The Sporting News picked the worst possible time to honor Mariners manager Dan Wilson

There are days when the baseball gods have a wicked sense of humor. The plaque arrives, the press release hits inboxes, and the headline beams: “Dan Wilson, American League Manager of the Year.” It should be a pure victory lap for a first-year skipper who helped pull the Seattle Mariners out of their holding pattern and deep into October’s bright lights.

Instead, the confetti lands somewhat unceremoniously. Seattle is still processing a postseason that turned sour on a single decision. No matter how carefully you phrase it, the timing is… brutal.

This is not about trashing The Sporting News, and it’s certainly not about dismissing what Wilson accomplished. The award is voted on by fellow managers, people who understand the job’s rhythms, the injuries you hide, the fires you put out before noon, and the tiny edges you chase in the margins. Wilson guided the Mariners to their first AL West title in 24 years and took them all the way to the brink of a pennant. That resume is worthy. But awards live in headlines and fans live in feelings, and right now those two things are colliding at the worst possible intersection.

Mariners pride meets frustration as Dan Wilson is named AL Manager of the Year

The tension sits in the gap between a season’s full body of work and the final 30 minutes we can’t stop replaying. Wilson spent six months building trust in a clubhouse, aligning a staff, and squeezing the most out of a roster that won tight games by design. That deserves recognition. 

But on Monday, in the bottom of the seventh, with a ticket to the World Series still within reach, Wilson pulled Bryan Woo for Eduard Bazardo. Moments later, George Springer turned a pitch into a three-run gut punch, and the night, and season, tilted. Everyone in Seattle remembers exactly where they were when that ball left the bat.

Since then, the explanations have been measured and, if we’re honest, lukewarm at best. Wilson said, “As a manager, you have to make decisions… we have a good process in place… managers have to wear decisions one way or the other.” 

President of Baseball Operations Jerry Dipoto echoed the sentiment that it’s hard, it happens fast, the staff collaborates, and he won’t begrudge a move Wilson believed in. That’s all fair. It’s also not satisfying to a city that just watched its dream dissolve in a handful of pitches.

Here’s the dilemma with process: it can be correct in theory and devastating in practice. Woo had earned the ball deep into the game. Bazardo has had stretches where he looks solid in high leverage. The spreadsheet might support the lane; the dugout might have loved the option set. But October has its own gravity. Sometimes the right choice on Tuesday in May is the wrong one in a win-or-else seventh. Mariners fans aren’t rejecting analytics or collaboration; they’re reacting to timing, feel, and context, the human parts that separate a good plan from the right one.

None of that erases Wilson’s regular-season impact. The Mariners got tougher, more situationally sound, and more comfortable in one-run chaos. They won a division they hadn’t touched since the dial-up era. They pushed a loaded opponent to the edge. Those are real accomplishments, and peers around the league noticed. If anything, the award underlines a truth that’s easy to miss in the sting of October: this team didn’t luck into relevance. They were built and steered there.

But the optics are the optics. Slapping “Manager of the Year” on a week when everyone is still hoarse from yelling about a pitching change feels like telling the city not to believe its own eyes. The awkwardness isn’t that Wilson won; it’s that the ceremony arrived while the wound is still open. In time, the plaque will read like a mile marker on a longer road, not a punch line stapled to a lowlight.