Locked On Mariners - Daily Podcast On the Seattle Mariners - BREAKING: Dan Wilson Will NOT Return as Seattle Mariners Manager in 2027

Episode Date: September 28, 2026

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The Mariners season is over, and Dan Wilson's fate is official. There will be a new manager in Seattle next season. Colby, hit it. You are locked on Mariners. Your daily Seattle Mariners podcast. Part of the Locked-on Podcast Network, your team every day. Ahoy, sailors, it is Sunday, September 27, 2026. My name is signing Azales, and I'm joined as always by my co-coast.

Colby Pat No, today's episode is brought to you by Calci. For a limited time, download Calci and use the promo code locked on. to get $25 when you trade $25. Cal Sheet, trade, what's next? So this is going to be a quick show. Just wanted to hop on here and talk to you guys very quickly. Obviously, it's been a very emotional last couple hours. You know, we said our goodbyes to Randy Rosa Rana and J.P. Crawford and eventually,

tearfully, Rick Riz. But afterwards, Dan Wilson stepped up to the podium and made what was reported during the game official. He will not be returning as the mayor and is. manager in 2027. Jerry Depoto and Justin, or sorry, and John Stanton, rather, have released an official statement. DePoto saying, quote, collectively, we failed to meet our expectations this season. Dan and I both cared deeply about this organization, these players, and the future of the Mariners.

After much discussion, it was concluded that a new direction is best for 2027 and beyond. I want to thank Dan for his efforts over the past few years and specifically recognize his role in our club advancing to Game 7 of the ALCS in 2025. Stanton then said, quote, I want to add my thanks to Dan for the work he's done as manager. I have also spoken with Dan and made it clear that we would like to keep him in our organization. I look forward to continue to conversations as we work to identify a role, which we can continue to benefit from his experience and commitment to the Mariners and our community.

Wilson in his opening statement at his post-game press conference confirmed that the Mariners have reached out to him about a different role within the organization and exploring that he did not offer any further details on that but kind of just as a sidebar, my speculation on that is that if he does accept the role with the Mariners moving forward probably be something similar or maybe the same exact role that he was filling before he was brought

on as the team's manager back in August of 2024. So, Colby, you know, you and I were wondering what exactly the verbiage of this would be. Like, we knew this was coming. We've known for a while now that Dan was not going to be coming back. National people started to say it.

Ryan Divish started saying it. He even said it on our show. We knew this was happening. We just didn't know exactly how the Mariners were going to go about it and how specifically they were going to sell this to the fan base and you and I had speculated that they'll probably let Dan you know step down

resign whatever you want to say right spend more time with the family yeah this is not necessarily that and when Dan was asked by Ryan Divish if this was you know his decision or something that was more so forced upon him while Dan didn't use the words I was fired

he did say and I don't have the quote in front of me but he did say something to the effect of you know seasons like these ultimately fall on the manager so it does sound like the mariners fired him though they are phrasing it as we've decided to move in a new direction what do you think about that It feels like the deep size back. Put that on a t-shirt. It feels like kind of a cop out from the Mariners to be like,

we didn't let him resign, but we also didn't fire him. We just kind of decided it was time to go in a new direction. And, you know, we talked about this, you know, on our Patreon show since, you know, Ron Francis stuff. down with the crack in and and we talked about it this on locked on since we've had these serious more serious conversations about whether or not dan should be back uh you know the the verbiage that you use the tone that you use it matters because what you're doing here when you let go these head coaches gms whatever right these decision makers in your organization when you move on from them you are making a statement

about who you are as an organization. And when somebody deserves to be fired and you let them resign or you let them step away or whatever, it just kind of leads to the natural thought that like what we just saw, what they just did for us or whatever, what they have done is acceptable. Like that, we are signing off on that. That is an acceptable level of success or lack thereof that we're willing to live with. then when you fire somebody, you say that is not acceptable, right? Like we are better than that.

