Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic described the Seattle Mariners’ managerial search as “far from typical” on Monday morning, and the part that seems to have caught his attention was the way players were folded into the process near the end.
That detail has already been floating around. On the Nov. 4 edition of “Brock and Salk” on Seattle Sports 710, ESPN MLB Insider Jeff Passan said players met the candidates and spent time with them. So the idea that Mariners players were involved in the search wasn’t exactly a surprise.
Rosenthal also pointed out that players usually have “no input” when a team hires a manager. That’s the part that makes this unusual, at least on the surface. But it doesn’t strike everyone as a major problem.
There are obvious concerns worth considering. Players could start feeling like they helped pick the manager and therefore don’t need to listen to him.
A manager could feel like he owes something to the players who were part of the hiring process. And if player empowerment keeps spreading the way it has in the NFL and NBA, with the NHL now in the mix too, giving players too much say could shift the balance inside a clubhouse.
The worry, taken to its extreme, is simple enough: if players have a voice in manager hires, what comes next?
There’s also the question of whether every player involved felt equally heard. If different players had different opinions, someone’s perspective could have carried less weight than another’s.
Still, the process doesn’t seem especially alarming if the Mariners limited that player group to guys with long-term commitments to the organization. Cal Raleigh has four years left on his contract, Josh Naylor does too, Julio Rodriguez has many more than that when contract options are factored in, Colt Emerson has eight years left after his big deal, and Bryan Woo has three years. Those are the kinds of players whose opinions carry real weight because they’re tied to the club for the long haul.
And this wasn’t some open-ended, every-step-of-the-way player referendum. The players were brought in at the end, not at the start, and nothing indicates they were the ones generating the names. If the Mariners had already narrowed things to two or three finalists before involving them, that makes the setup a lot easier to understand.
For now, the main takeaway is that the Mariners’ search was unusual, but not necessarily troubling. More thoughts are expected on the next “Refuse to Lose Territory” podcast, set to come out on Tuesday morning.
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