Episode 479: Reacting To Jason Kanzler Being Named Mariners Manager

00:00:00 Speaker 1: Welcome to episode number 479 of the Marine Layer podcast. The Mariners have officially named their manager for the 2027 season. It will be Jason Kanzler. We'll react to all the information. 00:00:12 Speaker 2: Reminder to you guys, just before we get going, make sure you rate and review this podcast if you're listening, and please leave a five-star review if you have the chance to do so. Hit subscribe if you're watching on YouTube. Also, check out our website, which is at marinelayerpod.com. You can find all of our merch, our Patreon. Everything's over there. And find us all across social media at MarineLayerPod. Let's get it rolling. 00:00:33 Speaker 1: Let's get it rolling. And we welcome you to this episode of the Marine Layer Podcast, part of the Just Baseball Podcast Network, recording here on Tuesday morning, November 3rd. The news came out earlier today that the Mariners will hire Jason Kanzler as their next manager going forward. How do you feel, Lyle? 00:01:06 Speaker 2: Honestly, fired up. Fired up. Because as we've talked about the last couple days, the Mariners signal that they are taking the swing. 00:01:14 Speaker 1: Good. Good. 00:01:15 Speaker 2: Take the swing. Don't go with the safe hire with this. Joe Espada would have been more of the safe hire. He's done it before, probably has the higher floor, not as high of a ceiling. Jason Kanzler has the chance to really be a home run hire, or it's all going to get blown up after 2027 if they miss the playoffs. And I'm fine with either scenario. I would much, much rather see it all work out and the Mariners just go on a run to the World Series, or you get to start over. So yes, I'm fired up. 00:01:46 Speaker 1: The big concern everyone has is that the core of the team in the front office and the coaches they hire and the players on the roster just frankly aren't good enough. So yeah, if you get a signal that it's time to start over, then this is the hire you would make to get to that point, given that the guy you're hiring has no experience. But also, there are a lot of intangibles with Jason Kanzler that you really find in a first-time manager because this is the type of guy you would want to hire for a long time instead of just a temporary three-year fix before you try and find another guy like this with a little bit more job security. I'll say this. Jerry DiPoto is now three for three on hiring a manager with zero managerial experience to come lead his baseball team. I'm going to have to go out on a limb here and say this is probably the only... the only president of all time to hire three managers in a row with zero managerial experience while keeping his job throughout the entire time. I would almost guarantee that. Can you think of anyone even close to that? 00:02:52 Speaker 2: I mean, I can't even really think of how many different president of baseball ops have hired three managers. The list is already small in its own right for that. But then when you double down and look even further and close in the lens in a little bit, And say, well, how many guys hire three people in a row that have never managed? It's small. Not saying it's wrong. Well, the second one was wrong. But I'm not saying this one is wrong, but it is unusual. 00:03:19 Speaker 1: And I will say the difference between the last two is pretty stark in terms of how they went about this. You would have thought that given the situation, the last two guys would have been swapped. Maybe not like the exact person, but the reasons in which they were hired. when Jerry hired Dan Wilson, you and I both like put our foot down and thought that the only reason Jerry made that hire so fast and so quickly was to save his own job. And he had gotten this essential, like essentially a lifeline to keep his job going forward. And for a season, it did work out because the next season was the best case scenario possible. But now like Jerry's actually got like one year to, to handle this and to make the postseason again and to have this roster actually work for him. So therefore, you feel like you would want the hire that would save your job this year when they hire him. But I wouldn't call Jason Kanzler the hire to save your job. This is a really, really risky hire. I think that you get like one year of cushion with a guy who's never managed before. only got back into coaching in 2019 at any sort of professional level, only got back into a big league dugout in 2022 to be the guy that will determine essentially this season whether or not you get to continue forward as president of baseball operations. And by proxy, the entire Mariners front office, that's really bold. Yeah. 00:04:51 Speaker 2: And he hasn't even been in a big league dugout very long because he was the Astros hitting coach in 22 and I believe 23. Yeah, I think for the two years. And then he took that job with the Cubs where he became, you know, where he started working in the farm system where he became the farm director. So he has really not had that much big league experience in a dugout. So yes, it's a very, very different, unique type of hire. But it's a hire that has a chance to really be a home run, or again, really reset things. And if the Mariners miss the playoffs in 2027, I don't think it's the worst thing in the world. And I know you don't think it's the worst thing in the world by any stretch to have a big reset. But that's a conversation for a year from now if they actually miss the playoffs. 