Ursula: John Stanton is embarrassed. So what’s going to change?

Seattle Mariners chairman John Stanton said he’s “embarrassed.”

After the team’s brutal collapse, Dan Wilson is out as manager. But Jerry Dipoto, who has been running baseball operations for more than a decade, is getting another chance.

That’s where I have questions.

Dipoto himself admits he did an ineffective job of making sure people within the organization held one another accountable. So if accountability is the problem, why does it stop with the manager?

The Mariners are still the only team in Major League Baseball that has never been to a World Series. At what point does that accountability reach the front office?

I don’t completely buy the payroll excuse

Yes, Seattle spends less than baseball’s biggest teams, but teams with smaller payrolls have made the World Series.

So was last year’s run to Game Seven of the American League Championship Series proof the Mariners had finally figured something out, or was it a fluke?

I think accountability also needs to include the players.

Cal Raleigh went from 60 home runs to barely touching the ball. Julio Rodríguez and Josh Naylor had disappointing seasons. Naylor just signed a five-year, $92 million contract. Luis Castillo was making more than $20 million a year and struggled badly enough that Seattle eventually traded him.

Once a player signs one of these enormous guaranteed contracts, what does accountability actually look like? You can bench him. You can trade him if somebody will take the contract, but you’re still paying him!

That is something baseball may have to confront as it heads toward another major labor fight. The current agreement expires this winter, with owners and players already battling over how contracts and salaries should work.

Managers can lose their jobs. Executives can lose their jobs. Should players have some financial skin in the game when their performance falls off a cliff? I say YES.

If John Stanton is embarrassed, fine. The bigger question for me: What’s actually going to change because of it?

Listen to Gee and Ursula on “The Gee and Ursula Show” weekday mornings from 9 am to 12 pm on KIRO Newsradio.

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