A day after being swept by the Los Angeles Dodgers, the Seattle Mariners are planning a major personnel change. The team has reportedly fired longtime general manager Scott Servais, according to the Athletic.
Servais, who has coached the Mariners since 2016, ended the team’s postseason drought in 2022 but has been unable to reverse the trend after another mediocre season and a disastrous midseason slide. The Mariners, who at one point held a 10-game lead in the division, have since fallen five games behind the Astros in the American League West.
According to The Athletic, Servais will be replaced by former Mariners All-Star catcher Dan Wilson. Wilson, a Seattle Mariners Hall of Famer, has no previous managerial experience.
Seattle started the season strong, but has suffered a midseason slump. Under Servais and president of baseball operations Jerry Dipoto, the team is now well behind the Astros and has lost eight of its last 10 games, going 64-64.
Despite incredible performances on the mound from star pitchers like Logan Gilbert, Bryce Miller, George Kirby and Luis Castillo, Seattle has struggled mightily on offense. The Mariners lead the league in strikeouts with 1,308, while holding the fewest 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 offense’s initial improvement quickly unraveled as Seattle’s roster began to struggle again.
Seattle fans will always remember Servais fondly for his management in 2022, when he led the struggling Mariners to the postseason for the first time 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 American League Divisional Series before being swept by the Astros.
But his tenure has been punctuated by seasons that fell short of expectations. In 2016, Servais’ first season with the team, Seattle narrowly missed the playoffs after an unexpected push into the postseason. The same thing happened in 2021, when the Mariners were in playoff contention until the final day, and in 2023, when Seattle was one game out of a playoff spot.
With that sudden lead, Seattle appeared headed for the same fate this season. Given that the AL West is one of the weakest in baseball, the Mariners will likely need to win the division to secure a playoff spot. They are 7.5 games out of the AL’s final wild-card spot as of Thursday.
Seattle hasn’t won a World Series in 47 seasons and is one of five MLB teams to not win a championship. If the Mariners fail again, it’s likely that Dipoto, who has already infuriated fans with comments implying the team wasn’t aiming for a World Series, will be able to do so.