00:05:37 Speaker 1: So why did the Mariners decide to hire Jason Kanzler? I have my first reason why I think they hired Jason Kanzler. Just reading this statement that Jerry DiPoto put out from the Mariners' official press release when they hired him Listen to this first sentence. Our goal in this process was finding a manager with the ability to challenge us, challenge all of us to improve. That that is a very, I would say, pointed statement from Jerry DePoto at the kind of mindset that Jason Kanzler had that the previous coaching staff didn't really seem to. I mean, one of the easiest knocks on Dan Wilson is that there wasn't a ton of intensity there and there wasn't a ton of challenging the players to improve and holding them to a standard. Well, as we've talked about here on this podcast from people we've talked to around baseball, the thing about Jason Kanzler is that he is unbelievably intense and that potentially even intense enough to rub people the wrong way, depending on the situation he's in. So you could not have a more opposite approach, the way it seems, to handling players and handling a clubhouse. And that seems to me, Lyle, is something that Jerry DePoto really liked when he talked to Jason Kanzler. 00:07:00 Speaker 2: Seems that way because he was very pointed in his statement. Justin Hollander's statement that he put out on the hiring of Jason Kanzler was, Much more normal PR speak. Again, we're excited to have Jason Kanzler as the manager. We think he's going to bring a lot to Seattle. I mean, if you want the actual statement from Hollander, because the Mariners put out a statement here on Tuesday. Hollander just said, we're excited to welcome Jason to the Mariners. Consistently demonstrated elite leadership skills. High-end content. Maybe that just means they like what he presented. and an ability to connect and partner with players, staff, and front office. Anyway, like he said, believe he's the right person to lead our organization back to the postseason. Pretty standard PR statement. He's just saying, liked what he brought to the table in the interviews, excited to have him in Seattle, liked the way he connected with our players. Pretty normal. Jerry's first statement, first line in his PR statement, our goal in this process was finding a manager with the ability to challenge all of us to improve. I mean, again, that sounds pretty pointed to me. That sounds to me like Jerry had a very, very set mindset on what this next manager needed to do. And to them, Jason Kanzler was the best person to do that. 00:08:14 Speaker 1: So it felt like the potential candidates they were looking at fell in one of two buckets. And for some of them, maybe in both buckets. It was like the two qualities that it seemed like he did not like the most about the previous manager, which was Not enough experience, so not the right in-game decision-making and not the right process thinking through things. And then also holding everybody to a standard and challenging people to improve. Kanzler is solidly in that bucket. Like, he is in the, man, this guy, like, is going to... get our players to improve. He's, he's going to do whatever it takes seemingly to get these guys to improve, to play at a higher level and like raise that floor. So we're not asking why everyone is underperforming to the X most, uh, extent, uh, later on Joe Espada, probably Lyle would have fallen in the other bucket of just experience managing. And it seems like the Mariners front office thought that experience was not necessary in this case. 00:09:21 Speaker 2: Well, they said at the start of this process, experience is preferred but not required. To them, Jason Kanzler clearly had enough qualities that the lack of experience was secondary to everything else he brought to the table. And I think one of the other things he's going to bring to the table, I'm sure, is really good communication. And honestly, I think the youth is going to be on his side with that. I think there's pros and cons to having a young manager. But I think there is an upside to having somebody younger to try and communicate with players and hold players accountable. Because there is more of a relatability factor when you're more of the age of Jason. Kanzler to all the players around your roster. There's more of a relatability. So I'm guessing that's another plus. I'm guessing the Mariners sat there and said, you know what, we like the idea of having a young manager. 