Mariners president and CEO Kevin Mather drawing criticism for comments in Rotary Club call
Mariners president and chief executive officer Kevin Mather drew criticism Sunday when footage of his remarks on a Zoom call earlier this month with the Bellevue Breakfast Rotary Club surfaced on Twitter.
The conversation from Feb. 5, which included an opening statement from Mather followed by a question and answer period, was uploaded to YouTube on Friday, and reached Twitter on Sunday.
During the more than 45-minute recording — an odd cut in the video near the 41-minute mark, and an abrupt cutoff at the end suggest the conversation was longer — Mather spoke in extensive detail about many topics surrounding the club.
His off-the-cuff remarks were neither discreet nor diplomatic, and prompted swift online backlash.
He offered background information on the Mariners’ financial situation in the wake of the shortened 2020 season, commented on how the club has mapped out the major league arrival times of top prospects like Jarred Kelenic and Logan Gilbert, and made unfiltered remarks about several players and coaches.
The video was removed from YouTube on Sunday afternoon. Mather released the following statement just after 8 p.m. Sunday.
“I want to apologize to every member of the Seattle Mariners organization, especially our players and to our fans,” the statement says. “There is no excuse for my behavior, and I take full responsibility for my terrible lapse in judgement.
“My comments were my own. They do not reflect the views and strategy of the Mariners baseball leadership who are responsible for decisions about the development and status of the players at all levels of the organization.
“I’ve been on the phone most of the day today apologizing to the many people I have insulted, hurt, or disappointed in speaking at a recent online event.
“I am committed to make amends for the things I said that were personally hurtful and I will do whatever it takes to repair the damage I have caused to the Seattle Mariners organization.”
Mather opened the call with the Rotary Club by addressing several topics, including the shortened 2020 season, the outlook for 2021 and where the club is in the rebuilding process.
He spoke about the fiscal impact of the 2020 season, which was cut to 60 games due to the COVID-19 pandemic, and played without fans, saying it was a “terrible year financially.”
“But, I’m reminded of two things,” he continued. “(No.) 1, no one cares if wealthy sports team owners lose money. Shut up and move on. And No. 2, I’m reminded of a Tiger Woods putt. … It’s on a commercial now on television. It’s TPC Sawgrass, and Tiger Woods hits this long putt down the hill, and the announcer says, ‘That’s pretty good.’ Long pause and he says, ‘Better than most.’ And then the putt falls in the hole and the crowd goes crazy.
“Why do I think of that ‘Better than most’ commercial? It’s because the Mariners, as bad as our year was financially in 2020, we were better than most.”
Mather goes on to say he attributes that to luck, and being at the point in the club’s rebuild when “our payroll was as low as it was going to get.” He also said the Mariners “punch well above our weight” on their longtime television deal with ROOT Sports.
While addressing the 2020 season, and the focus the Mariners took on player development by inviting many of their up-and-coming prospects to their alternate site in Tacoma, Mather made clear the club had no intentions of debuting any of them, even if that meant losing.
“As devastating as 2020 was on player development and getting better, we took a risk and brought kids in — our high-end prospects — and really got to know them,” he said. “They got high-end instruction in Tacoma.
“The risk was, if our major league team had had a COVID outbreak, or injuries, and we had to call people up from the taxi squad, we were a little short on players because there was no chance you were going to see these young players at T-Mobile Park. We weren’t going to put them on the 40-man roster. We weren’t going to start the service time clock.
“There were all kinds of reasons that, if we would have had an injury problem or a COVID outbreak, you might’ve seen my big tummy out there in left field. You would not have seen our young players, our prospects playing at T-Mobile Park.”
The prospects Mather is referring to would include players the Mariners intend to build their future around, like Kelenic and Gilbert, who were projected to make their debuts in 2020 had it been a normal 162-game season.
Kelenic, who is considered Seattle’s top prospect by MLB Pipeline, and among the top 10 prospects in all of baseball by both MLB Pipeline and Baseball America, has often seemed frustrated by the situation when speaking to reporters, and likely believed his impressive showing at camp last summer was deserving of a spot on the big league roster.
