Dan Wilson arrived in Seattle in the mid-1990s and became a favorite as player for the Mariners, spending 12 seasons as the team’s catcher and playing for some of the best teams in the franchise’s history.
Now, he is taking on a new role as the manager with 34 games left in the regular season, trying to help the team as they fall out of playoff contention in the American League.
“This is a good team. These guys have tremendous talent and sometimes some kind of a change in some direction can spark something,” Wilson said. “But these guys have it in them.”
Wilson was scheduled to manage his first game on Friday night when the Mariners start a series against the San Francisco Giants. At 55 years old, Wilson was chosen to replace Scott Servais, who was fired on Thursday after a 1-8 road trip that left Seattle with a 64-64 record and a 20-33 record since the Mariners had a 10-game lead in the AL West in mid-June.
Servais had been in his ninth season with the Mariners, making him the second-longest tenured manager in franchise history. Now, Wilson will take over as the permanent manager, which was important to him.
“The idea is to start something new and you can’t do that for 34 games. I think there’s quite a bit of time that needs to happen,” Wilson said. “We’re going to make a great run at this thing here at the end, but there’s also this idea of looking long term as well.”
The idea of Seattle making a late-season change in management seemed ridiculous in mid-June when the team was 13 games above .500 and looked like it might win its first division title since 2001.
But the team’s rapid decline since being at 44-31 has been frustrating, especially due to an offense that struggles to score runs despite having the best pitching staff in baseball.
This situation led to the decision to remove Servais on Thursday. He found out about his dismissal through a news alert before his scheduled meeting with executive vice president of baseball operations Jerry Dipoto.
“It was a shock. I think everyone found out on social media because the first thing you do when you wake up is check your phone and all that sort of stuff,” shortstop J.P. Crawford said.
“It was tough. He’s been my manager ever since my first day here and he challenged me to be the best person I could be. Sad to see him let go.”
To try to boost the offense, Wilson added a familiar face to his coaching staff: Baseball Hall of Famer Edgar Martinez, who will serve as hitting coach for the rest of the season.
Seattle started Friday with the lowest batting average in baseball, leading in strikeouts, and having scored two runs or fewer 23 times in the last 53 games.
“There’s no one I trust more with hitters than Edgar,” Wilson said. “The thing I think about Edgar that I think a lot of people don’t understand was he was a tremendous hitter, he had just tremendous talent. But that’s not all he had. He studies hitting. He was a student of hitting and he can break it down better than anybody.”
