UPDATE: The Mariners have announced that McClendon will indeed not return next season.
The #Mariners have announced that Lloyd McClendon will not return as field manager in 2016.
— MarinersPR (@MarinersPR) October 9, 2015
"I have a great deal of respect for Lloyd, as a person and a manager," Dipoto said in a statement. "It is a credit to his professionalism that the team continued to play hard through the final day of the season. However, after extensive conversations it became clear to me that our baseball philosophies were not closely aligned. On behalf of the Mariners I want to thank Lloyd and his staff for their hard work the past two seasons, and I wish him the best moving forward."
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The rumors appear to be true. The Seattle Mariners will not bring back manager Lloyd McClendon for the 2016 season.
Both Ryan Divish of the Seattle Times and Jon Heyman of CBS Sports are reporting the Mariners' decision.
General manager Jerry Dipoto recently spoke with McClendon and the manager said the discussion went very well, but it appears as if Dipoto will hire a skipper of his own choosing for next season.
"McClendon is under contract for 2016, but Dipoto was given the autonomy by team president Kevin Mather and CEO Howard Lincoln to determine whether to keep McClendon or move on with a his own manager to begin his regime," writes Divish.
"The Mariners will make the announcement Friday morning and Dipoto will begin the search process immediately."
"Dipoto, according to sources, has been carefully considering this move," Heyman adds. "McClendon is said to have an excellent relationship with the Mariners' big stars so it's a bit tricky. Robinson Cano likes McClendon so much, in fact, that the manager was part of his sales pitch to get Nelson Cruz to go there. Dipoto took the time to get to know McClendon over the past week, but it never seemed likely McClendon would be retained."
McClendon is 163-161 with the Mariners in two seasons, but the team massively underachieved this year with a 76-86 record, which resulted in the dismissal of general manager Jack Zduriencik. Seattle finished 87-75 in 2014 and missed the postseason by one game and many had picked them to win the American League this year.
It is believed Dipoto will replace McClendon with former Texas Rangers' bench coach Tim Bogar, who now serves as a special assistant to the GM for the Angels.
Baseball executives have been saying this would happen the moment Jerry Dipoto got #Mariners GM job, knowing he wanted his own manager.
— Bob Nightengale (@BNightengale) October 9, 2015
Rival execs are convinced that Tim Bogar will be the next #Mariners manager, but GM Jerry Dipoto still is evaluating Lloyd McClendon
— Bob Nightengale (@BNightengale) October 3, 2015
Just as widely expected, Lloyd McClendon fired as #Mariners manager, per @RyanDivish. He likely will be replaced by Tim Bogar
— Bob Nightengale (@BNightengale) October 9, 2015
