David Forst’s Athletics Firing Puts Jerry Dipoto’s Mariners Tenure in Focus

Baseball executives are rarely publicly fired. They either “step away,” “transition into a new role” or “mutually agree to part ways.” Everyone exchanges compliments right? Nobody raises their voice and an interim replacement is announced before you're finished making your cup of coffee.

So, let’s translate what happened on Aug 7: David Forst got fired. The official announcement used the friendlier language after 27 years in the organization and 11 seasons as GM. Reports described it as a dismissal, which tracks considering the Athletics are a dumpster fire sitting at 45-70 and riding an eight-game losing streak. Assistant GM Dan Feinstein will run baseball operations while ownership begins a nationwide search for Forst’s replacement.

That’s the A’s business, but that doesn’t make it any less relevant in Seattle. Forst and Jerry Dipoto essentially began their tenures together. The Mariners hired Dipoto on Sept. 28, 2015. The Athletics promoted Forst to GM on Oct. 5, exactly one week later.

AL West Rivals Changed Leadership While the Mariners Remained Patient

Before going further, let’s make the Mariners’ chain of command clear. Justin Hollander is the general manager. Dipoto is the president of baseball operations and the organization’s highest-ranking baseball decision-maker. Hollander plays a substantial role in roster construction and should not be treated like a ceremonial figure, but the broader philosophy, direction and performance of the baseball operation ultimately land on Dipoto’s desk.

Eleven years later, one is out and the other is overseeing a defending division champion that’s sitting under .500 with an underperforming offense.

Forst reached the postseason three times with the A’s, all in consecutive seasons from 2018 through 2020. Dipoto has reached twice with Seattle, in 2022 and 2025. Forst’s team won the AL West in 2020. Dipoto’s club finally won it in 2025, ending Seattle’s 24-year wait for another division title.

Forst is unemployed. Dipoto is not. Are the A’s smarter and the Mariners not? Not sure, but this does force us to examine how much patience Dipoto has left, and how much patience he should have.

The case for Dipoto is legitimate. He helped end the longest postseason drought in major North American professional sports. He rebuilt a pretty awful farm system, created one of baseball’s most respected pitching-development programs and assembled a young core capable of staying competitive beyond one season.

It all came together in 2025. Seattle won the AL West, reached Game 7 of the ALCS and came agonizingly close to its first World Series. Dipoto’s deadline additions helped push that team over the top, and Cal Raleigh publicly credited him for constructing the roster. It was the finest season of Dipoto’s tenure, and he deserved his share of the credit. MLB’s retrospective on his decade in Seattle captured how much that run changed the conversation around him.

2025 bought Dipoto runway. But it has not granted him diplomatic immunity. The 2026 Mariners were supposed to build on that run. Instead, they have spent much of the season playing like a team that lost its identity during the winter. The pitching hasn’t consistently dominated. The defense continues to be a problem. And the core production in the lineup is nowhere to be found.

Dipoto recently called the offense “abysmal for two months.” He’s right. The Mariners responded by dismissing assistant hitting coach Bobby Magallanes, even though manager Dan Wilson reportedly argued against the move. Dipoto said results have consequences. That’s an interesting statement.

So, what if we applied that standard evenly? An organization cannot call this the most talented roster of Dipoto’s 11-year tenure and then treat prolonged failure like bad weather. If the roster is good enough, the people running it must explain why it is performing this poorly. If it isn’t good enough, the person who constructed it needs to own that problem, too.

Either way, the responsibility travels upward eventually. That makes this Forst situation relevant. The A’s decided three playoff appearances were no longer enough to outweigh a 45-70 record, a broken pitching staff, an injury-riddle roster and uncertainty surrounding the franchise’s move toward Las Vegas. The Angels had already fired GM Perry Minasian on June 27 after six losing seasons. Two AL West organizations have now let go of their general managers during the season.

Meanwhile, Seattle has made an assistant hitting coach absorb the first real consequence of a season that has disappointed at nearly every turn. That cannot be the final answer if nothing changes.

This is not a title-for-title comparison between Forst and Dipoto. It’s a comparison between longtime executives responsible for directing their organizations.

Ownership deserves plenty of scrutiny. The Mariners have repeatedly operated with tighter payroll restrictions than a team in its competitive window should accept. John Stanton and the ownership group cannot limit the front office’s resources and then act stunned when depth becomes a problem.

But we also cannot blame ownership for every failure, credit Dipoto and Hollander for every success and pretend nobody in baseball operations has to take accountability for poor results. After 11 years, these are the systems Dipoto championed, the philosophies he installed and the decision-making structures he built. Seattle’s persistent trouble producing a dependable offense isn’t a problem inherited from a previous administration. It followed the Dipoto era for a decade.

In his defense, the Mariners have become respectable under Dipoto. At times, they’ve been dangerous. But what they still haven’t become is dependable.

There are still 44 games remaining, and the AL West has been forgiving enough to keep Seattle within reach. Somehow, the Mariners still have a chance to turn it around. We watched them catch fire late in the season before. But unless this team finds itself back in the ALCS, this season should be a referendum on the operation Dipoto leads. Not another disappointing season that gets explained away.

The Angels and A’s have already reached their conclusions. Seattle is unlikely to follow them. But if the Mariners go from defending AL West champions to missing October entirely, ownership needs to take a long look at what’s going on with leadership.

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