Our standards are higher than that. What just happened here is not acceptable. It is not up to our standard. And that's always kind of been my critique of this is that like you need to fire people who deserve to be fired. You can't let them resign unless they are like, you know, a super successful GM or coach or whatever who've led you to championships. dips and like there's a difference between p. Carroll and Dan Wilson. Yes, Pete Carroll is actually good at his job. So yeah, it's one of those things where it's like, look, we've talked about this all the way back

and, you know, again, on our Patreon when we were talking about the cracking. Like it matters here too. You have to set the tone for your organization, not only for your fans, not only for the guys in your clubhouse, but to the rest of the league as well, where you have to say, look, we are going to be taken seriously as, you know, this new perennial contender. this is not an acceptable season by any stretch of the imagination. And we need to make that absolutely clear above all else that what just transpired will not be accepted by this franchise going forward. And instead you kind of do this like, ah, you know, well, it's just time to move on.

And, you know, like we still want Dan to around. You're just avoiding saying what it ultimately was because like it's very clear they did fire him, you know, and they just don't want to say it. So step up. I would I would respect you so much more. If you just said, look, we had to fire Dan. It's a tough day. We love Dan. He's a great guy. You know, he means a lot to this franchise. But at the end of the day, what transpired this year is just not acceptable. And we need to do what is in the best interest of our organization because we owe that to the fans.

We owe that to the players that are here for the long term. We owe it to the league and to everybody to make sure that we live up to the fans. the standards that we set and Dan unfortunately just did not this year. So again, it's not surprising that this is how they kind of worded it. And I will say this, you know, they didn't announce a manager today. So at the very least, they're already doing better than they did at the last managerial search. So I'll give them credit for that. There you go.

There you go. We're already off to a to a better start than the last time they fired someone. David's being named the manager tomorrow at the press conference. I swear to God, they're soft launching him. don't you put that evil on me, Ricky Bobby. I want an actual real managerial search. Thank you very much. The Mariners will have a new manager before the wild card rounds are over.

Yeah, I mean, yeah, I'm in agreement with you. I mean, we've talked about this on the show multiple times before that I felt it was important to specifically say, hey, we're firing him because this is just not acceptable, especially after a season like this and which, you know, You have basically torch every bit of goodwill that you built up over the last year. But was that an actual realistic outcome? No. So whatever. And this is honestly better than them being like, well, he stepped down or he resigned or whatever. Like it's better than that at the very least.

So anyway, at the end of the day, the result is a result. And the right thing has happened here. The right decision was made that Dan Wilson is not. going to return as the Mariners manager because it was just painfully obvious. And I'll say what I've said many times before on the show that, you know, I think Dan is a great man by all accounts. And, you know, he's obviously a staple in the Mariners organization. It was just very clear that this wasn't for him, that he wasn't the guy to lead this thing.

And so, you know, I'm glad that they've made the decision to move on here and to, frankly, not waste time because I thought if you gave him another. the run that you would be in the end wasting time. And it's just very clear that a new voice, multiple new voices are needed in that clubhouse, especially with what's been reported over the last couple of days, specifically in the Seattle Times. If you guys have seen that. And we'll talk more about all that and the fallout, you know, over the coming days and

coming weeks on this show. We've got plenty of time. Yeah, today. Yeah, today is just more so to talk about specifically this news and what it ultimately means for the future of the Mariners. And yeah, now begins the first managerial search, real managerial search that Colby and I have had to cover. So we're going to talk more about the news before we get out of here and get you set for tomorrow's press conference question mark. I think that's what it's going to be from Jerry DePoto and Justin Hollander. But first, a reminder of this episode of the Locktime Airs podcast is brought to you by Stance or a cybersecurity in game day men's health.

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Book your complementary tests and consult at game day men's health.com. And you're listening to the Lockdown Mariners podcast, part of the Locktime Podcast Network, your team every day. Thank you so much for making us to your first listen for all. things. Mariners and also thank you for making locked on the number one sports podcast network. So Dan Wilson is officially no longer the manager

of the Mariners. The Mariners will now begin what will hopefully be a lengthy managerial search unlike the last time around and hopefully at the end of all that they hire the right guy, whoever that might be. And again, we'll

talk about all the candidates We've already talked about a lot of them already, but we'll talk more, especially once names start to get out there, and they will. We'll hear about interviews and all that here in the coming days, I'm sure. But tomorrow, Colby, Jerry DePoto and Justin Hollander are expected to speak with the media in some capacity. We don't know exactly if it's going to be a press conference or kind of like a huddle like they did last year after the ALCS. where, you know, reporters can just kind of go up to them and ask questions individually, and we won't really see the answers until articles are written and all that, or if this is actually going to be an official thing that gets live streamed and all that.

