Postseason Managerial Report Card: Dan Wilson

This postseason, I’m continuing my use of a new format for our managerial report cards. In the past, I went through every game from every manager, whether they played 22 games en route to winning the World Series or got swept out of the Wild Card round. To be honest, I hated writing those brief blurbs. No one is all that interested in the manager who ran out the same lineup twice, or saw his starters get trounced and used his best relievers anyway because the series was so short. This year, I’m skipping the first round, and grading only the managers who survived until at least the best-of-five series. So far this year, I have graded the efforts of A.J. Hinch and Aaron Boone, as well as Craig Counsell and Rob Thomson, while Dan Szymborski scrutinized Pat Murphy’s performance. Today, it’s Dan Wilson’s turn.

My goal is to evaluate each manager in terms of process, not results. If you bring in your best pitcher to face their best hitter in a huge spot, that’s a good decision regardless of the outcome. Try a triple steal with the bases loaded only to have the other team make four throwing errors to score three runs? I’m probably going to call that a blunder even though it worked out. Managers do plenty of other things — getting team buy-in for new strategies or unconventional bullpen usage behind closed doors is a skill I find particularly valuable — but as I have no insight into how that’s accomplished or how each manager differs, I can’t exactly assign grades for it.

I’m also purposefully avoiding vague qualitative concerns like “trusting your veterans because they’ve been there before.” Playoff coverage lovingly focuses on clutch plays by proven performers, but guys like Bryce Miller and Addison Barger have also been great this October. Forget trusting your veterans; the playoffs are about trusting your best players. Josh Naylor is important because he’s great, not because of the number of playoff series he’s appeared in. There’s nothing inherently good about having been around a long time; when I’m evaluating decisions, “but he’s a veteran” just doesn’t enter my thought process.

I’m always looking for new analytical wrinkles in critiquing managerial decisions. For instance, I’ve increasingly come to view pitching decisions as a tradeoff between protecting your best relievers from overexposure and minimizing your starters’ weakest matchups, which means that I’m grading managers on multiple axes in every game. I think there’s almost no pitching decision that’s a true no-brainer these days; there are just too many competing priorities to make anything totally obvious. That means I’m going to be less certain in my evaluation of pitching than of hitting, but I’ll try to make my confidence level clear in each case. Let’s get to it.

Batting: B
Seattle’s lineup was both thumping and steady this year. That made Wilson’s job straightforward: get Cal Raleigh and Julio Rodríguez a ton of at-bats and only tinker with the bottom half. He gave Dominic Canzone the start at DH to kick off the playoffs, a move I didn’t love, but I think it’s at least defensible; Canzone had a great offensive season, albeit one that looked quite fluky, and Wilson didn’t have a lot of good options there. I disliked letting him face a lefty reliever in the opening game of the Division Series against the Tigers; I would have used Mitch Garver there.

By Game 3, Wilson had adjusted, bringing in Garver to pinch-hit for Canzone. I agreed! He then used Luke Raley to pinch-hit for Garver, a fun daisy chain DH. He repeated that move in the next game, even after a key Canzone RBI single, sticking with the good decision even after he’d weirdly not made it to open the series, though the Mariners lost in a blowout. Perhaps now enamored with multi-replacing his DH, he subbed out Garver for Canzone in the biggest spot of the ALDS: runners on first and second, two outs, 2-1 deficit in the seventh inning of Game 5. Kyle Finnegan, the Tigers’ best reliever, was working through a jam of his own creation when Garver’s spot came up, and Wilson went to his bench. That brought in Tyler Holton, Detroit’s top lefty, and Wilson went back to the bench for Leo Rivas, a switch-hitter.

Not that I’m enamored with using Rivas in a high-leverage spot, but I liked this move a lot; Rivas/Holton is a better matchup than Garver/Finnegan, and then you don’t have to deal with Finnegan, who had frequently been going multiple innings in the playoffs, in the eighth. Rivas delivered, tying the game with a single to left, and then he bafflingly stayed in the lineup to bat three more times, all against righties, while Raley never saw the field. I didn’t love that, though it didn’t matter, as the Mariners squeaked out a 3-2 win in 15 innings anyway. Raley left the roster for the next series, so perhaps there was good reason not to call on him here.

