Last season the Mariners finally went all in on winning. They put together a playoff caliber roster and made a deep push into the playoffs. The 2025 Mariners were the best post-season team in franchise history and they were only a few innings away from a world series trip. Sadly the Blue Jays won the ALCS due to some bad managerial decisions and bad pitching/defense, which are issues that continued to plague this team heading into 2026.
Unfortunately this off-season Dipoto did very little to fill the gaps the team needed to make another playoff push. He wanted to run it back with mostly the same roster and coaching staff, with a few tweaks. One would think heading into 2026 the expectation was world series or bust and winning the division would be a no brainer. Sadly the season unfolded differently. The season was plagued with injuries, poor pitching, horrible managerial decisions (in and out of games), and a GM who refused to make the necessary mid-season changes the team needed to compete. That left the Mariners 10 games below .500 and missing the playoffs, in what was one of the easiest divisions to win in MLB history.
Normally I compared the current season to the last and what the Mariners did right and wrong compared to what I thought they should do. However, given the news of Dipoto firing the entire coaching staff, I thought I'd do a comparison of the last several years of the Mariners to see how they stack up over time and how they've trended and then we can dive into what they should do next.
The goal here is to look at major facets of the team as a whole and assign a score between 1 and 10 (10 being best). We will look at the team over the last several years, look at how they did and what they should've done and assign a value to how they did or didn't achieve that improvement. The stats are real but the number evaluations are my personal opinion.
As you can tell in the last 6 seasons the Mariners have been consistently up and down. It's almost like this org is on a pendulum.
2021 was the rebuild year and the introduction of a lot of new players and coaches. The surprising part of that year was the defense and bullpen were decent, and the runs per game were also great given how poorly they got on base.
In 2022 the team started showing improvements for hitting, defense, and starting pitching. The pen regressed a bit but overall the team did well and even made the playoffs for the first time in over 20 years. Unfortunately bone headed decision making from Servais cost them the series vs the Astros. The same type of bad decision making that would eventually cost him his job. However, at this point things were definitely looking up in terms of expectations going forward.
In 2023 the team improved dramatically in all facets of the game but it was also the beginning of poor decision making from coaching and the front office. I'll never forget the mid-season trade when the team was humming on all cylinders. Jerry offloaded the best pitcher in the bullpen (Sewald), who happened to be a fan and clubhouse favorite. This completely killed the mojo of the team and cost them a trip to the playoffs. It did bring over Canzone, Bliss, and Rojas, all of whom have made contributions to the team since. Rojas being a starting 3B for a half season, Bliss being a call up utility guy when players get hurt, and Canzone having the best season of his career in 2026. They also got Bazardo during this season who became the bullpen workhorse since.
In 2024 the team started to regress and eventually this led to the firing of Servais. Overall this was a good firing at the time. Servais had lost the support of the fans and clubhouse due to his bizarre in-game decision making, his whack a mole lineups, and inability to win the big games. The org decided to replace him with a legend in Dan Wilson, a guy with zero coaching or managerial experience at any level. The fans were ok with this as it felt like a temporary move; someone who could just finish the season. The team actually rallied around this management change and won 60% of their remaining games, which was one of their better finishes in years.
In 2025 Dan Wilson was oddly named the starting manager. There was no selection process, no additional interviews, or anything. He was simply named the manager on a secret contract that even the media never got ahold of. On top of this, Dipoto decided to do his new manager a favor and make some tremendous moves in free agency and in the trade market to really fill out the 2025 Mariners roster before and during the season. These were the moves fans had been begging him to make for years. The team was stacked in all facets of the game and won the division for the first time in 24 years and made a championship caliber playoff run. Unfortunately they fell short but expectations were sky high in 2026.
In 2026 the unexpected happened. The team had playoffs hangover, yet again another years where management and the org were on a pendulum but it felt different this season. The players all looked depressed, the coaches seemed to not really care, and the front office did nothing to improve the roster. It was almost as if they wanted to see if Dan could run it back another year with mostly the same team and coaches. Overall we saw a very unmotivated team and coaching staff, which ultimately led to the team regressing in all categories. The defense was one of the worst in franchise history, the bullpen fell off (mostly due to bad pen management and a weird trial of a 6 man rotation), and the offense was one of the worst all time. This consequently has led to the firing of just about every coach in the org and 2027 will be a fresh start.
WHAT'S NEXT???
Well now the coaching search begins. The Mariners need to find a manager with actual experience and success at managing a team. It doesn't necessarily have to be another MLB manager (although it could be), but they do need someone with experience and success. Personally I hope Negron gets a call to be manager or assistant (to the) manager. He won a championship as the manager of the Rainiers and without him on the staff this year, the energy on the team seemed to die. Whoever comes in will have to replace an entire coaching staff. They really need to get back to some fundamentals. Motivating the players, focusing on defense and hustle, playing good complimentary baseball, manufacturing runs, and not mismanaging the pitchers.
Here are some names already rumored to be interested:
Torey Lovullo - current dbacks manager with some success but overall a middle of the road career record.
