At the regular season finale of 2025, there was a major anticipation for the playoff run to come.
What a difference a year makes.
At the regular season finale of 2025, there was a major anticipation for the playoff run to come. Which ended up being historic, even if the M's fell one game shy of the World Series.
In Dan Wilson's first full season as Mariners manager, he guided the team further than they had ever gone before.
The thought, and to some extent the expectation, was that the M's would finally end the drought as the only MLB team to never go to the World Series.
But growth is never linear, is it?
Instead of taking the next step, the Mariners regressed mightily, from World Series contender to a team that finished ten games under .500 at 76-86. Their worst season since 2020.
Is that all on Dan Wilson?
Of course not.
After all, the manager can't make a pitch go faster or hold a bat back to avoid a strikeout.
But improvement is never quite that simple, is it?
Sometimes you just need a different voice or to shake things up. It's exactly how Wilson got the job when Scott Servais was let go with a 64-64 record in 2024.
Just as Servais wasn't 100% to blame, far from it, neither is Wilson.
Entirely fair? Probably not.
But Wilson understands this is how the game goes. He gets the window that this team finds itself in. While he admits he's still processing being let go as manager, he never lost his love for the Mariners and for Seattle.
And that's what makes Dan Wilson, Dan Wilson. He's a class act who treats everyone with respect and carries himself the right way.
He thanked the organization for the chance. He alluded to potentially serving in a behind-the-scenes role with the team like he did before his managerial promotion.
With a new voice next season, whoever that might be, the Mariners could get back to their 2025 heights and then some. After all, talent was never an issue. For some weird reason, it just never clicked in 2026, certainly not like it had 12 months prior in a magical fall.
In baseball, the weirdest game of them all, the most inexplicable things can hold a team back, befuddling the experts as to why a team didn't perform to its potential.
This time it claimed the job of a Mariners legend, who the fans will never lose their love for. But maybe, just maybe, it leads to something greater.
And I'm telling you right now.
Nobody will be rooting harder for the Mariners to get there next year than Dan Wilson.