In the ALCS, Canzone got the first crack at DH again, and then went 0-for-2 against Kevin Gausman, the splitter-dominant Blue Jays ace with meaningful career reverse splits. That probably wasn’t a great matchup for Canzone. Trey Yesavage, another splitter-heavy righty with reverse splits, albeit in a much smaller sample size, started Game 2, and you better believe Canzone got in there and went 0-for-2. Now that he had his playoff feet under him, though, Wilson at least kept Canzone away from lefties, bringing in Garver to face Mason Fluharty. Garver’s triple put an already-lopsided game away, and the Mariners cruised to victory.

Canzone started again against Shane Bieber, who fortunately doesn’t have big reverse platoon splits, but after another fruitless day, Garver subbed in against a lefty reliever. For the first time in the playoffs, Wilson also deployed Harry Ford, as a ninth-inning pinch hitter for Josh Naylor. I would have liked to see more of Ford overall; that was his only at-bat of the postseason, and that felt like a wasted roster spot to me. What’s the point of calling up one of your top prospects if you’re not going to let him try to do something? Given the other pinch-hitters getting run for Seattle, it’s hard to imagine Ford would have been a ton worse.

Eventually, Wilson moved Canzone off of DH… and into right field, knocking Victor Robles out of the lineup in favor of Rivas. Huh? Robles didn’t have an amazing postseason or anything, but he was certainly better than Canzone, and I assume he’s the better defender between the two, given that he played right and Canzone DHed when both were in the lineup. The Rivas move might have been fine independently – he’s a big upgrade from Jorge Polanco defensively – so it’s hard to get too upset about any of this in the end. Anyway, my point is that I did not like this decision, though it hardly mattered as the Jays won 8-2.

Wilson’s big innovation for Game 5 was moving Rodríguez to leadoff and dropping Randy Arozarena to fifth in the batting order, and I was into it. Sometimes you need to shuffle guys around to change the vibes, and doing it to get your best hitters more plate appearances is never a bad thing. He also moved J.P. Crawford up to the seventh spot – eh, sure, fine with me, best of a bad bunch and all.

By Game 7, Wilson was in “I don’t know, man, shuffle ‘em up” mode. He sent Canzone to the bench and started Robles, batting ninth, against Bieber. Rivas remained in the lineup as the second baseman. That led to one of the most jarring sequences of the playoffs. The Mariners put runners on first and second to lead off the top of the second inning. Crawford came up, again batting seventh, and dropped down a sacrifice bunt. Rivas followed him and did what you’d expect against Bieber: look very overmatched while striking out swinging on three pitches. Robles tapped out ineffectually to end the inning. I really disliked this bunt. What, they were gonna play small ball and hand over outs in a series where their offense struggled mightily for purchase? They were gonna play small ball in a game where a single run would surely not be enough, with both pitching staffs in tatters? Stop giving up outs! And definitely stop giving up outs with a utility infielder batting next! I can’t say for certain whether Wilson called for this from the dugout, but it sure looked that way.

As much as Wilson’s weird usage of Canzone, Rivas, and Robles stuck out to me, it’s hard to get too worked up about it in the end. Yes, I think that Wilson left some small offensive edges on the table with his management, but the emphasis is on small. I wanted more Ford, less Canzone, no bunts, and probably a tiny bit more Robles, who was at least drawing a ton of walks. I don’t think it was going to turn this thing around, though. The Mariners had a team built on having the first two thirds of their lineup do tremendous damage, and were living through a little mini-slump in the bottom third. Those last three spots produced an aggregate .114/.205/.143 line in the ALCS, with Garver’s triple the only extra-base hit. I just can’t get that worked up about whether the at-bats were allocated suboptimally when all the options did that badly.

