Did you know the Seattle Mariners have a mission statement?
On page 22 of the team’s annual information guide, it reads: “Our mission: We are dedicated to winning championships, creating unforgettable experiences, and serving our communities.”
The club has done OK on parts two and three. That first one, though . . .
The fanciful notion about championships echoes a long-ago sentiment offered by one of the team’s original owners. At the dedication ceremony for the 1976 opening of the Kingdome, the semi-spectacular new home field, entertainer Danny Kaye — who bought the expansion franchise with five Seattle businessmen — advised newly exuberant Seattle baseball fans to get in line early . . .
For World Series tickets.
Well, hey. Any franchise can have a bad half-century.
The Mariners’ first 50 years closed Sunday without a championship, or even participation in a World Series — the only such franchise in MLB. Over the decades, MLB owners restructured the game with smaller divisions and more playoff berths in part to help the most woebegone teams occasionally reach the postseason. Coincidentally, this season offered the least competitive division in the history of the current configuration. The Houston Astros won the American League West at 81-81, the first time a team has entered the MLB postseason without a winning record.
The Mariners responded to the opportunity by finishing five games back of the Astros — whom they thrashed 10-3 in their season series — at 76-86. For a team that returned most of its 2025 roster from a 90-win season that advanced to game seven of the American League Championship Series, the division title should have been, to borrow from golf, a gimme putt.
Instead, they offered a Caddyshack-level shank.
The conclusion Sunday produced a waterfall of tears at T-ball Park. The long-planned part of the weep-fest was the final call for radio broadcaster Rick Rizzs, retiring after 41 years with the Mariners. As was his big-hearted custom, he seemed to thank nearly everyone in the park by name. SS J.P. Crawford and LF Randy Arozarena also received farewells from the crowd via mid-game departures from the field. Both are on expiring contracts and neither is expected back: Crawford due to diminished skills and Arozarena, the club’s best hitter, due to his presumed price tag in the free agent market.
Another teary, hastily arranged, and necessary departure on Sunday was the firing of manager Dan Wilson. Sniffling and swallowing hard, he read pre-game a statement he wrote, saying “it was concluded” that he would be held accountable for what many fans and media claimed was the most disappointing of the 50 seasonal outcomes. Wilson’s phrasing was a splendid metaphor for how he managed: Passively. I’d say passive-aggressively, but I didn’t see much aggression regarding public accountability.
Anyone who knows Wilson and is asked to describe him uses “nice” no later than five words into the explainer. That characteristic doesn’t mean he should have countered it by tipping over lunch tables in the clubhouse like his 1990s mentor, Lou Piniella. But any baseball manager must be willing to make his players, most of them millionaires in their 20s, uncomfortable whenever they transgress a standard of play or behavior. The manager does not have to be nice, or liked. Fabled manager Casey Stengel said it best: His main job was to keep the half of the club that hates him away from the half that haven’t made up their minds.
Wilson has been part of the organization for more than 30 years and will always be a hero for his role as a quality catcher in the 1995 season that saved baseball in Seattle. His long, respected association was reportedly why chairman John Stanton intervened and appointed Wilson to succeed Scott Servais when the Mariners went into a tailspin in August 2024. But Wilson’s hire was not a placeholder; he was instantly given the full-time job, a rare circumstance.
As catcher Cal Raleigh’s comedown (the Big Slumper?) from the 2025 pinnacle piled into injuries throughout the roster and a middling contribution from the one-time bedrock of starting pitching, the 2026 enterprise unraveled. Earlier last week, Raleigh offered a candid assessment that Wilson never would have given.
“Ultimately it was a lack of focus, a lack of execution, the lack of energy at times,” he told reporters. “Fold that in with the defense that was not good all year, the running game was bad all year, playing bad on the road all year; hitting with runners in scoring position was not good.
“We just never got better . . . It’s a learning point we all have to take accountability for. If it happens once, that’s one too many; more than that, it’s a habit.”
Wilson found no way to break his team’s habit. He never even found a way to offer a post-game media analysis beyond, “Tough one tonight.” While it’s wise to avoid putting much weight on post-game quotes, Wilson’s persistent reliance on bromides, triteness, clichés and obtuseness became a cover to avoid discomfort. Wilson doesn’t want to make himself and others uncomfortable. But this is the big leagues. Feelings are far secondary.
Besides both being former catchers and ex-Mariners managers, Servais and Wilson share another resume item: Neither had previous MLB managerial experience. Since club president Jerry Dipoto hired both, I suspect that was a feature, not a bug. When conflicts inevitably arise over baseball decisions, Dipoto wants everyone to know who’s boss. In his previous executive position with the Angels, he wasn’t so lucky. He inherited manager Mike Sciosia, who had been there 12 years and was nobody’s fool. Dipoto lost the power struggle and resigned in 2015. He was hired in 2016 by the Mariners, where he answers only to Stanton.
Despite only two Seattle playoff appearances in his 11 seasons, Dipoto is unlikely to be going anywhere; to shield him, he has a load of premier prospects, some of whom debuted this year. As for the managerial vacancy, it might be time for the Mariners to look for a guy who has managed and coached at multiple levels, in the fashion of Pat Murphy, the two-time National League Manager of the Year who just led the Milwaukee Brewers to their fourth consecutive NL Central title with an MLB-best 103 wins. The Brewers are the talk of the playoffs after hiring the baseball lifer — a head coach at four colleges — for his first MLB managerial job at 65. He’s not going anywhere, but getting an experienced winner who demands standards be met would seem to meet the mission.
The Brewers are running with the big dogs on a $146 million player payroll, ranking 19th in MLB, according to Spotrac. Also in the playoffs are the Tampa Bay Rays with a payroll of $107 million (23rd). Not in the playoffs are the Mariners ($167 million,16th), the New York Mets ($351 million, second) and Seattle’s vanquishers from last October, the Toronto Blue Jays ($288 million, fifth).
So there’s evidence that payroll disparity isn’t quite the boogeyman owners keep claiming it is. And there’s evidence that being a swell fella isn’t the asset an owner thinks it is. So for a fresh start on the new half century, it might be time to try a different approach.
Or, the mission statement can be trimmed. Hot dogs from heaven is an unforgettable experience.
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