Mariners CEO Kevin Mather Resigns a Day After His Disparaging Comments About His Own Players And The Shady Way The Organization Runs Things Came To Light
And there it is. Less than 24 hours after that cheapskate scumbag Kevin Mather's jarring interview came to light, he has announced his resignation from the team as President and CEO effective immediately. Had to happen. There was no other way to move forward and save face as an organization than chasing this guy out of town.
In case you missed the story last night...
What a mess. The TLDR, Mather gave a super candid interview/speech for the Bellevue Breakfast Rotary Club. It was released on YouTube and then quickly deleted, but a few people recovered the footage and re-released it to the public. In the video Mather admitted to manipulating prospects' service time (specifically the no. 4 and 5 prospects in all of baseball), not wanting to pay for foreign players' translators and forcing them to learn English, bragging about underpaying players, and trashing the team's franchise player in Kyle Seager. All of it was a bad look. The team simply couldn't go on with him running the team if they had any plans of not being a laughing stock/signing a single player in the future.
Aside from the translator part which was jarring and enough in itself to get canned, a lot of what Mather said unfortunately rings true for the rest of the league. No other CEO or GM has admitted it, which is why everyone is coming down on Mather. The fact is that service time manipulation and scheming to underpay players happens everywhere. The system is broken. Kris Bryant, Pete Alonso, Gleyber Torres, and plenty others have had it happen to them. It's part of the reason we're likely headed for a lockout in the upcoming offseason when the CBA runs out. The MLBPA will use this video as further ammo against every owner in baseball. We're certainly headed for an ugly battle.
Insane that this all happens after talking to a rotary club. Truth be told I didn't even know what that was before this story. Not even sure they reacted to any of this when he opened up to them. Just nodded and were like, oh cool. No one even asked questions before he had opened his mouth and spilled all the beans. Almost like Mather was giddy to tell someone that he was fucking all these players over. Pretty much zero to gain from doing that interview. So bizarre. From reading about this dude, Mariners fans have wanted this guy gone for a little while now. Time to start fresh, get a guy who wants to win in that position of power. There's talent on that team and the AL West is shaping up to be anyone's game in the coming years.