Pitching: F
On paper, managing the Mariners pitching staff in October sounds easy. They have all those great starters. They have a lights out reliever. Their lefty specialist is the best in the business right now. It sounds plug and play. But between injuries, ineffectiveness, and a spate of bonkers games, Wilson’s task ended up being anything but simple. The first decision point came in the first game of the ALDS. George Kirby was slicing through the Tigers, with eight strikeouts through 4 2/3 innings, when Kerry Carpenter, Detroit’s best hitter and a lefty with huge platoon splits, came to the plate with the Mariners holding a one-run lead. Decision point: Should Wilson go to lefty Gabe Speier for the matchup?

He didn’t, and I wouldn’t have either, but I do think it was close. I get the idea of never letting your pitchers face a bad matchup a third time through, but with Bryan Woo injured and Luis Castillo relatively ineffective, I think the Mariners needed some length from Kirby and Logan Gilbert. Unfortunately for them, Carpenter hit a huge two-run homer to flip the score, and Kirby then spent a bunch more pitches escaping the fifth. Wilson pulled Kirby before the next inning, at 94 pitches. Would I have pushed Kirby to go more than 94? Probably, but this feels like a bigger and more involved decision than I can easily make from this much of a distance; I think it’s entirely feasible that there were pitch count limits at play, or Kirby was gassed, or something of that nature.

The rest of the game went well, with Seattle tying it in the sixth and Wilson mixing and matching his lefties to go after Detroit’s lefty heavy lineup. But eventually all the leverage arms had pitched, no one had scored, and Carlos Vargas entered for the 11th. He gave up a run, but eh, he’s towards the bottom of the bullpen hierarchy for a reason.

Game 2 gave Wilson a chance to reprise his decision from the night before: men on base, righty starter on the mound, Carpenter batting with two outs in the fifth. This time, Wilson brought in Speier to clean up the mess, a move I like far more with Luis Castillo pitching. From there, Wilson just went down the checklist: Eduard Bazardo, then Matt Brash, then Andrés Muñoz. It didn’t appear to me that Wilson was giving much consideration to doubling up on matchups, since Brash got some of the same guys twice in a row, but I think that’s reasonable in a five-game series; playing for tiny little edges like that when you’re down a game and need a win is too cute by half. Great work here understanding when to use the bullpen to its fullest.

In the third game of the series, like clockwork, Carpenter batted with runners on base in the fifth inning. This time the Mariners were up by four and Gilbert was cruising, so Wilson left him in. Two thumbs up from me there, and Gilbert even pitched a clean sixth to put the game out of reach. But then he departed after just 85 pitches, and Wilson brought in Brash for the easy part of the Detroit lineup, while holding a 5-1 lead. I didn’t like that one bit; after using his best arms twice in two close games, this one was the time for a rest, even after an off day. Bazardo also pitched, like always. After the Mariners pushed it to 8-1, Wilson finally put in a low-leverage reliever for the ninth. Caleb Ferguson got shelled, though, so Muñoz pitched anyway. Decisions like this – going to the bullpen kind of early, and then using better arms than you might otherwise need to – are easy to overlook, but they’re a big thing managers still get wrong.

In Game 4, Miller didn’t have his best strikeout stuff. The Tigers threatened in the fifth inning, with a single and a double bringing up Parker Meadows in a two-run game. Wilson went straight to the bullpen for Speier, a move that I really disliked. It’s just asking the Tigers to bring in Jahmai Jones, a guy who was on their roster specifically to pinch-hit against lefty relievers. Even worse, Meadows is a poor hitter who the Tigers didn’t mind removing from the lineup in the first place. Wilson somehow managed to find a poor matchup in a high-leverage spot, and by pulling Miller so early, he also stressed his already-tired bullpen. Jones won that matchup, and then Javier Báez, up next, had the platoon advantage and also singled off of Speier, tying the game. I get that Wilson’s plan was to use Speier for both Meadows and the lefties at the top of the order, but I really hate playing into the other team’s hands by giving their best pinch-hitter an obvious place to enter.

