The Mariners have a chance to do something that would at least say the right thing out loud: call Don Mattingly and see what he actually brings to the table.
With Mattingly reportedly expected to leave the Philadelphia Phillies, Seattle suddenly has a candidate who checks a lot of the boxes Jerry Dipoto has already talked up in this managerial search. He’s outside the organization.
He has plenty of major-league experience. He comes with instant name recognition, the kind that doesn’t require any introduction when he walks into a clubhouse.
But that’s the point. The résumé gets him an interview, not the job.
Dipoto has said the Mariners want someone who can bring fresh thinking, stress accountability and “poke holes” in the organization’s methods. Mattingly is a clean way for Seattle to find out whether those words mean anything beyond the usual end-of-season language.
There’s no denying the case for him. He stepped into a Philadelphia team that was 9-19 and guided it to a 79-55 finish as interim manager, pushing the Phillies into the postseason.
Before that, he managed three straight division winners with the Los Angeles Dodgers. He also took the Miami Marlins to the playoffs in 2020 and won NL Manager of the Year.
He has the kind of credibility that matters in a clubhouse. Players trust him.
He’s worked with stars, young players, expensive rosters and bare-bones ones. He’s dealt with the daily mess that comes with teams carrying real expectations.
Seattle could use someone who has already lived through plenty of baseball fires.
Still, the track record has another side. Mattingly’s career managerial record is 968-1005, and his teams have won two of seven postseason series.
That doesn’t knock him out of the running, especially after seven seasons in Miami with an organization that rarely gave him enough talent. But it does mean the Mariners shouldn’t confuse experience with proof of greatness.
If Seattle interviews him, the important questions go well beyond the name on the back of the baseball card. The Mariners need to know what he learned in Los Angeles and Miami, and what changed during his time on John Schneider’s staff in Toronto.
They should want to hear how he handled the Phillies’ turnaround after taking over a talented club that had lost its footing. And they need to know how he would manage Seattle’s stars.
There’s also the personal side. Mattingly may prefer staying in Philadelphia with his son, Preston, the Phillies’ GM. The organization is expected to offer him another role, though Mattingly has said he wants to keep managing.
When Philadelphia hired him as bench coach, Mattingly said he had wondered whether he still had the energy to manage again. He later took the interim job, embraced it and then showed interest in returning.
Seattle should dig into that change directly. A win-now job with the Mariners cannot become a comfortable last stop for a respected baseball lifer.
The Mariners should also want to know who he’d bring onto his coaching staff and how he would work with the coaches already in place. If Seattle really wants an outside voice, it has to be ready for outside opinions before the contract is signed.
Mattingly’s possible exit from Philadelphia gives the Mariners a legitimate candidate and a useful test. Interviewing him would show the search is real. Hiring him just because he’s the most recognizable experienced manager on the board would show Seattle learned the wrong lesson.
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