What was different for Mariners in this manager search

It had been quite some time since Seattle Mariners president of baseball operations Jerry Dipoto had to lead a manager search.

Dipoto, who was hired as general manger in September 2015, led his first search for a Mariners skipper soon after his hiring, which resulted in Scott Servais becoming the 20th manager in franchise history.

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Dipoto and the Mariners made another managerial hiring in 2024 when Dan Wilson took over in August after Servais was let go, but the Wilson hiring didn’t include a managerial search.

After the M’s and Wilson parted ways following a disappointing 76-86 season this year, Dipoto and current general manager Justin Hollander had the chance to lead the club’s first managerial search in more than a decade, resulting in the hiring of first-time skipper Jason Kanzler.

What changed between now and then?

Dipoto first quipped that “Zoom now exists” as a conduit for interviews, but he did reveal some key difference between searches.

“We had far deeper questions to ask, we engaged far more of our baseball operations team in the process, and I think that was a good thing,” Dipoto said. “Maybe as opposed to 2015, I know more about the Mariners now. When we went through the process that brought Scott Servais to the Mariners, I’d been with the Mariners for about a month and a half. And now I have a greater understanding of how this organization works, its systems, its programs and what types of traits we thought would be the best fit to put in place to lead our team – and that’s what led us to Jason.”

Dipoto said that ultimately the club was still looking for “good baseball people who can implement good programs, develop good systems.”

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Leading a manager search gives organizations a chance to hear the outside view of what they are doing well and poorly. Dipoto said the club learned a lot through this recent process, though he didn’t reveal any specifics outside of some negatives and positives that were already apparent.

“I would say 100% of those who we sat with believe we’re a bad defensive team… That was pretty obvious from everybody that they thought that was the lowest-hanging fruit to attack moving forward, something Jason discussed, and was brought to light by just about everybody,” Dipoto said. “Most everybody we sat with could not have been more praiseful of what we do on the pitching and player development side. That was a more flattering view than that of our defensive prowess or lack thereof.

“So, some things were just reinforcing what we what we already knew, which is we’re bad defensively, and some things were reinforcing some things that I think we already knew, which was that we do pitching fairly well and we’re proud of the people that are pushing this program.”

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