00:10:12 Speaker 1: If you're wondering if this landed with the players or not, Lyle and I said that that doesn't really matter as much to us, especially during the interview process where there's no, like, there's none of that bonding that goes through the course of 162-game season. But the Mariners did include players in on these discussions when meeting with the candidates. So, like, I'm sure Cal Raleigh met with Jason Kanzler at some point during this interview process and probably gave some sort of sign-off to the idea of this hire. Like this won't be just like a total blind side to the players on this roster. 00:10:48 Speaker 2: No, but we also said how much should players get a voice in this? I'm glad they got to sit in on a meeting or two, but how much should they get a voice? Because again, this is the same group of players that like was banging the drum for Dan Wilson, like in the middle of year two when everything was going terribly. Now, again, maybe they have to say those things, but if that's actually what they believed, I would have, I would have a little bit of skepticism about their ability to evaluate a manager. 00:11:17 Speaker 1: I would say another reason why the Mariners decided on hiring Jason Kanzler is because now there is going to be more of a synonymous thought process on how they play baseball up and down the organization. And it's clear that organizations operate more efficiently when everyone is already on the same page on how they are thinking about things. where when Jerry DiPoto is sitting up in his suite versus Jason Kanzler in the dugout and they're watching a game unfold, is that they are, for the most part, thinking the same way about what is going on on the field. And it's going to save everybody a whole lot of conversations when you're already a step ahead of thinking on what's going to happen and everyone's already on that same page. To me, I think that's a valuable thing to have. given we saw last year what happened when that was not the case? 00:12:13 Speaker 2: Oh, I don't think it's just valuable. I think it's required. I think it's a necessity. You have to be on the same page in today's day and age between coaching staff and front office. You cannot be totally misaligned. This isn't like Moneyball, where Billy Bean will walk down to the dugout and tell Art Howe, well, I want Jermaine Dye in right, I want Peña on the bench, I want Justice DH-ing, I want Hatterberg at first, and I don't want Magnante coming out of the bullpen. And Art Howe's like, well, that's too bad. I'm the manager and I get to make the lineup. So sorry. Like, see ya. That doesn't happen. Part of that was obviously just played up for the movie. But when you don't have alignment between coaching staff and front office, it causes a lot of problems. And I'm not saying these two departments should be absolutely in lockstep at all times. You want differing opinions because differing opinions often provides, again, not just good context, but more thought to well-thought-out decisions. Different opinions are good. For example, when Jerry DiPoto was the GM and Scott Service was the manager, from people we talked to and from things we heard, those guys didn't always see everything in lockstep. There were plenty of disagreements. There would be things that they didn't see eye-to-eye on and they would really debate it out on. But it's because it was coming from two good places of thought where they'd hopefully eventually meet in the middle. From everything we understand about the last manager... How it would go is, again, just from people we've talked to and stories we've heard, is these two departments meet every day. The front office and coaching staff have meetings just about every day. And a lot of it involves game planning. How it would go is they would go and set out a game plan. They would have something pretty in place for that set day. Again, you can't plan every single thing to the T because you don't always know how a game's going to get played out, but you plan a lot of things. From everything we heard, Game plans would get planned out, and then all of a sudden Dan would just start going off script. And when you'd be sitting at home, you the viewer, the watcher, the listener, like pulling your hair out, watching Dan Wilson bullpen decisions the way we would, they'd probably never say it publicly, but I think those were a lot of the times the front office had the exact same thoughts of, this is not what we talked about at all. And obviously that led to a ton of problems. So yes, They shouldn't see eye to eye at all times, but you need general alignment between coaching staff and front office. And the hiring of Jason Kanzler should signal that. There should be alignment. 00:14:46 Speaker 1: In terms of all the information that came out, Lyle, there is one thing that I'm floored was kept under wraps this long until it was announced here on Tuesday. So I just happen to be scrolling as we're getting ready to recording through all the news about the announcement for Mariners manager. And Bob Nightingale not so subtly drops this, that several rival executives throughout baseball believed Jason Kanzler would be manager of the Mariners after the Mariners hired his close friend, CJ Gilman, as their hitting coach last week. Would have been like, well, that would have been good information to know. 00:15:24 Speaker 2: I don't know. 00:15:25 Speaker 1: On Friday? Yeah. Instead, it's just like, oh, yeah, on Tuesday it was announced that they were good friends. 