Right. The last time, obviously, that they did a real press conference that was live streamed and, you know, videoed and so on was obviously the 54% press conference, the infamous 54% press conference. So we'll see if that's kind of the setting that they go back to or what. But what are you hoping? And by the way, just so you guys know, we are going to hold off on recording our episode until after that happens. So we can react to it.

And then our mailbag episode is going to come out on Tuesday. But what are you hoping to hear from Jerry DePoto and Justin Hollander tomorrow? First things first. Ty, you want to guess what Dan Wilson's winning percentage was as the Mariners manager now that it's all over? Oh, no. No. Take a guess. No.

Oh, no. That's fine. You'd be wrong. It was 52.4%, which obviously proves that Dan Wilson was not up to snuff for the Mariners standards. So, yeah. It's kind of interesting, like, because like, what can you say at these things? That would be no, like, they've already fired Dan. We kind of expected that to be, like, the crux of the, you know, interview,

whatever they're calling at press conference. I guess I will say that like this gives them another opportunity to say like, hey, Dan, you know, we moved on from Dan because that's not standard that we want our ball club to play to or however, however you specifically wanted to be worried. But like, that's another opportunity for them to do that, sure. Sure. And maybe you can actually win a football game when you give up 21 points off of turnovers. But anyways, back to reality here.

Yeah, I'm still a little bitter about that. Yeah. Yeah. The Seahawks were supposed to protect me from this emotional game today. I mean, it's first loss in like eight, nine months. I'll survive, but still. Sure. Look, I don't know what exactly they could say or what I'm expecting them to say at these press conference things.

Because usually it just ends with Jerry saying something stupid that kind of vaguely puts down the fans is like you expect too much of us type of thing. And I mean, certainly that would do view. for us. So that's not selfishly, that's not the worst thing in the world. But I guess I would say what I would like to hear them. I would like to hear more about like, hey, this is the kind of candidate we're looking to hiring. I would like them to say like, we're going to go from outside of the echo chamber here because we need to hear from different voices and stuff like that. So a little bit about the process they plan to take with these managerial candidate. Obviously, I think there's going to be questions asked about the coaching staff. I don't know if we'll get answers, but like how much

of the staff is going to stick around how much isn't. And then I hope there's just some kind of acknowledgement about like, look, we built our team this way. A bunch of stuff went wrong this year, but that doesn't mean that like our plan wasn't flawed going into the year. And so we need to look at making some adjustments to how we build our roster. Obviously, they're not going to come out and say like, yeah, we need to get a better bench.

We need to play good defense. We need to fix the bull. Like they're not going to come out and say those things. but they can say those things without like, you know, singling them out a little, you know what I mean? Like, yeah, these,

these type of press conferences are tough because you're usually not going to get like, well, first goal, sign say you, Suzuki, then we're going to go after, you know, Max Scherzer,

like, they're not going to come out and say that stuff, right? So it is like some kind of acknowledgement that like, well, yes, there was some bad luck involved in this year's team and then, like, yes,

blah, blah, blah, injuries and, and, you know, synergy and alignment and all the fancy words they'll use. There should be, I hope there's at least some acknowledge, but like, look,

the way we built this team, it was inherently flawed and we need to look at that and we need to kind of tweak our approach or tweak our philosophy a little bit. I don't need them to come down, be like, we're tearing it down to the studs and we're starting over. Just tweak it a little bit, right? Like, find out what works, find out what doesn't and tweak it. I don't want to hear so much about the excuses of like, well, Josh was banged up all year and Julio was banged up and Cal was and it's just like, we get that. We understand that. And you could obviously be, be like, well, you know, if so-and-so is going to have a surgery, JP's going to have a surgery, it sounds like this winter.

