Scott Servais fired as Mariners manager and replaced by Dan Wilson

SEATTLE – On the morning of June 19, Scott Servais started his day in Cleveland as the manager of one of the best teams in Major League Baseball.

Less than 24 hours earlier, the Mariners opened a three-city road trip with an 8-5 victory over the American League Central-leading Guardians at Progressive Field to improve their record to 44-31 and push their lead atop the American League West to 10 games.

Just more than two months later, following an abysmal 1-8 road trip that dropped the team to 64-64, Servais’ time with the Mariners is over.

In a Thursday morning meeting at T-Mobile Park with Jerry Dipoto, the Mariners president of baseball operations and the man who hired him for his first managerial job in 2015, Servais was relieved of his duties with 34 games remaining in the season.

Dan Wilson, the popular former Mariners catcher and member of the organization’s hall of fame, was named as the team’s 21st manager in franchise history.

“We’ve known Dan for almost his entire professional career,” Dipoto said. “He has been a part of the Mariners family. He embodies the traits that I think will go a long way toward paving the road in the next stage of our journey.

Hitting coach Jarret DeHart was also relieved of his duties. He is expected to be replaced by hall of famer Edgar Martinez for the remainder of the season.

Unfortunately, Servais went into the meeting already aware of what was about to happen. He found about his fate a few hours before the meeting when a story from the Athletic’s Ken Rosenthal, reporting he was expected to be fired and replaced by Wilson, went viral on social media and appeared as breaking news.

“It was always going to be very difficult, but that made it even more difficult,” Dipoto said in a video news conference. “I’ve known Scott for three decades. We were teammates as players, we worked together in Colorado and Anaheim and here in Seattle, and we’ve worked together in almost any capacity you can. I trust Scott, I believe in his baseball. I believe in him as a human being. I think he did an excellent job and brought stability to this team from the time he joined in 2015 until now. It’s not an easy day for the Mariners organization.”

The team didn’t officially announce the change in managers until Thursday afternoon.

Wilson has served as an instructor with the Mariners player development staff, but has never held a full-time managerial job in any organization. He managed Triple-A Tacoma for six games in 2022, going 3-3 in a six-game series at Reno, Nevada.

Dipoto clarified the situation – Wilson is not the interim manager. He is the manager of the Mariners moving forward.

“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 in the building that’s required to be a good leader in the major league space,” Dipoto said. “We can’t know a person better than we know Dan Wilson, and I believe in both his baseball and who he is as a person, and I think that will resonate very well with our players.”

It was more than just the awful road trip that sunk the Mariners to their nadir this season and ended Servais’ tenure with the organization after nearly nine full seasons – the second longest of any manager in franchise history.

Realistically, it was the culmination of two months of losing and failure following that apex day June 18.

Since that high-water mark above .500, the Mariners have posted a 20-33 record, losing their 10-game division lead in a span of 24 games and now trailing the Astros by five games. Only the hapless Chicago White Sox have had a worse record over that stretch (10-43).

“The last two months have been very difficult for a lot of people,” Dipoto said. “The way our team has played recently, it’s gone beyond just struggling to play offense. We need to get back to believing in who we are as players and who we are as an organization. I’ve said this publicly, each of us has played our part in the struggles that we’ve had as a team this year. But our team is telling us we need to do something differently. And this is that.”

Following Wednesday’s 8-4 loss in which they were swept in a three-game series by the Dodgers in Los Angeles to close out the trip, the Mariners fell to 64-64. The previous time the Mariners were at .500 was April 24 when they were 12-12.

Dipoto already had discussions about a potential change at manager with general manager Justin Hollander, assistant GM Andy McKay and Mariners chairman CEO John Stanton prior to the road trip. The awful results over the last 10 days finalized it.

“Obviously, it escalated here lately,” Dipoto said. “Where we were in the middle of June, and where we are today, it’s hard to believe, actually, how quickly it all dissolved for us with the way our team has played. “Collectively, we determined that our organization needed this, and we needed to do something to create a different theme, a different vibe in our clubhouse. I’m not trying to throw Scott under a bus at all here … but I do think we needed a new voice here.”

The Mariners sit five games back of the Astros in the AL West.

“This team has five to six weeks left to get to the postseason,” Dipoto said. “And I know we haven’t played liked that for the last two months, but we have a lot of talent in that room. Most, or all of us, thought that this was the most talented team that we’d ever brought together, and we just haven’t played that way, especially for the last few months. There’s no reason this team can’t get on a good run to finish it.”

Servais, 57, leaves the Mariners with a 680-642 record. His .515 winning percentage ranks second to only Lou Piniella. Hired by Dipoto to replace Lloyd McClendon after the 2015 season, Servais, who had never managed a professional team at any level, helped lead the Mariners to an 86-76 record in 2016 – his first of five winning seasons. The Mariners posted back-to-back 90-win seasons in 2021 and 2022, notably ending a 21-year postseason drought by qualifying for the second American League wild card in the 2022 playoffs. Seattle defeated the Blue Jays in Toronto in the three-game AL wild-card series but was swept by the Astros in the division series.

With expectations of winning the division in 2023, the Mariners were eliminated after Game No. 161, essentially falling a game short of a postseason spot.

The perception surrounding the organization and its leadership devolved from bad to awful in the days and months after that season ended. It started with a disastrous news conference that left fans incensed at Dipoto due to infamous comments about the organization’s goals for success. A month into the offseason, the Mariners ownership decided to adjust the payroll budget due to concerns about the financial projections and lost revenues from their regional sports network – Root Sports.

In an effort to assuage any growing doubts and discontent among his best players, Servais spent a few weeks in the offseason traveling the country – and beyond – meeting with them to discuss what was going on with the team and specifically the payroll.

With more tempered expectations (at least publicly) entering 2024, the Mariners rode a talented starting rotation to the top of the AL West standings in May despite an offense that was so awful that newly hired offensive coordinator Brant Brown, a close friend of Servais, was fired May 31.

But even with Brown’s removal, the offense sputtered for the rest of the season. It ranks near the bottom in almost every major statistical category.

The Mariners will now attempt to pick up the pieces with Wilson at the helm, starting Friday as the team opens a six-game homestand with the Giants and Rays.