SEATTLE -- The Mariners’ decision on their next manager is on the immediate horizon.
The club has concluded a pair of in-person interviews at T-Mobile Park for their vacancy -- with Cubs director of player development Jason Kanzler on Tuesday and former Astros manager Joe Espada on Wednesday -- which was indeed a “finalist” round, a source with knowledge of the club’s thinking told MLB.com on Wednesday.
The Mariners have now entered the decision-making phase between the two, barring a significantly unforeseen change in the process.
That process could conclude as soon as Thursday, but it’s also possible that it extends to Friday and potentially the weekend. But the tentative plan, per sources, is to introduce Espada or Kanzler as their new manager with a formal press conference early next week.
The Mariners did not conduct additional in-person interviews with other “mystery” candidates this week, and they do not have any additional scheduled beyond Espada and Kanzler, sources said.
There was a third candidate that the Mariners planned to fly in -- Dodgers special assistant Rocco Baldelli, who recently managed the Twins for seven seasons -- but he removed himself from consideration for family reasons over the weekend. That was an unexpected “curveball” for the Mariners this late in the process, multiple sources said.
There’s a slim possibility that the Mariners wait out the World Series to meet with personnel from the Brewers and Rays. Another slim possibility is that they revisit other candidates among their initial outset, which included dozens of names.
But given that they are more than one month into the search and just went through their third round of interviews with Kanzler and Espada, those possibilities would be an extreme outlier, one source said.
Essentially, doing so would be re-opening the entire process. Their hard internal deadline of having a successor to Dan Wilson in place has been before the General Managers Meetings, which take place from Nov. 10-12 in Las Vegas.
Over the past two days, Kanzler and Espada went through a series of interviews and meet-and-greets.
That obviously included president of baseball operations Jerry Dipoto and general manager Justin Hollander, who will have the final say on the hire. They also sat down with the Major League coaching staff to discuss competitive philosophies and standards that the team intends to set for the 2027 season. Other members of the baseball operations department met with them, too.
But Espada and Kanzler also met with members of the Mariners’ ownership group -- including managing partner John Stanton -- as well as the staffs of business operations, media relations, marketing and more.
Those robust gatherings, on the heels of a lengthy search process, point to why this is approaching the finish line.