Mariners' latest hire is not as scandalous as it feels after recent FO departure

The Seattle Mariners made a new hire on Monday, and it's hard to tell what's more interesting about it: Who actually got the job or who didn't get it.

To the first part, the new hire is Jake McKinley as the organization's MLB field coordinator. Kendall Rogers of D1Baseball.com was first to report the news on Monday, also quoting McKinley as saying: "Leaving such a great situation was the most difficult decision of my career, but I am so excited to get started with the Mariners. They are a fantastic organization with an incredibly bright future. I can’t wait to get started with them."

The situation that McKinley is leaving is a job as the head baseball coach for the Nevada Wolf Pack. That makes this another in a string of college-to-MLB hires, following Tony Vitello as the San Francisco Giants manager and Robbie Britt as the Boston Red Sox's field coordinator.

The Mariners' new hire is not as scandalous as it seems despite a recent front office departure

In the backdrop of all this is what happened with Andy McKay in November. After 10 years in the Mariners organization in which he worked his way up to the assistant GM role under Jerry Dipoto and Justin Hollander, McKay left to join the Cleveland Guardians as their...drum roll, please...major league field coordinator.

McKay's departure felt like a blow, as it meant losing a guy who'd had a huge hand in molding the Mariners' farm system into a free-flowing talent pipeline. Yet it was also totally understandable that he would leave, as he wanted an on-field role and the Mariners didn't have one to offer him at the time.

It is odd, then, to see the Mariners clearing the way for a new field coordinator just a few weeks later, specifically by shifting Louis Boyd from that role to a player development gig as assistant director. Did they do McKay dirty, or nah?

It feels a little like that, but it's not like the Mariners didn't want McKay around anymore. It's also hard to fault them for reaching outside the organization for McKinley, who certainly deserves to be part of the wave of college coaches making the leap to MLB.

McKinley is fresh off leading the Wolf Pack to a Mountain West championship in his third year on the job. Prior to that, he worked for the Milwaukee Brewers in a player development role. These two things put him in the sweet spot for the broader rationale of why college coaches are suddenly all the rage in the pros.

As Jacob Rudner of Baseball America covered, college programs have become finely tuned developmental machines in their own right, all while MLB draftees are arriving and performing in the majors more quickly than they used to. For organizations that want to maximize their own player development, college coaches are pretty much perfect grease for the wheels.

The Mariners have more cause than most to get in on the action. They're a mid-market team that needs homegrown talent to stay competitive. They have already had tremendous success in this regard, as Cal Raleigh, Julio Rodríguez and four of their five starting pitchers all came up through the system. And now, another bumper crop is on the way. Of the Mariners' eight top-100 prospects for MLB Pipeline, six of them could make some kind of impact on the 2026 club.

How McKinley is going to help is the tricky part, as "field coordinator" is one of those roles that doesn't have a defined set of responsibilities. But for the sake of providing some clarity, here's how Jared Sandberg saw his field coordinator role under Dipoto and then-manager Scott Servais in 2018:

"It’s a position at the Major League level that is able to bring the staff and players and organization together, and be on the same page. What Scott and Jerry have laid out to me is it’s a position simply as a man of many hats, having a hand in a lot of different things. Coming from player development, I’m looking to help bridge any gap between the minors and major leagues."

Jared Sandberg in 2018

The more you think about it, the more perfect McKinley feels for such a role. He has player development experience and he just spent three years sharing a dugout with exclusively young players. He might be just the guy to facilitate smooth transitions for Harry Ford, Colt Emerson, Lazaro Montes, Michael Arroyo, Kade Anderson and Jurrangelo Cijntje in 2026.

Whatever impact McKinley makes obviously isn't going to be as visible as, say, a Raleigh home run or Julio chasing down a fly ball in the "No Fly Zone." But if the young guys arrive and do their part, that's how Mariners fans will know McKinley has done his.