SeaTown Sports Brew - Is Dan Wilson Really the Answer?
Dan Wilson Named Mariners Manager: Does His Leadership Make a Real Difference for Seattle's Future?
The SeaTown Sports Brew is a weekly briefing and roundup providing insight into Seattle’s sports teams and athletes. Have a tip? Leave us a comment or email me at kevin@seatownsports.org. Subscribe below if you want this in your inbox every Monday.
The Leadoff - Dan Wilson is the New Mariners Manager, Does It Make a Difference?
The debate between Mariners fans is whether former Mariners manager Scott Servais was rightfully fired last week. One faction believes that Servais’ time was up in Seattle and that the team needed a new voice to reach its potential. Another faction disagrees with that view and thinks that Servais has unfairly been scapegoated for the team’s offensive struggles.
Central to this debate is whether a baseball manager impacts a team’s success. And if so, how? I asked ChatGPT, and it pointed out the following factors that a manager has on a team’s success:
In-game strategy (lineup decisions, pitching changes, defensive shifts, and positioning)
Player management (rest and rotation, bullpen management)
Clubhouse culture (motivation and leadership, handling adversity)
Player development (young player integration, maximizing veteran player performance)
Analytics and adaption (data-driven decision-making)
This all makes sense, but it all begs the question, besides clubhouse culture, which of these factors are not under the manager’s control? For example, does a manager have a final say over lineup decisions? Or does the front office dictate that? Using the Mariners as an example, is Jerry Dipoto telling Dan Wilson who belongs in the lineup, or at least dictating certain guidelines?
An AMA on Reddit with one MLB team’s analytic department employee revealed that MLB managers often get the final say on in-game strategy:
It varies by team of course, but my experience has been that MLB managers get final say on decisions because it's their job on the line not mine. I have an open dialogue to the manager when I believe he made a subpar decision, but I do not tell him what to do. For game prep, we give the coaches a whole bunch of documents to help them be prepared for many situations. For ex, there are bullpen usage documents that will show which reliever makes sense in which spots. Decisions for a RP being down for the day likely come from the training staff (which I will provide them with usage numbers to help them make that call) and the pitching coach (who usually has great feel for when a pitcher is hurting even though they always say they can go today)
It may not be as cut and dry as this one analytics employee on Reddit posits. As reported in the Athletic, teams have assistant coaches direct shifts based on information from the analytics department. Further, batting orders and pitching decisions may come from a collaborative effort between the manager and the front office.
So, we’ve established that the manager is not just a retired baseball player wearing a uniform. The manager is making decisions during a game. How much autonomy each manager likely varies from team to team.
The next question is whether a manager’s decisions impact on a team’s success? No, at least according to past sabermetric studies. Neil Paine looked at this issue in a post for 538 back in 2014:
Yet sabermetrics tells us that most dugout decisions barely have any effect on the outcome of the game.1 Furthermore, if we look at effects on player performance, it’s evident that hardly any manager can distinguish himself from his counterparts. Based on my analysis, 95 percent of all managers are worth somewhere between -2 and +2 wins per 162 games. Last year alone, 21 batters and seven pitchers were worth more to their teams than nearly every manager of the last 112 years.2
So, the numbers, at least, tell us that most of the time, over a full season, a bad manager will cost the team two games, and a good manager will cause two wins. Dan Wilson may make a difference, but that difference will likely be minimal.
Weekend Substack Chats
You may have received an email this past weekend alerting you about our Substack chat. What's Substack chat? I think of it as the SeaTown Sports group chat. Smaller and smarter than Twitter, but bigger than your text message group chats.
On Saturday mornings, we will open up a weekend SeaTown Sports chat thread that will allow our readers to chat with each other as the weekend sporting events unfold. We had our first chat two weekends ago where we discussed the possibility of Scott Servais’ firing before it happened less than a week later! This is the good stuff that you get!
Shoutout to Jim, James, Woody and Justin for jumping in the past two weekends. If you want to join us, download the Substack app, or if you're old school, log onto Substack on your browser.
Winners and Losers
Losers - Seattle Mariners (66-65) - Despite taking two of three from the Giants this past weekend, I’m labeling the Mariners as losers because of the Dodgers’ three-game sweep of the M’s earlier in the week. The Mariners should have been able to win at least one of those games.
Winners- Seattle Sounders FC (11-7-8) - The Sounders returned to MLS action and picked up three points after defeating Minnesota United, on the road, 3-2. Jordan Morris, Jackson Ragen and Albert Rusnák scored goals for Seattle.
Winners - Seattle Seahawks (1-1) - The Seahawks won a meaningless preseason game against the Cleveland Browns, 37-33 last Saturday. The best play of the game was arguably a beautifully thrown touchdown pass from Geno Smith to D.K. Metcalf. The Ryan Grubb-offense is humming:
Winners - Seattle Storm (18-10) - The Storm got back in the win column! The Storm beat a bad Washington Mystics team 83-77 last Tuesday. Nneka Ogwumike led the Storm with 24 points.
On-Deck
The Mariners end their home stand, hosting the Tampa Bay Rays (65-65) for a three-game series, and then travel to Anaheim for a three-game series against the Angels (54-77). Monday’s game against the Rays will be televised on ROOTNW, FS1. Friday’s game against the Angels will be on Apple TV+. The rest of the games will be on ROOTNW.
The Sounders (11-7-8) take on LAFC (14-5-5) in the U.S. Open Cup on Wednesday 8/28, 7:30 p.m. at Starfire Sports Complex on Apple TV. They then, on the road, take on rival Portland Timbers (10-7-9), 8/31 at 7:30 p.m. on Apple TV.
The Storm (18-10) have a busy week with four games on their slate this week:
Seattle begins a three-game homestand against the Washington Mystics (7-22) on Monday 8/26, 7 p.m. Fox 13+/Amazon Prime Video (Seattle).
Seattle hosts Atlanta Dream (10-18) Wednesday 8/28, 7 p.m. on Fox 13+/Amazon Prime Video (Seattle)
The team ends their homestand against Breanna Stewart and the New York Liberty (25-5) on Friday 8/30, 7 p.m. on ION.
On Sunday 9/1, the Storm take on the Connecticut Sun (22-7), 10 a.m. on NBATV.
The Reign (3-5-9) have a road game against Racing Louisville FC on Saturday, 8/31 at 4:30 p.m. PT. The match will be aired on ION.
Seattle Athlete of the Week
Cortez Kennedy, DT - Seattle Seahawks
Kevin Gallagher on Twitter wished Seahawks legend Cortez Kennedy a heavenly birthday last week:
Tez will be featured on our SeaTown Sports 100, but wanted to leave you with the educational video shared by Gallagher:
This Week in Seattle Sports History
On August 31, 1990, Mariners Ken Griffey Sr. and Ken Griffey Jr. became the first father-son duo on the same team in MLB history. The pair hit back-to-back singles in the first inning.
Fast Break
Subscriber Shoutouts!
We wanted to give a shoutout to a few of our top subscribers. Thank you Mike Phillips for coming on our podcast last week! Thank you to Brian’s dad (the OG Elsner), Luke R. (an OG SeaTown Sports writer and reader), and AZ (CYO basketball legend). Thank you to Jeff (one of my groomsmen), Jim P. (SeaTown’s biggest fan), and Drew M. (another loyal reader). Is your name missing? Leave us a comment and complain, or wait until next Monday!
I mean... I think Servais shoulda had longer. But I grew up in Cleveland in the 80s and 90s, so my barometer is different than most. I'll tell you I'm optimistic right now! I'm going to the game tonight latsgoMariners!