Stephen Vogt - former A's catcher, M's bullpen coach, and Guardians manager who was manager of the year and most likely won't leave unless it's for a sum of money the M's wouldn't want to pay.
Kris Negron - former Rainiers manager who won a AAA championship, M's assistant coach, and current Pirates bench coach. He is my personal front runner.
Rocco Baldelli - former Twins manager with a middle of the road career record but many years of experience playing and managing.
Kai Correa - a Tacoma hometown hero and current Mets bench coach who has had a meteoric rise in the MLB ranks from a D3 head coach to interim manager at one point.
Chris Woodward - former M's infield coach and Rangers manager who is currently a Dodgers assistant and also had a long MLB career. Had a mediocre career as a manager though.
Brandon Hyde - former Marlins hitting coach and Orioles manager who rebuilt the Orioles and won coach of the year winning 101 games. He was fired prematurely by the Orioles and is currently in a front office role on the Rays.
Andy McKay - former M's assistant GM and current Guardians front office advisor. This is a bit of a stretch but he could come back to Seattle in some type of capacity due to his wealth of knowledge and experience when it comes to player development and setting up a franchise for a pipeline of success.
Alex Cora - former player, Astros bench coach, and Red Sox manager. He set the franchise record for wins for Boston and won a world series. He was fired due to differences of opinion on using analytics to make decisions. This makes me love Alex as a personal selection but I fear he would hate Jerry's folks being over involved in gameday decisions like what happened in Boston.
Roster Gaps
The Mariners already have roster gaps on their 2026 roster and it'll get even deeper this off-season with many notable players who will become free agents and most likely won't be coming back.
1) LF - Randy Arozarena (UFA - let go): projected 3-5 year at $20-25M per year contract. The M's will definitely allow him to walk given his selfishness and lack of caring. He did put up a monster season at the plate though and will definitely find a job elsewhere.
2) SS - JP Crawford (UFA - let go): unfortunately it appears JP's career is coming to an end. Maybe the M's can bring him back on a minor league deal or bring him into the minor league org as a coach of some type. JP is a fan and clubhouse favorite but his best years are behind him. He was the worst defensive SS in the league, struggled to stay healthy, and was hitting poorly at the plate.
3) LF - Taylor Ward (UFA - let go): Ward was a mid-season rental when the team needed a good RH bat. Unfortunately he struggled in Seattle and never really fit in. He will find a job elsewhere as he still has value as a middle of the order bat.
4) OF - Victor Robles (Club Option - let go): Robles is a fan favorite but at this point in his career he's simply a backup and doesn't play well enough to be an every day guy. You can find his type of production anywhere. I highly doubt the club will exercise their $9M option on him as a backup.
5) SP - Bryce Miller (Conditional Option - keep): Miller had a very rough year. He had some amazing stretches but due to injury and sharing the 5th/6th slot in the rotation really got to him this season. The club has a very affordable $6.1M conditional option they can exercise to keep him. He still has a ton of upside and should remain for now. The 4th and 5th spots in the rotation are still up for grabs between Miller, Hancock, and Anderson.
6) RP - Andres Munoz (Club Option - keep): Munoz has a $9M club option which is very affordable for a closer. Personally I would've liked to have traded for an elite closer and move Munoz to a setup role, which he seems better suited for. Unfortunately he had an up and down season but this option is a no brainer for someone with his upside.
7) RP - Hoby Milner (UFA - let go): Milner wasn't much of an impact in the bullpen. It's easy to let him walk this off-season.
Given this pretty deep list of players, plus existing holes, the Mariners have their work cut out of them this off-season, but luckily there are plenty of options to consider given free agency, potential trades, and young talent they have available. Let's hope Dipoto makes some good moves!
The Mariners will be in another position of having 6 potential starters and a 7th in waiting in the minors. The team really should use this as trade bait instead of having too many starters again. The 6 starter rotation this season did not work well because the pitchers weren't bought into it.
The Mariners bullpen regressed a lot this season. Munoz was up and down, multiple others were injured, and Bazardo was overused again. The Mariner should think about some trade targets to improve the pen instead of running back the existing guys.
The defense and lineup really needs some work. We can't run back with Wilson, Willson, Rodden, Rivas, and Donovan. These guys are often hurt and aren't that good anymore. The team should really target a 3B and LF this off-season. They have plenty of trade bait if they aren't interested in the UFA list.
For fun here's the currently projected 2027 depth chart based on the current roster:
SP Rotation: Gilbert, Woo, Kirby, Pick 2 of Hancock/Miller/Anderson.
Bullpen: Munoz, Brash, Speier, Bazardo, Vargas, Dominguez, Ferrer, Criswell, Wilcox
C: Raleigh/Pereda
1B: Naylor
2B: Young
3B: Donovan (FA or trade target because Donovan can't be counted on)
3B options: Bichette (UFA) or Bohm (trade) or Sato (international)
SS: Emerson
LF: Arroyo (FA or trade target this position because Arroyo is currently better as a utility bench option)
LF options: Varsho (UFA), Suzuki (UFA), Happ (UFA), Mullins (UFA), Dubon (trade)
CF: Rodriguez
RF: Canzone/Raley
DH: Montes