Kelenic has not lacked confidence since Seattle acquired him from the Mets following the 2018 season, and has often spoken about believing he is ready to contribute in the majors.
The club has raved about the 21-year-old’s talent, though they have suggested they want to see more at-bats from the former first-round pick in the higher rungs of the minors before calling him up.
But, Mather’s comments confirmed a promotion in 2020 was not a possibility regardless of what was happening at the big league level. Later in the call, Mather suggested Kelenic will also not be on Seattle’s Opening Day roster in 2021.
“Jarred Kelenic, we’ve been talking about him for a year-and-a-half now,” Mather said. “He will be in left field in April. He’s a 21-year-old player who is quite confident. We offered him a long-term deal, six-year deal for substantial money with options to go farther. And after pondering it for several days and talking to the (players) union, he has turned us down.
“In his words, he’s going to bet on himself. He thinks after six years, he’s going to be such a star player that the seventh, eighth, ninth year options will be undervalued. He might be right. We offered and he turned us down.”
Mather said Kelenic would probably be at Triple-A Tacoma for a month before an eventual promotion to Seattle.
“Then he will likely be in left field at T-Mobile Park for the next six or seven years, and then he’ll be a free agent,” Mather said. “He won’t commit beyond his free agent years. I wouldn’t say he’s unhappy, he appreciates the offer, he just refused to sign it. He thinks he’s going to be that good. And he thinks he will be a very well-paid player after six years, and I think he might be right. Hopefully with us. But, we’ll see where we end up.
“He’s not unhappy. I guess I would say he’s unhappy that he hasn’t played at T-Mobile Park, but he thought he should have been in left field at T-Mobile Park three years ago. He does not lack confidence.”
Mather also suggested Gilbert will start his season in the minors, saying the 23-year-old will arrive “mid-April.” He said outfield prospect Taylor Trammell would likely arrive in the “back half of the season” and catching prospect Cal Raleigh would also “be here some time in 2021.”
He also said outfield prospect Julio Rodriguez, ranked third in Baseball America’s top 100, won’t arrive in Seattle in 2021 when asked to speak about the 20-year-old. He said more than that.
“Julio Rodriguez has got a personality bigger than all of you combined,” he said. “He is loud. His English is not tremendous. But, him and Kelenic are very good friends. He’s a year behind Kelenic. He will probably be here in — everybody says 2021 — he won’t be here until 2022 or 2023. A fantastic kid. Really big on social media. He loves to get out in front. He loves the Mariners.
“And between him and Kelenic, we think we’ve got an outfield that will be as good as any in baseball for the next six years. He’s the real deal. He’s ranked higher than Kelenic, which, as I said, Kelenic doesn’t lack for confidence. Kelenic is not happy that he’s the fifth-highest prospect on Baseball America, and Rodríguez is the fourth-highest prospect. Little things like that bother Kelenic.”
Rodriguez seemed to respond to the comments made on the call with a pair of tweets Sunday afternoon. One said, “Motivation.” The other was a photo of Rodriguez’s face digitally cut out and placed over the popular meme of Michael Jordan saying, “ … and I took that personally” during the recording of the miniseries The Last Dance.
Mather made another troubling comment about former Mariners pitcher Hisashi Iwakuma, who has returned to the organization this season in a coaching role, when asked about how clubs help players signed internationally learn English. He discussed the academy the Mariners have in the Dominican Republic, then spoke about Iwakuma.
“It frustrates me,” Mather said. “For instance, we just re-hired Iwakuma. Iwakuma was a pitcher for us for a number of years. Wonderful human being. His English was terrible. He wanted to get back into the game, and he came to us, and we quite frankly want him as our Asian scout, interpreter, what’s going on in the Japanese league.
“He’s coming to spring training. And I’m going to say, I’m tired of paying his interpreter. Because when he was a player, we’d pay Iwakuma ‘X,’ but we’d also have to pay $75,000 a year to have an interpreter with him. His English suddenly got better. His English got better when we told him that.”
During the question and answer period, Mather discussed the possibility of signing former pitchers Taijuan Walker and James Paxton, who returned to the Mariners last week.