00:15:34 Speaker 2: I mean, maybe none of the reporters wanted to just report out that. Maybe they didn't want to give leaks. They wanted to make sure they had all their information right before they tweeted anything out. It's possible. 00:15:45 Speaker 1: I mean, isn't it a fact? 00:15:48 Speaker 2: Yeah, it is. It is. Yeah, I don't know. I guess the Mariners somehow found a way to keep that all under wrap. and not mention that Gilman and Kanzler have a connection. 00:15:59 Speaker 1: I mean, as someone mentioned to us on Friday when we were wondering why they hadn't made a decision yet, it's like, well, maybe they hired the hitting coach with approval of the eventual manager. And I think it would be a pretty solid approval if they're already really good friends to hire him. That would make a lot of sense, and something like that would line up. I just thought it was funny that that just kind of, like, got dropped today. It's like, oh, no one else mentioned that? There's a lot of reporters out there who love being first and love getting scoops. You're telling me none of them? 00:16:34 Speaker 2: Yeah. None of them mentioned anything? I mean, like, you know, Bob loves to get scoops. Heyman loves to get scoops. 00:16:40 Speaker 1: I know he does, but even he didn't mention it. I know. 00:16:42 Speaker 2: Even though he knew it. 00:16:44 Speaker 1: He probably knew it on Friday. 00:16:45 Speaker 2: Okay. 00:16:46 Speaker 1: He was probably texting a couple executives being like, oh, this is interesting. And they're like, oh, yeah, this guy's really close with Kanzler. And he's like, oh, interesting. 00:16:54 Speaker 2: So that checks out. By the way, this new coaching staff is really young. And I think that's interesting. I don't know exactly how it'll play out, but I definitely think it's interesting. And here's what I mean. Jason Kanzler is going to be the manager. He's 36 years old. Pete Woodworth is a pitching coach who's 38. Trent Blank is also on the pitching staff. He's 37. C.J. Gilman's the hitting coach. He's 37. Austin Nola is still the bullpen coach, as far as we understand. And he is still 36 years old. Jake McKinley's the field coordinator. I don't know his exact age. I think he's under 40, though. So that is, so far, just about every coach on staff that is under 40 years old. And I can't help but wonder how much of that's on purpose. Will they hire a bench coach who's older just to balance things out? I don't know. I honestly don't know. By the looks of the rest of the coaching staff, I wouldn't bet on it. Carlos Cardoza, if you want to include him, because as far as we understand, as we sit right now, he's still on the coaching staff. He's 39 years old. 00:18:02 Speaker 1: It's a pretty big difference from last year's coaching staff, which was notoriously old across the board. And most of the names the Mariners let go were all of the old coaches that I feel like they might hire someone with a little more experience as the bench coach just to balance things out. I don't think it hurts to have a little bit of balance and a little bit more experience in the dugout if the rest of your coaching staff is going to be this young. Because the rest of the coaches don't have 15 years of experience in an MLB dugout. And you never know what happens over the course of a season where you might need a little bit more of a steady and experienced hand, especially with a first-time manager who has only coached in a major league dugout for two years. I don't think that would hurt if you were to do something like that. Think about the 2023 Mariners when we were a little concerned that they didn't have a veteran presence on the team to help manage things if things got rocky. And what do you know, Lyle? That team was... mid as fuck for four months because of perhaps that. Yeah. 00:19:17 Speaker 2: They don't have a ton of veteran guys on this team either. They don't have an older presence for the most part. 00:19:22 Speaker 1: Well, until they sign a right-handed hitting platoon bat that's 39 years old. 00:19:27 Speaker 2: No, they won't be doing that. Again, that breaks your rule. No more righties. No more platoons. 00:19:32 Speaker 1: That does. 00:19:33 Speaker 2: You can. 00:19:35 Speaker 1: I understand not every player is going to have perfect splits, but no more 34-plus-year-old right-handed platoon bats that can't do anything except hit. Again, if you go sign Edmundo Sosa, great, because the man might hit lefties, but he also... provides the ability to run the bases really well, play phenomenal defense, very good athlete. 00:19:55 Speaker 2: That's different. Like, again, no more Rob Refsnyders. 