On Friday, I wrote a story about the Seattle Mariners possibly trading for Cleveland Guardians manager Stephen Vogt. Now, Vogt is under contract with the Guardians, so this idea was always a longshot, but managerial trades do happen, so I felt it was worth exploring the idea.

After all, Vogt used to work for the Mariners, his wife is from Washington, and he lives in Washington during the offseason. The idea of a "homecoming," certainly had merit to it.

A few days later, I no longer think this has even a chance at happening.

Here's why.

Look, a lot of the story is the same as it was a few days ago.

1) Vogt is still a good manager that the Mariners would likely love to have as their own skipper.

2) Vogt still has family ties to the area, and an organizational tie, that makes this whole thing an easy idea to connect.

However, the Guardians just beat the Chicago White Sox to head back to the American League Championship Series for the second time in three years. Because of that, I just don't think Vogt is in a position to say he wants to leave.

The Guardians got to the ALCS in 2024 but lost to the New York Yankees. They won the division in 2025 but were beaten, at home, by the Detroit Tigers in the wild card round. If they had gotten beaten by the upstart Chicago White Sox, who had three straight 100-loss seasons under their belts, in these playoffs, then I think it would have been plausible for Vogt to look at things and say "I've peaked here. I can't win the big games in this environment, so I'd like to go back home and try somewhere else."

But now? I just don't think that's possible. Even if Vogt has a closet desire to go home, I just don't think he'd be able to publicly go forward with it. The PR hit would be too great, and I just don't think Vogt feels like being the Craig Counsell of the American League.

To be clear, we never actually heard that the Mariners were officially interested in acquiring Vogt. This was always speculation.

As such? They just go about their business as they were. Identifying candidates and eventually bringing them in for interviews. Jerry Dipoto has said the search would be exhaustive, and since we haven't heard anything publicly reported yet, it feels like the due diligence being done is just that.