After the Comments from Kevin Mather a few weeks ago, the Seattle Mariners have recently changed their Leadership structure.
Kevin Mather was the former president and CEO of the Seattle Mariners. He resigned after the comments had leaked.
“His comments were inappropriate and do not represent our organization’s feelings about our players, staff, and fans,” Stanton said. “There is no excuse for what was said, and I won’t try to make one. I offer my sincere apology on behalf of the club and my partners to our players and fans. We must be, and do, better. We have a lot of work to do to make amends, and that work is already underway.”
The Seattle Mariners recently have announced some new changes though, according to beat reporter Ryan Divish.
The first thing announced by owner John Stanton is:
Stanton confirmed that Mather will no longer have an ownership stake in the Mariners. He was given it as part of his promotion to president and CEO. But he wouldn’t confirm if Mather is being offered a severance package or would be compensated for the ownership stake or if it was forfeited.
“We’re in the process working that through, but Kevin will not be a partner moving forward,” Stanton said.
Besides moving on from Mather, the Mariners will no longer have someone in a president and chief executive officer role where everyone reported to them and they reported to Stanton.
“I’ve decided to split the roles,” he said.
The new structure will separate the responsibilities between the baseball and business side.
“We’ll have one person running the team and one person running the front office,” Stanton said. “Each of them will report up to us. I talked to a number of people in baseball and including the commissioner (Rob Manfred), who said, frankly, if my partners and I are willing to commit to this it’s a better structure for a lot of reasons.”
Whomever they hire to fill Mather’s role will be responsible for the Mariners’ front office and aspects not related to baseball, including sales, marketing, communications, ballpark operations and anything business related. That person who becomes president will report directly to Stanton and the Mariners ownership group.
All baseball operations will fall under the direction of general manager Jerry Dipoto, who will report directly to Stanton and the ownership group. In the previous structure, Dipoto had to report to Mather on numerous matters, including payroll and operating costs.
“Jerry’s always had responsibility for baseball operations and he’s always made the baseball decisions,” Stanton said. “I don’t think it’s particularly new for him because the big decisions end up being important to ownership. When there is a big issue, he’s always involved me and some of my partners. This is not new. We feel great about the leadership that Jerry’s shown, and I feel good about the relationship that I have with Jerry.”
You can find more from Ryan Divish here.
This leadership style is similar to that of the Chicago Cubs, Arizona Diamondbacks, St. Louis Cardinals and Boston Red Sox. This is a leadership style that Seattle has considered before.
Whether or not the new style of leadership helps the Seattle Mariners win a championship, the players no longer have to worry about being talked about by upper management.
Northwest Sports Desk 