00:19:59 Speaker 1: No more. 00:19:59 Speaker 2: No more Pollocks. No more Solanos. None. No, no. 00:20:05 Speaker 1: But I think experience will be good if they hire someone with a little bit more tenure to be the bench coach. The bench coach is really the one position they haven't hired. They have pitching coaches. They have a heading coach. They'll probably hire one to two more, depending on how they want that structure. And they need to hire a bench coach. And they need to hire... Do they need a first base? Oh, they need a first base coach too. First base coach can be young. The bench coach, I would imagine, will be a little bit older. Like you would hope it's somebody with decision-making experience sitting next to him. Right. I just don't see the downside in having more experience in the dugout as opposed to Jason Kanzler going in there, never have made it making a pinch hitting or a bullpen decision live in game in his life. And it'd probably be good to have someone next to him who has done that. 00:21:01 Speaker 2: Correct. I just don't even really have any names in mind for who the bench coach could be. 00:21:06 Speaker 1: No, I don't either. Joe Espada? 00:21:10 Speaker 2: I mean, that's possible. Honestly, I wouldn't hate that. I really wouldn't hate that. So now the only job Espada would get in this cycle of managers would be the Angels. And if he doesn't get the Angels job and he wants to be in a dugout, yeah, why not hire him as the bench coach? I'd be good with that. 00:21:29 Speaker 1: If that's something he'd be interested in. And then maybe he could jump back into being a manager next year. Right. If that's what he wants. 00:21:38 Speaker 2: Yeah, agreed. 00:21:39 Speaker 1: That would be fine with me. 00:21:40 Speaker 2: I guess they still need an outfield coach too. That's the other position they haven't filled, right? 00:21:44 Speaker 1: Yeah, because EY was the first base coach, base running coach, and outfield coach. Yeah. So they probably need someone to fill that. Right. 00:21:53 Speaker 2: Whoever you hire as the first base coach will probably have another title too, whether it's infield or outfield, you would assume, because they don't have a new infield coach yet either. 00:22:00 Speaker 1: Yeah. 00:22:01 Speaker 2: So we'll see. They'll have a couple different things. 00:22:05 Speaker 1: I also want to give out a shout out to our guy, West Coast Willie, who was first on this news. He was about, what, 12 hours early on everyone else for this news. So shout out to him. He beat all the reporters. He beat Ken Rosenthal. He beat Daniel Kramer, Adam Jude, Ryan Divish. Beat them all to the punch. Wow. 00:22:24 Speaker 2: That's pretty good. Shout out to our guy. Like we've talked about, it's been fun to have a lot of friends in the Mariners community. content space. And we've said before, the two of us, Andrew, who's West coast Willie, and then Jake, who does Jake's takes on social media. Like the four of us are, are in a group chat that we use all the time. Like we're all friends and we got the sense that maybe Andrew knew something and he ended up totally getting it right. So shout out to him. That was cool. 00:22:54 Speaker 1: That was great. His first, his first big news break. 00:22:56 Speaker 2: Good for him. Um, How many other thoughts do you have on this? Are you out? 00:23:02 Speaker 1: I'm excited. This is what I came around to last week, that I thought this would be the way you should go if you were looking to get the most out of this baseball team. And I think the Mariners agreed with me that they think that the intelligence and the communication and the intensity is something they very much need. While some people might think of it as a negative, maybe that's exactly what this roster needs to unlock everything that was missing last season. And now we are going to see whether or not that's actually going to work. And I think unknowns are, are, are very fun when the Mariners went, tried to go with a safe hire last time and it blew up in their face. 00:23:41 Speaker 2: Safe. You call the last hire safe? 00:23:43 Speaker 1: Yeah, they absolutely thought it was safe. 00:23:46 Speaker 2: Well, they might've thought it was safe. Did we ever think it was safe? 00:23:49 Speaker 1: No, no. They wouldn't have, Jerry wouldn't have thought it was safe. Like he absolutely thought it would save. Otherwise he would have interviewed other people. Well, I'm glad they interviewed other people this time. 00:24:03 Speaker 2: Let's put it. Me too. Yes. 00:24:06 Speaker 1: But I think it's, I think it's exciting. Um, they've never hired someone this young or with this little experience. So this will either go great. It will go very bad. And I'm, and I, I'm very curious to see which path it goes down. 00:24:20 Speaker 2: Yeah. Jake McKinley, the field coordinator, is 42 years old, by the way. So I guess so far he's really the one guy on staff that's over 40, but barely. So yeah, young coaching staff. This is the last thing I have to say. And if Jason Kanzler ever comes across this podcast, I doubt he will, but I'm going to put it out there anyway, to say if you