From there, things got away from Seattle. Riley Greene homered off of Speier to lead off the sixth and give the Tigers the lead. Bazardo checked in, and he just didn’t have it. It surely didn’t help that he was facing Báez for the fourth time, as well as multiple other hitters for a second time; the Tigers roughed him up, with Báez launching a home run that put the game out of reach. Faced with an insurmountable deficit, Wilson finally sent in Vargas and Luke Jackson to play out the low-leverage string.

Game 5 meant all hands on deck, though I assume the initial plan was to keep Bazardo on ice unless he was absolutely needed. With Kirby absolutely rolling through five innings, it looked like the M’s might get the lengthy start they needed to fix their bullpen rest situation. But that darn Carpenter! A Báez double to open the sixth sent Wilson to the bullpen for Speier to face Carpenter, the fourth Carpenter/Speier matchup of the series. Carpenter hit the first strike he saw 400 feet to put the Tigers on top. That’s why I harp on familiarity so much; giving good hitters the same matchups over and over again is asking for trouble. I didn’t hate this particular decision, but I do think that Wilson’s over-reliance on the bullpen early in the series put him in a bind. Speier is a much less valuable weapon when the guys he’s supposed to retire have seen him a ton and the bullpen behind him is gassed; by repeatedly pulling his starters early, Wilson had put such a big workload on the bullpen that their value dipped a bit.

That said, I liked Wilson’s decisions from that point of the game until the end. The clear goal here was to not allow any more runs, regardless of what it meant for future games, so Wilson used his best relievers for as many innings as they could give him, and used Muñoz against Carpenter, strength on strength. When Muñoz tired, Gilbert came in from the bullpen on his throw day to chip in two innings. Bazardo threw a shocking 2 2/3 innings, in his fifth straight game, a Herculean effort that saw him beat Báez in their fifth meeting, then nearly face him again two innings later. That time, Wilson went back to the bullpen for Castillo, also appearing on his throw day, and that eventually led to a win. For all the early-game missteps, “let’s just use the best guys we have, for as long as they can go” was a really good fallback plan.

The extreme conditions of that series-deciding marathon made Game 1 of the ALCS easy. Miller was pitching on short rest, but he managed six innings of one-run ball even though he looked quite shaky early. Wilson even let him face Vladimir Guerrero Jr. a third time, despite his clear preference for hiding his starters whenever possible; there just wasn’t enough juice in the bullpen to do otherwise. Speier got the tiny lefty section of the Toronto order before Brash and Muñoz locked the game down, exactly how Wilson drew it up.

Game 2 was another short rest game, and Gilbert was clearly compromised. Fortunately, though, the Mariners offense finally woke up, putting up 10 runs to make this a laugher after Gilbert gutted his way through three innings. Bazardo, first out of the ‘pen in seemingly every situation, chipped in another two. When he left, the game was well in hand, 7-3, so Wilson finally went way down the leverage totem pole and used Vargas and Emerson Hancock to finish things out. The top relievers got a further break when Kirby got shelled to the tune of eight early runs in Game 3, which meant Vargas, Ferguson, and Jackson covered five low-impact innings.

With the key players fully rested for Game 4, Wilson had his bullpen up and running early. Honestly, he probably wishes he had done it even earlier. After two uneventful innings, Castillo quickly fell apart, with five baserunners in six batters. The timing worked out to where Toronto’s lefties were due up, so Speier came in.

I liked that just fine, but Wilson tried to stretch Speier further than he’d gone all playoffs long, indeed further than he’d gone all year. The part of the lineup he covered at his most fatigued included George Springer. Wilson put Speier in that terrible spot – exhausted, facing a great right-handed hitter, with runners on – to get a left/left matchup against Nathan Lukes. Man, what? I’ll take my good righty against Springer and Lukes over Speier against those two any day. I strongly disliked this decision, and the Mariners paid for it.

