The Seattle Mariners took a huge step backward in the 2026 MLB season.
A year ago, they played in Game 7 of the ALCS. They were less than two innings away from a spot in their first-ever World Series.
This season, though, they hardly ever got on track. Players struggled. Roster decisions backfired. Nothing worked.
The end result was that manager Dan Wilson was fired when the season ended.
So too were four of his coaches: bench coach Manny Acta, infield coach Perry Hill, hitting coach Kevin Seitzer and first-base coach Eric Young Jr.
Still in place? Jerry Dipoto, the leader of the Mariners’ front office.
Except it’s interesting — Dipoto can see the case for his own firing, too.
Jerry Dipoto Talks His Job
Dipoto was asked in a press conference Monday about whether he should still be in the role he’s in.
He was quite honest.
“I say that it’s fair that they ask those questions,” Dipoto said. “I wake up and I look in the mirror every day trying to figure out why this happened. For the last five years, we’re one of the winningest teams in Major League Baseball. This year, we stunk and it never got on track. If I didn’t have a job today, it’d be justified.”
That last line is powerful: “If I didn’t have a job today, it’d be justified.”
Dipoto doesn’t fight the premise. He knows it was a brutal year.
He’s been in charge of things for more than a decade, and Seattle has seen more good than bad in recent seasons.
There was no questioning that this season was a total negative, though.
Dipoto was hired after the 2015 season and will be hiring his third manager. The Mariners have made the playoffs twice in his tenure, in 2022 and 2025.
“The blame falls on me first,” Dipoto said, “and I guess part of my job is making decisions for how to get better and make sure this doesn’t happen again. And it happened. And failure is only failure if you don’t learn from it. We’re hoping to learn these lessons and move forward in a productive way.”
What’s Next for Mariners?
The big thing the Mariners have to do is get their managerial hire right.
They also have some early free agent decisions to consider on expiring contracts. Both J.P. Crawford and Randy Arozarena are heading for free agency as it stands.
Seattle has also been floated as a candidate to trade from its surplus of starting pitching, so there’s always the chance a deal gets made there, too.
Whatever happens, the Mariners need the 2027 season to look more like 2025 than 2026.
“I’m the one person who has the ability to drill down to the bottom, say we are not upholding these standards, we need to do better,” Dipoto said on Monday. “I did an ineffective job of making sure that we held one another accountable, because we started with standards and it faded. That’s not just on our players. That’s on me. It’s on our front-office group. It’s on the staff and the players, collectively.”
Mariners’ Jerry Dipoto Reveals Thoughts on Own Firing