need any sense of media training, which I'm sure the Mariners are going to do for him, I'm sure they're going to work with him a bunch, but If you want the perspective of the fan and the voice of the fan and not just the voice of the team, let me just tell you the following. When you lose a game, when losses happen throughout the year, I want you to take a toothbrush, put it to your tongue, have the three words in your head that goes as follows. Tough one tonight. And just scrub, scrub, scrub, scrub, scrub off your tongue those three words as far as humanly possible and do not even come close to repeating those words anywhere in front of a camera. Like, you're going to have a bunch of things on your mind when you're managing, Jason. I get it. You're going to have a lot of things you have to tackle. But just lock in for like 60 seconds as you're walking into that interview room at T-Mobile Park on that ground floor. As you're getting ready to talk to the press after a game, just for 30 to 60 seconds, have in your head, okay, no tough one tonight, no tough one tonight, no tough one tonight. Just scrub, scrub, scrub it out. Like, none. 00:25:48 Speaker 1: None. I have a feeling that when the topic of talking to the media every single day, which you will absolutely have to do because you don't have to do that as the farm director. You only have to do that like once or twice a year. When it comes to talking to the media every day and they're reviewing good ways to go about it, how much information to disclose, etc., etc., etc., I have a feeling that's going to come up. 00:26:17 Speaker 2: I'm sorry. If you just want the perspective of the fan, I don't know if the exact words of remove tough one tonight out of your vocabulary will come up, but remove tough one tonight out of your vocabulary. Also, if there's a bullpen decision that doesn't go perfectly, which will happen, like no manager is perfect. No manager gets every decision right. Again, you have to have a process, but sometimes you have a good process and a bad result. That's normal. So when that happens, please, please just explain it. Please just tell us why you decided to do what you did. Please just tell us like what the thought process was and what the reasoning is. Because guess what? If a bullpen decision goes south, like the result of it, but you explain why you like the matchup and why it favored this matchup against this hitter in this pocket, it's going to calm everything down so much. Will there still be people out there that are just mad no matter what? Yes. But for the most part, explaining yourself will calm so many things down. Rather than things going south multiple times a week at minimum and then literally having no possible explanation for it, That's how things get blown up. So please don't do that. 00:27:28 Speaker 1: Or admitting when you made a wrong decision. 00:27:30 Speaker 2: Like, yeah, my bad. 00:27:32 Speaker 1: I was wrong. 00:27:33 Speaker 2: Yeah, you can say, look, we thought we had the process right on that. We liked the matchup. It just didn't go our way. And that happens sometimes. That's a perfectly good answer. That's taking accountability, saying you were wrong, saying you still believe in what you did and what your process was, but understanding not every single time it's going to work out. 00:27:53 Speaker 1: Yes. 00:27:53 Speaker 2: And that will calm so many things down rather than, rather than, rather than tough one tonight. I'll take any questions. Oh, why did this go totally South late in the game? Um, um, yeah, you know, um, um, you know, you know, um, um, uh, we like the matchup. It's like, okay. So, so no answer, no answer. 00:28:13 Speaker 1: Yeah. 00:28:14 Speaker 2: Please, please just be transparent. That's all we ask. And no tough one tonight. 00:28:20 Speaker 1: Well, I, uh, if, If what Jerry said is true, then I'm sure we will get communication. Maybe sometimes it'll be even more intense than people might be used to. 00:28:28 Speaker 2: Maybe. And my final statement, time to transact. There's less than a month until this lockout starts. So now you have the manager in place. You have a bunch of your systems in place. Time to go transact. Yeah. So let's do it. 00:28:44 Speaker 1: Let's do it. 00:28:46 Speaker 2: All right, that just about wraps up this edition of the Marine Layer podcast. You guys know the drill. If you want to listen to the full-form podcast, you can do so wherever you get your audio pods. Please go rate and review if you're listening to these episodes. Leave the five-star review if you have the chance to do so. It really, really does help a bunch. Hit subscribe if you're watching on YouTube. You can also check out our website, which is marinelayerpod.com. You can find all of our podcast merch there. Our episodes are all there. Our Patreon is all there. So go check that out. And then find us all across social media. We're posting everywhere, on every platform, every day, at MarineLayerPod. That's TJ. I'm Lyle. As always, we thank you guys for tuning in. We'll talk to you soon.