‘Just keep learning’: Dan Wilson reflects on first full year as Mariners manager
PHILADELPHIA – Almost exactly a year ago, everything crumbled for the Mariners on a nine-games-in-nine-days mid-August trip through Detroit, Pittsburgh and Los Angeles.
The Mariners went 1-8, eking out one win over the lowly Pirates and closing the trip with an era-ending sweep at the hands of the Dodgers.
Manager Scott Servais was fired the following morning, on Aug. 22, 2024, a day that remains one of the darkest in recent history for the franchise.
A year later, here they are again, a team running on fumes after a 2-7 trip through four East Coast stops, desperate for a momentum-turning shift.
The Mariners, mercifully, had a day off Thursday.
And with a moment to reset and reassess before the final 34 games, the Mariners front office is not expected to do anything nearly drastic as they did last year, when they replaced Servais with the franchise’s Hall of Fame catcher, Dan Wilson, a first-time major-league manager.
Wilson, in his first 34 games, helped the Mariners close the 2024 season with a 21-13 record, though the team finished one game out of an American League playoff spot for the second year in a row.
Now with a 68-60 record, and chasing their first AL West title since he was the catcher in 2001, Wilson is hoping to again conjure up something to spark the 2025 Mariners over the final 34 games.
“When you’re in this game any amount of time, you’ve gone through things like this, and it can turn back the other way very quickly,” Wilson said Wednesday, following an 11-2 loss to the Phillies to conclude the road trip. “It’ll be good to get home. It’ll be good to get back in our home ballpark, get our home fans back and start getting back to work and doing what we do.”
Through his first full year, Wilson has compiled an 89-73 record, the best 162-game stretch for a first-year manager in Mariners history.
“It’s gone by quickly,” Wilson said. “[When] everything is sort of new, in a way, you still kind of going through a lot of firsts. And when it’s like that, it’s kind of new and exciting.”
Wilson, we’ve learned, can fairly be described as a players’ manager. He’s approached the job with genuine humility and unyielding positivity. He’s fiercely loyal to his players and has gone to great lengths to shy away from criticizing them, even in obvious instances when that would appear necessary.
What Wilson’s learned is … well, a lot.
“I just feel like every day has been a learning experience of some sort,” he said. “I can’t speak enough and speak highly enough of the staff that’s around here and all the support that’s here, and these guys and gals have done an incredible job and continue to do that. Couldn’t be doing it without them.
“Just keep learning. I think this is a game where you have to take that approach, because as soon as you think you’ve got it figured out it’ll kick you in the teeth. There isn’t anything that you can’t learn in this game, and that’s just the way I’ve been trying to approach it, is just to learn as much as can every day.”
As a rookie manager, Wilson has had to learn in-game strategy largely on the fly. And it’s at this time of the season when every lineup configuration, every pinch-hit decision and every bullpen change will come under a greater microscope for him and the team.
“Just trying to focus on the day to day and helping these guys get prepared to play every night,” he said. “That’s really the priority and I think that’s where the staff and everybody that’s involved does such a great job.”
On Friday, the Mariners look to snap a five-game losing skid when they open a six-game homestand against the Athletics. The M’s are 37-25 at home this season and they won 9 of 10 in their last homestand.