“We have taken the position that there are 180 free agents still out there on Feb. 5 unsigned, and sooner or later, these players are going to turn their hat over and come hat in hand looking for a contract,” he said. “We think Walker is one of them. James Paxton made $12.5 million last year, and his agent has told us that he’s going to make more in 2021. Interestingly, we started a conversation with Paxton yesterday, and it is for substantially less than he made (in 2020).
“There’s a chance. We’re having conversations. And Walker thinks he’s going to get a three-year deal. I don’t think he’s going to get a three-year deal, and there’s a chance he comes back as well.”
Walker has since signed a two-year, $20 million deal with the Mets with a player option for 2023. Paxton is back with the Mariners on a one-year, $8.5 million contract.
Mather made more offhand remarks about players during the call.
While he said Kyle Seager, the club’s longest-tenured player, would be a Mariners Hall of Famer when his baseball career wraps up, and commended Seager’s positivity during this rebuilding process, he also at one point said the veteran third baseman is “probably overpaid.”
While speaking about the prominent players on the team’s roster, he referred to catcher Luis Torrens, who was acquired in the seven-player trade with the Padres at last summer’s deadline, four times as “Luis Torres.”
He spoke at length about long-term contracts — and said the Mariners plan to “get three or four more players signed on these long-term deals over the next two years” — noting first baseman Evan White “took a lot of heat” for signing an unprecedented extension with the Mariners in 2019.
“The union really pushed back and said, ‘Don’t do it.’ But, I like Evan White,” Mather said. “He’s a nice young man, and he made the comment, he said, ‘I have $23 million guaranteed. That changes a person’s life. I’m signing the deal. And if I’m good and they pick up my options, I’ll have $55 million guaranteed. That changes my family, my grandkids’ lives.’ I like the young man.”
Mather offered unfiltered remarks about several more subjects during the discussion, including Seattle’s affiliate in Everett and even the Seahawks.
When asked about the new minor league configuration, Mather said the Mariners had the option of moving High-A Everett — formerly the club’s longtime short-season affiliate — to Spokane or Vancouver, British Columbia.
“They asked us if we wanted to stay in Everett,” he said. “We quite frankly liked the owner in Everett. We thought he was a good person. We liked the location of Everett, we don’t particularly like the facility called Everett.”
Believing the Mariners have the pieces to contend for a championship in the coming years, Mather at one point said the parade the club would throw after winning a World Series would make the Seahawks’ Super Bowl parade in 2014 “look like a neighborhood Fourth of July parade.”
He also said the Seahawks attempted to get fans in the stands for the wild-card game against the Rams, and while that was unsuccessful, the Mariners have worked with city and county health officials, and have designs to return fans to T-Mobile Park this season.
“Socially-distanced T-Mobile Park will hold 9,870 fans,” he said. “The real question is, do we have to stay away from the field? Do we have to be back six rows? And those are pods of four. I’m afraid one of the issues the county is going to have us do, at least in April, and perhaps May, is the pod of four has to be from the same household. And how do we enforce that? We’re working closely with the county health officials.
“Some ballparks will have fans. Texas, Florida, they will have fans. And not as socially distanced as perhaps we will be at T-Mobile Park. The state of California, we don’t think they’re going to have fans all year. So, we’re working on it. My best guess is small in April, bigger in May, bigger in June, perhaps big crowds in July, August, and let’s hope in September we’re pushing for a playoff spot and we have big crowds in September. That’s my guess, that it’ll phase in. And my guess is a mask will probably be mandatory in the first half.”
Mather joined Seattle in 1996 as the club’s vice president of finance and administration, and proved to the executive video president of finance and ballpark operations three years later.
He became the Mariners’ president and CEO in 2017 after three years as the club’s president and chief operating officer.
Mather was named in a report by The Seattle Times in 2018 as one of multiple Mariners executives accused of inappropriate workplace conduct.
The club later said it had “made amends” regarding the harassment allegations, and reportedly made settlement payments of about $500,000 to two former female executive assistants. One of them worked for Mather, who also released a statement apologizing for past conduct.
This story was originally published February 21, 2021 at 6:06 PM.
