim anything ... doesn't really allow you to lay the appropriate groundwork or get the trust and the build-in that's required to be a good leader in the Major League space.”

One of 11 members in the Mariners’ Hall of Fame, Wilson is in his 11th season in the organization, post-playing days, and sixth as a special assistant for player development.

His role had him roving most of the Minor League affiliates throughout the season, after spending nearly all of Spring Training on-site in Arizona with the organization’s roster, including the big leaguers. He’s also regularly been on hand for longer homestands and is a supplemental analyst on ROOT Sports.

This will be Wilson's first managerial role, other than a week stint at Triple-A Tacoma in 2022 when then-manager Tim Federowicz was under COVID protocol.

“He's always been a part of it,” Dipoto said, “and I think he's going to be a part of it in a much bigger way moving forward.”

Will this be the precursor to more personnel changes?
Wilson is expected to detail plans for the rest of the hitting coaches on Friday, now that the Mariners are down to one (Tommy Joseph) after beginning the season with three (Joseph, DeHart and Brown).

It’s expected that Hall of Famer Edgar Martinez will be among the replacements, according to sources, fulfilling a role he held from 2015-18. Since then, Martinez has been the club’s organizational hitting adviser.

Beyond the coaching staff, like Servais, Dipoto is in his ninth season in Seattle and most recently signed a contract extension, along with Servais, in September 2021. A year later, they led the Mariners to the postseason for the first time since 2001, reinvigorating the region.

But in the nearly two years since, the Mariners fell short of the playoffs on the penultimate day of 2023, were front-and-center for a polarizing end-of-season press conference that followed, were criticized for their offensive roster construction leading into '24 and saw their massive lead atop the division dwindle to where their playoff odds, per FanGraphs, have dropped from 91.7% to 12.4%.

“I don't know all of the answers,” Dipoto said. “But I do know we're asking questions, and hopefully we're asking the right questions, and we'll get to the right answer in time. If we had a magic potion, we would have sprinkled it sometime back. We don't, and the best we can do is sit with our players and try to meet them where they are and try to use the next five or six weeks to build a more productive foundation with a different language than we've been using.”