Like, you want the injury updates, honestly. Like if somebody needs a surgery, you want to hear about it, blah, blah, blah. But I don't want the whole thing to be like, oh, you know, Josh is going to get healthy next year and he's going to hit 25 home runs and that's going to be, we're banking on. It's like, like, come on, Jerry. Come on, Justin, like answer the question, really. What went wrong with this team? You can say, uh, injuries were a part of it, but we need to get better at this, this and

this and in order to do that we need to kind of tweak the philosophy that we're entering the offseason with and kind of change our team build because very clearly what we just did did not work and so we need to everything needs to be open to like for inspection you know what I mean like everything needs to be open to to be tweaked uh from who's on our coaching staff to our philosophy to uh you know the players that we target and how we decide to build out rosters and things like that because I would love to hear them say like, oh, yeah, no, it's great. We, we're ownership's giving us so much extra payroll room. We will not have this happening in.

But they've literally said that before at these things only for ownership to then go out like two weeks later. Be like, that was a lie. And it just makes them look bad. So of course they're not going to comment on, on, you know, there's been, there's been multiple times where it's like, we, we have the payroll to do what we want to do. And then literally like the eve of free agents. see, they go, actually you don't, but you already said that. So you're just going to look like an idiot. So there's no way they're going to say like, yeah, you know, the payroll is going to be, you know, this. Your payroll is going to go up.

Like there's no way. So I'm not even hoping they say that because even if they do say that, why would I believe them? So yeah, it does sound by the way like John Stanton will not be there. So it's just the front office guys. Yeah. If I was there, I would be curious to hear Jerry and Justin's thoughts on specifically why acquisitions like Rob Reff Snyder and Taylor Ward have gone so extremely poorly. Yeah, if we're talking about what we would like to hear reporters ask, because like that's really all that can be controlled because Jerry and Justin have their little talking points that, you know, they're going to roll out for any question they don't want to answer. They already have their pre-prepared non-answer answer ready to go.

So like I would like to hear one of the reporters ask like, why should fans trust you? why should fans trust you to hire the third manager? Most teams don't get to do that. You've been given the opportunity to hire your third manager. You fired the last two. Why should fans trust you? And, you know, in regards to that, I'd also like to hear like, what are you going to do to win back the trust of fans?

Because like, look, at the end of the day, like Jerry and Justin, they can pretend they're, you know, up on the mountain, looking down upon all of us plebes who don't know anything about baseball, but you have to win back the trust of the fans because it's evaporated. And you can't just say, oh, we're going to win. How? How are you going to win? Why should we believe you when you say you're going to win when you just put this team out

there that didn't win? So I would very much like to hear questions about like, how do you win back the trust of a fan base that, you know, gave you everything they had this year and you disappointed yet again. Like how do you get that trust back? because I do think that's an important part of their job this winter. And again, some of that is on ownership, but ownership's not going to be there.

So unfortunately, I have to ask the people who are there. And that's Jerry and Justin. So, yeah, we're going off of like what I would like to have questions be asked, whether they're answered or not. I'd like somebody to step up and be like,

why should we believe you? Why should fans believe you? Not we. Obviously, the journalist won't say we. Why should fans believe you? Yeah. Or believe in you. believe in

trust you. Yeah, trust you. Trust you. It's not believe you. Like believe in, yes.

Yeah. Let's just be very clear. Why should they trust you is a much better way to, yeah, to phrase that because like believe like I don't want to put them on like, hey, like you're lying already. Like,

why should they, why should they trust you to make the correct moves after the off season and the season we just watched? Yeah. So we'll see how it goes. And then again, like I said, we will record as soon as that wraps up.

or as soon as, you know, quotes come out. Because again, we don't know if this is going to be something that we can actually watch live or if we're going to have to wait for things to be reported for articles to be written, all that. So we'll see. And then we'll talk to you guys tomorrow and then mailbag on Tuesday. All right. That is going to do it for our show.

Thank you so much for joining us here on the lockdown airiness podcast. Part of the lockdown podcast and work your team every day for Colby Patnode. I'm Tadda Gonzalez. Be sure to give us a follow on Twitter. at LO underscore Mariners. You can also find us on Blue Sky at TDG, Colby at MLB Colby, and the show at Lockdown Mariners. You can also find us on Instagram and TikTok at Lockdown Mariners.

Have yourself a beautiful baseball day, and we'll see you next time. Peace.