The Seattle Mariners are handing their dugout to a first-time manager following a deeply disappointing 2026 campaign. The club announced Tuesday that Jason Kanzler, the Chicago Cubs' director of player development, will take over as manager. Seattle dismissed Dan Wilson after the season ended.
"Our goal in this process was finding a manager with the ability to challenge all of us to improve," president of baseball operations Jerry Dipoto said in a statement. "Jason has the mindset, expertise, communication skills, and intensity to help create a championship standard here in Seattle."
The position will mark Kanzler's first managerial job at any level of the sport. At 36 years old, he becomes the second-youngest manager in baseball, behind only 34-year-old Washington Nationals skipper Blake Butera.
Hiring a manager with no previous managerial experience at any level is an unusual step, though not one without precedent. The most prominent example came in 2018, when the New York Yankees brought in Aaron Boone directly from the broadcasting booth. Boone had never managed or coached at any level, and he has since guided the Yankees to the postseason eight times in nine seasons.
"I am thrilled to join the Mariners organization and I'm looking forward to hitting the ground running," Kanzler said in a statement. "This team has an immense amount of talent in all facets of the game, and my coaching staff and I are excited to access and unlock this team's full potential."
While Kanzler has never managed, he is not new to a major-league staff. He served as a major-league coach with the Houston Astros in 2022 and as their assistant hitting coach in 2023, after earlier coaching in the club's farm system. The Cubs hired him to run their player development operation in 2024.
Former Astros manager Joe Espada was reportedly the other finalist for the Seattle job.
The Mariners finished 76-86 this past season, ending up five games back in the woebegone AL West. The fall was especially stark given that a year earlier the club reached Game 7 of the ALCS and came within five outs of the first World Series appearance in franchise history. Seattle entered 2026 as a trendy World Series pick but instead fell flat.
Kanzler becomes the third manager of the Mariners since Dipoto was hired to lead baseball operations in September 2015, following Scott Servais, who held the job from 2015 to 2024, and Wilson, who managed from 2024 to 2026.
