Mariners president/CEO Kevin Mather resigns

Mariners president & CEO Kevin Mather has resigned one day after footage of a Feb. 5 Zoom event with the Bellevue Breakfast Rotary Club was uploaded to the internet. During the event, Mather seemingly went out of his way to insult or offend as many key members of the organization as possible. As the Seattle Times’ Ryan Divish summarized Sunday night, no one (except chairman John Stanton, GM Jerry Dipoto, and manager Scott Servais) were spared during Mather’s speaking engagement/impromptu roast of Mariners employees past and present:

Among the highlights lowlights of Mather’s remarks were the admission that the Mariners are planning to manipulate the service time of Jarred Kelenic, the No. 4 prospect in baseball according to MLB Pipeline, after he turned down a team-friendly six-year contract; the unpromted assertion that Julio Rodriguez, baseball’s No. 5 prospect according to Pipeline, cannot grasp the English language; and an equally cringeworthy insult of Mariners legend Hisashi Iwakuma, who was recently hired by the organization as a special assignment coach. Mather complained about having to pay Iwakuma’s translator a $75,000 salary and said he’s threatened to fire the interpreter as motivation for Iwakuma to improve his “terrible” English.

Stanton offered an apology in Monday afternoon’s statement, saying that Mather’s comments were “inappropriate” and “extremely disappoint(ing).” Stanton will perform Mather’s former duties until a replacement is hired — and for the benefit of the Mariners and Major League Baseball, it seems as if they should go through a long, thorough process to ensure that they’re not hiring a front-office official as questionable as the many who have been fired or suspended this offseason for scandal-related reasons.