Mariners reach deal on extension with Manager Scott Servais

The Seattle Mariners announced a couple of moves early on September 1st. No, I’m not talking about the roster moves that they made as the roster size expanded to 28. I’m talking about the extension/promotion they gave to Jerry Dipoto and the extension that they gave to Scott Servais.

Specifically, I wanted to look at the Scott Servais part of the announcement. It doesn’t really seem like it, but this is currently his 6th season as the manager of the Mariners. Six seasons… seems like a decent amount of time, but not incredibly long, right?

Scott Servais is already the second-longest tenured manager in Mariners history

Yeah, it blew me away when I realized that. I didn’t realize the Mariners had, prior to Servais, only two managers that had been with the team for over 500 games. Darrell Johnson was the first manager in the team’s history, and stayed with them for four seasons with a paltry, but expected .384 win percentage.

Then, there is Sweet Lou. He’s far and away the longest-tenured and winningest manager in the team’s ~45-year history. 1,551 games with an 840-711 record, a winning percentage of .542. OH! and the only manager in the team’s history to see a playoff game.

Scott Servais, at the time of writing this before this afternoon’s game, has managed 708 games for the team, going 348-360 over that time. He easily has the second-most wins with 100+ over third place and is inching towards .500. Only Lou and Lloyd McClendon have winning records as Mariners managers.

He was given a multi-year extension by the Seattle Mariners, and it will be interesting to see the details when it comes out relating to how long they gave him. He’s done a great job with the team, albeit amongst some questionable lineup decisions once in a while, and has them in playoff contention in September, something very few reasonably expected.

Here’s the question though. Could he pass Lou in… well, everything? When this season ends, he will be around 815 games behind Lou. If this deal is for 3-4 years, and he does a good job, it makes sense that the team would extend him once again. That would get him to 6-7 years. Which would be somewhere around 972-1134 more games. He would blow past Pinella, and end with at least 1,710 games in that scenario.

As long as he can stay above .500, he would pass him in wins as well. That would be the expectation too because if they were going to keep Scott Servais around that long, it would be because he was doing well. If he is constantly below .500 with the talent expected to emerge in the near future, he would likely lose his job.

Let’s give him 88 wins a year, for the sole reason that it matches Pinella’s career-winning percentage of .542. 528 more wins for six more seasons, plus whatever else he gets this year, would push him to just shy of 900 wins. If the Mariners turn into a contender like everyone hopes, paired with a few really good years, what would that look like?

Well, let’s give the Mariners 92 a year (I know, it’s a lot, but it’s for an experiment). Seven more years of Servais. If we say that Servais goes .500 to finish this year, it would get him to 1007 wins and 865 losses. He still wouldn’t catch Lou’s win percentage and would sit around .538. He would either need two more seasons at 92 a year or to win 93 a year over the next seven years.

Both of those are a lot to ask, obviously. If Servais can end up being one of those guys that stick around for 12-15 years, i.e. Mike Scioscia or Ron Gardenhire, then he’s got a chance to pass all of Pinella’s records.

However, that’s a long way off, and something to think about when I’m 40. For now, I’m thankful for what Scott Servais has done for the Seattle Mariners and am happy to see that he got a well-deserved extension.