After that adventure, Brash came in to put out a fire, but he couldn’t save the day. It was time to send in the cleanup crew, but Wilson erred by getting over-excited when the M’s scored in the bottom of the sixth inning, making the score 5-2. A three-run deficit heading into the seventh inning is not a good time to start using valuable relief arms. Sure, everyone was rested, but there was another game tomorrow, and there’s almost no difference between a four-run deficit after five, when Wilson waved the white flag with Vargas, and a three-run deficit after six, at which point Wilson got aggressive. The Jays predictably held on, but not before Bazardo threw 19 pitches against the heart of the order.

Game 5 gave Wilson a new option: Woo returned from injury in a multi-inning relief role, and everything clicked immediately. A short Miller start gave way to Brash, then Woo, then Speier and Muñoz. With Woo providing multiple high-quality innings, Wilson could make the whole game out of elite run prevention even without a long outing from his starter. One Raleigh home run and Eugenio Suárez grand slam later, it was off to Toronto.

The first chance to clinch the series fizzled quickly; Gilbert coughed up four quick runs, and when Wilson tried to push him through the order a third time, Guerrero got him for a solo shot. Bazardo came in with the M’s trailing 5-0, which made sense now that Woo was supplanting him in the leverage hierarchy at least some of the time. I disliked Wilson giving Brash the seventh inning against the heart of the Toronto order, though; the Mariners were down by three on the road, with a minuscule chance of winning the game. Brash had pitched a ton already, and I just don’t think his improved run prevention here added enough value to offset what he gave away in fatigue and familiarity.

Game 7 was another starter-plus-Woo plan. Kirby was sharp his first two turns through the Toronto lineup, and then Woo replaced him for the start of the fifth. Fine with me; in a winner-take-all game like this, with the bullpen mostly rested (though again, why did Brash pitch the day before?) and Woo available, I want no part of that Jays order a third time through. Woo started sharp, but he surrendered two straight baserunners to start his third inning of work, which meant the biggest decision point of the entire playoffs. Wilson had three options, as I see it. He could stick with Woo, pull him for Brash, or go straight to Muñoz. But he chose a mysterious fourth option that I never even considered: Bazardo.

Think of the Seattle playoff run like The Lord of the Rings: Wilson had to decide who was going to play Gandalf the Grey and stand on that bridge, telling Springer and the horde of Jays behind him “you shall not pass.” I could see Muñoz in that role. He’s a bit of a balrog himself, really; a firebreathing monster who had yet to allow a baserunner all month. I could see Woo gutting through another batter; he was their best pitcher, starter or reliever, in 2025. And I could see Brash, whose sweeper makes him especially devastating against righties. But Bazardo? He’s a perfectly fine pitcher, and was quite good during the regular season, but this was the highest-leverage spot that was going to come up all night, and literally the night before, he was pitching in a game where his team trailed by five runs. Clearly, Wilson didn’t think Bazardo was his best guy; otherwise, he wouldn’t be giving him mop-up duty in Game 6. And with the tying run in scoring position and a dangerous hitter at the plate? You have to use your best available pitcher, and Wilson just didn’t do that. I’d be less critical if Muñoz were exhausted, or if this was the first inning, or if he’d already pitched earlier because Wilson thought a previous spot was going to be the most consequential of the game. But with a narrow lead, eight outs left in the series, and one of the other team’s best hitters at the plate with runners on, saving for the future is just not a reasonable choice.

That’s what I’ll remember about Wilson’s management in the future. It’s not any of the little things, though I thought he got progressively worse at managing the bullpen as October wore on and the decisions got tougher. It’s not the inconsistent treatment of big deficits that sometimes led him to tire his best relievers in situations where they weren’t helpful. It’s not even the accumulation of batter/pitcher familiarity he surrendered to the Tigers for seemingly little gain. Those are all minor in the grand scheme of things; you can make tactical errors like those as long as it’s in support of a good overall plan. But as I say in every one of these articles, the point of managing in the playoffs is to have your best pitchers cover the most important parts of the game, and to put your players in the best position to succeed in those spots. That’s the whole point, and yet Wilson didn’t put his best foot forward at the most important moment. That was it. That was the game. The wrong pitcher was in.