Mariners to hire Scott Servais as manager

Here we go with the breaking news:

Sources: Scott Servais will be named Mariner's manager later today. I've been speculating that he'd get the job for a while.

— Mike Salk, 710 ESPN (@TheMikeSalk) October 23, 2015

Now, again, there's not too much to say about this. We kind of knew this was coming yesterday and Colin already did a great profile on both Servais and new bench coach Tim Bogar but wait, what's that? Oh lawd have mercy:

There's no bigger Green Bay #Packers fan than new #Mariners manager Scott Servais

— Bob Nightengale (@BNightengale) October 23, 2015

This is suboptimal, I'm not gonna lie. But Scott Servais wasn't hired for his responsible and rational rooting choices he was hired to manage the Mariners, preferably to the playoffs.

So, is this a good hire? Well, we don't know much, at least not as managing is concerned. Remember his role in Anaheim was Assistant General Manager. He's never been an on field manager at any level. Now hiring managers who have never been managers has been a bit en vogue around baseball this decade. Robin Ventura with the White Sox, Matt Williams with the oh crap Matt Williams with the Nationals.

Well....geez....I hope this doesn't work out like that.

More than anything this shows that Jerry Dipoto, as we all speculated after his experience with Owner Snidely Whiplash and manager Lord Jowls is going to place a premium on cohesion, both within the front office itself and in the front office to on field management side.

Both Servais and Bogar were brought to Anaheim by Dipoto, these are his guys. If we choose to operate under the belief that Dipoto is an above average major league general manager (I very much am doing this. For now) then this is good news. General Manager is the single most important position in a baseball organization, at least after the owner him (or her) self.

While appointing an inexperienced field manager can potentially backfire this hire also reveals the freedom that Dipoto has been granted by ownership to assemble the organization as he sees fit. The Mariners are constantly fraught with rumor and speculation of meddling from the shadowy cabal of board members that make up their ownership. At least for now it appears Dipoto has carte blanche to do whatever he likes, as long as it doesn't cost money.

With these hires a majority of the organization's framework is now built. The coaching staff will be filled out, those left over will get official assignments, minor league coaching staffs will be hired, etc. But Jerry Dipoto has now hired and/or retained a coaching staff, a Director of Player Development, Director of Scouting, Assistant GM, and more. We're seeing it come together. Like all management teams it all looks great when handsome, articulate people earnestly tell you it's going to work. We've got awhile before we know if they're right.

More soon.