MSL to MLB: Barrington Grad Wilson Gets Shot to Turn Around Struggling Seattle

Mariners' Hall of Fame Catcher Joins Quade, Bogar as Major League Baseball Managers from the Mid-Suburban League

Dan Wilson was an integral part of the 1995 Mariners team that many people believe saved baseball in Seattle with their dramatic late-season push to the playoffs.

Now the star of Barrington’s 1986 state championship team and Mariners Hall of Famer is being tasked with trying to save this season for his old team that has been struggling the last two months. Wilson, who was a Mariners minor league special assignment coordinator, was named the manager after the firing of ex-Cubs catcher Scott Servais on Thursday.

Wilson becomes the third Mid-Suburban League product to manage a major league baseball team along with Prospect’s Mike Quade (95-104 with 2010-11 Cubs) and Buffalo Grove’s Tim Bogar (14-8 with 2014 Rangers). The Mariners went from 44-31 with a 10-game lead in the AL West on June 18 to 64-64 and 5½ games back of Houston on Thursday. They are coming off a 1-8 road trip and their .216 team average is the worst in baseball - even behind the White Sox at .219.

Dan Wilson (Photo credit mlb.com)

“I appreciate the faith that Jerry (president of baseball operations Dipoto), Justin (general manager Hollander) and the Mariners organization have placed in me," Wilson said in a release published by KING-TV. “And I’m eager to get to work. I believe this team is capable of playing great baseball this season and look forward to the opportunity to work with this group of players and coaches.”

Wilson caught for the Mariners from 1994-2005, was an American League All-Star in 1996 and was inducted into the team’s Hall of Fame with Randy “The Big Unit” Johnson in 2012. Wilson and his family have been an integral part of the Seattle community and philanthropic endeavors since he arrived via trade from the Cincinnati Reds. 

Wilson is in his 11th year in the Mariners’ organization in a variety of front office and coaching roles. He has worked with the big-league team in spring training but his only professional managing experience was 6 games for Triple-A Tacoma in 2022. Various media reports said Wilson has a strong relationship with catcher Cal Raleigh, who leads the Mariners with 27 HR and 78 RBI and had 30 and 27 HR the previous two seasons.

Dipoto, in an interview played on Seattle Sports, said Wilson is not an interim manager. (Thanks to Barrington’s John Sciacotta for passing along the interview).

“He’s the manager moving forward. We’ve known Dan for almost his entire professional career. He has been a part of the Mariners family,” Dipoto said. “We’ve known him here, this group, for nine years and he embodies the traits that I think will go a long way toward paving the road in the next stage in our journey.

“Walking in the door as an interim anything doesn’t allow you to lay the appropriate groundwork or get the trust or the build-in that’s required to be a good leader in a major-league game.

“We can’t know a person better than we know Dan Wilson. I believe in his baseball knowledge and who he is as a person and I think that will resonate very well with our players.”

Wilson has been around top-level baseball minds throughout his life dating to his days in Barrington where he was part of a team that reached the Little League World Series. He was a four-year varsity player at the high school and the center of attention on the mound or behind home plate for Kirby Smith and pitching coach Dave Engle.

Image credit newspaperarchive.com

In his last two seasons, he was 27-1 as a pitcher in leading Barrington to the Class AA state title as a junior and a second-place finish as a senior. But Wilson was about more than gaudy statistics to Smith, one of the best coaches in MSL and state history who didn’t lightly throw around compliments.

“I don’t think there’s been a player in this area who’s done the things Wilson has done - even (Buffalo Grove’s Mike) Marshall, (Elk Grove’s Dave) Otto and (Prospect’s Dave) Kingman,” Smith said of the three big-leaguers to Phil Brozynski for the Daily Herald’s 1987 All-Area honorary captain’s story. “I doubt very much that those people accumulated the recognition and put forth the performance at two positions that Wilson has.

“He has a combination of intelligence, ability and a set of values and competitive instincts that are all outstanding, as well as poise and the ability to play when it counts. All of those qualities might appear in a person, but you don’t see them all the time in one person. He’s an outstanding leader.”

Others at higher levels quickly discovered the same attributes in Wilson. He was picked in the 26th round of the 1987 major-league draft by the Mets, but went to the University of Minnesota and became a first-team All-American and first-round pick of the Reds in 1990.

Lou PIniella was the Reds manager from 1990-92 and his last year included Wilson’s first 12 big-league games. Piniella went to Seattle for the Mariners’ job but always had an eye on Wilson.

"When I was with Cincinnati, we had this young guy in camp who was a great catch-and-throw guy," Piniella told reporters in a retirement ceremony for Wilson in 2006. "Every time he caught, the pitchers loved throwing to him. When I came here to Seattle a few years later and we needed a catcher, I asked (former general manager Woody Woodward) if he could get Dan Wilson over here. It's been a great move for this organization for a long, long time."

Wilson hit .278 with 9 homers and 51 RBI in his first full season as the starting catcher in 1995. The Mariners were 53-53 and in third place in the AL West at 12½ games behind the Angels on Aug. 20. It also looked like big-league baseball would fail for a second time in Seattle - the Pilots left after one season in 1969 for Milwaukee - since there didn’t seem to be enough public interest in a new stadium to replace the Kingdome.

But Wilson and the Mariners went on a magical run and the Angels collapsed as they finished in a tie for the AL West title. The Mariners won a one-game playoff and rallied from a 2-0 deficit to beat the Yankees in a dramatic 5-game AL Division Series. They lost in 6 games in the AL Championship Series to Cleveland but a few days later a vote for a new stadium passed.

Wilson became a fixture on the field and in the community in a glorious era for the Mariners. Wilson made the All-Star team in 1996 as he hit .285 with 18 homers and 83 RBI and led AL catchers in fielding percentage at .999 for the 116-win team in 2001. He retired with an AL-best fielding percentage for catchers of .995.

One oddity is the timing and connection to Piniella of Quade and Wilson getting their shots at managing. Fourteen years ago to the day Wilson took over the Mariners, Quade was named interim manager of the Cubs when Piniella decided to accelerate his planned retirement to care for his mother. Quade, a three-sport star who graduated from Prospect in 1985, went 24-13 to finish the 2010 season but was let go after a 71-91 finish in 2011 and a regime change where Theo Epstein took over the front office.

Bogar, a 1984 Buffalo Grove grad, had a nine-year big-league playing career and has been in coaching and managing primarily in the minor leagues since 2004. He had a successful finish to the 2014 season at 14-8 with the Texas Rangers after Ron Washington was fired but hasn’t had another big-league managerial job. Bogar was the first-base coach when the Nationals won the World Series in 2019 and is currently managing the Rangers Double-A affiliate in Amarillo, Texas.

If Wilson can match the mid-60s winning percentages Quade and Bogar had when they first became big-league managers then he might pull off another miracle in Seattle.