GM Justin Hollander details what the Mariners have to do better in ’27

The Seattle Mariners are looking not just for a new manager, but also for answers to why they fell short in 2026 and ways to get back to contention in 2027.

Drayer: Mariners focus on accountability, making a shift for 2027

Mariners general manager Justin Hollander joined Seattle Sports’ Brock and Salk live in studio Tuesday morning and explained what the team is taking to heart going into what will be a soul-searching offseason.

On the top of the list is getting back to something that was a new problem this year.

“Over the course of our time here, particularly the last five or six years, we played good baseball,” Hollander said. “… There are things we could have done better – I would have loved to have more of a run-scoring juggernaut than we’ve had at times – but we didn’t beat ourselves. And this year, just over and over and over again, we beat ourselves. Lack of focus, at times, it looked like lack of effort. And that’s an indictment on all of us.”

There will be a renewed focus on the fundamentals and playing clean baseball in 2027, according to the GM.

“We played below our talent this year. There wasn’t a person who we met with, player or staff, that feels like we did a good job, and I think it starts with how you prepare every day,” Hollander said. “We have to prepare at a really high level every day. Someone used the phrase, ‘Practice dirty, play clean.’ We have to practice dirtier than we practiced this year, starting in spring training. We have to get after it. We have to practice the little things.

“If you want to be good at the little things, you have to practice them, you have to practice them a lot. You have to message when the expectations aren’t met on those little things, and you have to execute them at a high level. You can win a baseball game a lot of different ways, but if you don’t execute the fundamentals every day, it’s not going to work, and the way you do that is you practice them a lot.”

Other than letting assistant hitting coach Bobby Magallanes go in late July, the Mariners didn’t make notable changes in personnel during the season, with manager Dan Wilson and the team announcing after Sunday’s season finale that he would not return in the position next year. Hollander said the experience of the team’s surge late in 2025, where it erased a four-game deficit in the AL West on Sept. 3, went on to win the division by three games and reached the American League Championship Series, played a part in letting things play out this year.

“You’re cognizant of the way the team sort of transformed in the second half last year, and sometimes that can lead you to believe that there is a dial that we can turn as a group, that there is belief that what what happened last year will happen again this year. That we’ll get a little healthier, we’ll see the finish line and we’ll step on the gas,” he said.

“You don’t want to ever sacrifice any season. This wasn’t made with the idea that, oh, we’ll just fix it next year, this year’s gone. And if you’re talking about something in June or July or August, you want to do the right thing for this group, and the decision that we made as a group was this group deserves a chance to figure it out. We got within (eight) outs of the World Series last year, and right or wrong, we wanted to give this group every opportunity to find its stride, kick it into gear and take off, and it just didn’t happen.”

Catch Brock and Salk live from 6-10 a.m. weekdays on Seattle Sports.

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