The Mariners have landed on their latest good idea.
The Mariners introduced Jason Kanzler as their next manager on Tuesday. He’s 36 and has never been manager before. Jerry Dipoto said he was far and away the most impressive candidate they interviewed, noting his clear communication style as a standout trait.
“Experience is good,” Dipoto said. “In this case, we didn’t think it was good enough to dissuade us from all the traits that Jason brings to the table.
I am… skeptical. I don’t trust Kanzler. I could
list some reasons, from that lack of experience, to a projected image that looks and sounds enough like Mariners Brass to make me question if this is really an external candidate. But boil down my initial reactions and anything I might say proves shallow — judging a person I’ve never met, against a job I’ve never witnessed in action.
No, I don’t trust Kanzler simply because I don’t trust the Mariners front office to make this decision. The team has fired two managers in two years, and plenty of assistant coaches. I don’t think they know what they want, or how to identify it. I don’t think their strategy of passive, middling success is attractive to the very best candidates, nor the fact that this is a potential one-year, do-or-die gig. I see no reason to confer the benefit of the doubt. It’s not you, Jason, it’s the Mariners.
Of course, I also question whether any of this matters. Dan Wilson was hired without competition, with no experience, with worse media chops, with a lesser image, and following an unpopular firing of a more popular predecessor. Nevertheless, Wilson ended his first season as the most successful manager in Seattle in two decades. The job is either not that hard, or not that important, or not something we’re good at judging from our sofas. I see no reason why Kanzler can’t be just as successful just as quick, even if the org’s biennial enlightenment has worn thin.
Kanzler’s success will ultimately come down to the quality of the players he leads. The roster at the moment is fine. They’re projected for the sort of 86-win season we’ve become accustomed to in this era. I don’t suspect that will change by spring. It’s the bare minimum talent threshold, meaning their aspirations are not so much in Kanzler’s hands, but their opponents.
Still, there does appear to be a small twist on this latest “going for good” squad. The actual WAR produced last year by the active roster would make them one of the five worst teams in the majors next year. Some of that is the down years from Julio Rodríguez, Cal Raleigh, and Josh Nalyor. Some of that is the departure of Randy Arozarena. But a lot of that is because the Mariners figure to give significant playing time to at least four rookie-ish players: Colt Emerson, Kade Anderson, Michael Arroyo, and Lazaro Montes. Each of these players are projected for solid contributions next year, but none have any sort of track record to lean on. If they collectively flop, the path to the postseason is narrow, perhaps nonexistent.
In other words, the front office is staking their “do-or-die” season on the immediate success of the next development wave. And, well, it just so happens their new manager is the former Director of Player Development for the Cubs. If there’s one thing Kanzler is uniquely qualified for, it’s working with young players to help them “be the best they can be” (or however he’d put it in player-dev parlance). Setting lineups and changing pitchers and talking to the press are the most visible and controversial parts of the job, but I suspect the things that matter are the soft skills we cannot see, and where Kanzler supposedly excels.
Justin Hollander alluded to this at Wednesday’s press conference. Remember, one of the criticisms that came about at the end of 2026 was that young players called up to the majors were no longer receiving the same instruction or set of expectations that they’d had for years throughout the Mariners system.
“When you go through a process like this, you learn a lot about other people. You also learn a lot about yourself and what you believe in as an organization,” Hollander said. “We need to be better about connecting what we believe in organizationally to what we do in the big leagues. I think that’s something that was identified by Jerry, myself, our baseball operations staff, and most importantly, our players. As we went to the end of the season, we also need to push ourselves to try new things that maybe hadn’t been on our radar.
“Finding someone with Jason’s skill set that can develop while we’re in the big leagues that can connect an organization from top to bottom was a huge part of this,” Hollander said. “And he was by far the most impressive candidate when we talked to people about where development starts and stops, and really believe that he’s going to help drive our staff, which will help drive our players to reach the absolute apex of their potential.”
And so I find myself trapped between thinking this makes a lot of sense, and finding it a bit frustrating that we’re still doing this. I’m tired of watching the org hire and fire their next great philosophy, while never truly committing to that philosophy with their WAR chest. There’s only so much a manager can do to stave off disaster when the baseline talent is bare minimum. I am more impressed with Kanzler than I thought I would be, but my expectations are that of anybody who agrees to flip the Mariners coin.
I’ll leave you with this. Just as the Mariners exist at the edge of a cliff, they remain at the bottom of the mountain they’ve tentatively circled for years. If this is it, if Kanzler is the guy to finally connect the great work they do in the minors to their middling performance in the majors, then the org absolutely could still ascend to the “apex of their potential,” or whatever. Every year I write essentially the same season preview, and essentially the same season recap, that the org is positioned for greatness, if only they’d reach for it. Maybe this is finally the year we say, Yes We Kanzler.
