It's OK to expect more of Dan Wilson

Monday night, the Mariners dropped the series opener to the (Sacramento…Las Vegas…Oakland?) Athletics 7-6 in 11 innings. Andrés Muñoz blew his first save of the season, despite stranding the bases loaded after striking out the side and only allowing the automatic runner (an unearned run) to score in the tenth inning.

The Mariners failed to score in the top of the eleventh, giving themselves the difficult task of preventing the A’s from scoring in the bottom half despite an automatic baserunner being placed on second base to start the inning.

After the A’s executed a sacrifice bunt to move the runner over, the situation was set: a runner on third base with one out and Shea Langeliers, JJ Bleday and Jacob Wilson the next three hitters due up.

Manager Dan Wilson elected to intentionally walk Langeliers—a decision that I agree with. This baserunner ultimately did not matter (one run wins the game), but this set up an opportunity for a double play to get out of the inning. Great!

This is where the good decisions stopped, in my view.

Dan decided to then intentionally walk Bleday, loading the bases and setting up a play at the plate on any ground ball with the infield in. I do not agree with this decision in the slightest.

First, I don’t like the pressure this put on pitcher Casey Legumina. This set up a plate appearance where Legumina has zero room for error with his command. A walk would lose the game. The hitter would know this. That isn’t even factoring in how erratic the strike zone had been all night long, with Umpire Scorecards calculating that home plate umpire Nestor Ceja’s overall consistency was two percent below expected on the night.

Now, let’s factor in the hitter at the plate. Jacob Wilson is one of the best contact hitters in the Majors. Since he sports a 4.3 percent strikeout rate, which is one-hundredth percentile in the Majors according to Baseball Savant, you have to basically operate under the assumption that you are not striking him out—one of the few ways you could have gotten past him in the order without ending the game.

Wilson also has an expected batting average (xBA) of .329 this season—*98th percentile* in baseball. If you were to pick a name out of a hat hoping for a player to just get you any base hit in a situation, you would be thrilled to draw Jacob Wilson. He would also be facing a drawn-in infield, which doesn't necessarily eliminate the chance for a double play, but probably reduces it, and makes any decently-hit contact more likely to get through.

This, as opposed to just facing Bleday with runners on first and third. The infield would be at double-play depth, and Bleday is much more prone to the strikeout. His K-rate of 20.4 percent is pretty close to league average. He has also been awful against right-handed pitching so far in 2025—his on-base percentage against righties (.292) is far below that against lefties (.520).

Legumina, probably feeling the need to throw strikes given the situation, caught too much of the plate with an elevated changeup in the fourth pitch of the at-bat. Wilson grounded the pitch back up the middle and into center field, driving in the winning run and walking off the Mariners.

The M’s fought through quite a bit of adversity throughout the back-and-forth contest, and I don’t feel it is too harsh to say they may have dealt themselves some additional, unneccesary adversity in extra innings.

On paper, the decision seems objectively pretty bad. It also lacked feel for the game—Jacob Wilson had been a pest to Mariners pitching all night long and had worked long plate appearances fouling balls off. The outcome was as bad as the decision, and this is probably why Dan was quick to take responsibility in the immediate aftermath, saying it was on him.

That leads me to my overarching point. This isn’t to say that Dan isn’t a good manager or will never improve in the in-game decision department. He is a very new manager with a mind that I’m sure will be molded with time and more experience in high-leverage moments. It’s important we treat him with the same grace we would anyone else, while also holding him accountable to the same level we would anyone else. We cannot let his status as a franchise icon shield him from criticism pertaining to his ability to do his job—which is to manage a winning baseball team.

Withholding proper judgment of the manager’s decisions only serves to enable his bad habits. On an even grander scale, it helps perpetuate the idea that this franchise can never move on from the nostalgia of 1995. This is a new era, and what Dan Wilson does as manager should be kept independent from what he did as a player a couple of decades ago.

It’s worth noting that the Mariners have been one of the best teams in baseball since Dan Wilson took over as manager in August of last season. You could also argue—though it would be sort of hearsay—that he has contributed to a mindset shift that has turned a mediocre offense into a potent one on a dime.

We can talk about the things he has done right, but we also need to acknowledge when things go wrong. Even for the best teams, bad in-game management can come back to bite. Telling it like it is when it happens is imperative.

The team lost a baseball game on Monday, and I’m not sure their manager did them any favors. Let’s just hope it was a learning experience.

This is the first edition of Compass Points, Rolling Roof Rundown’s opinion newsletter. You can follow James @johnstonsports.com on Bluesky and, if you haven’t already, subscribe to the newsletter for more news and commentary.