We are now heading into Week 3 of the Seattle Mariners search for a new manager, and thus far, we haven't heard much intel on potential candidates or interviews.

The Mariners have said they would be exhaustive in their search for Dan Wilson's replacement, and they seem to be acting on that, given that no names have really emerged publicly.

Shannon Drayer of Seattle Sports put out a list of five names who are interesting, and Ryan Divish of the Seattle Times said that preliminary conversations have been had, though we don't know with who.

We've spoken with Buster Olney of ESPN about possible fits like David Ross or Albert Pujols, but that's all just speculation and conversation.

So, I got to wondering: Is it weird that we haven't really heard anything yet? The more I thought about it, it's not, and here's why:

This is, admittedly, an extremely rudimentary sample, but I went and looked at when some teams recently hired managers, and they are all later than the Oct. 12 date we are at now.

--The Miami Marlins hired Clayton McCullough as their manager on Nov. 11, 2024, one month passed where we are now.

--The Cleveland Guardians hired Stephen Vogt on Nov. 6, 2023, three weeks after where we are now.

--The Chicago White Sox hired Will Venable on Oct. 31, 2024, 2.5 weeks after where we are now.

--The Los Angeles Angels hired Kurt Suzuki on Oct. 22, 2025, 10 days after where we are now.

While we tend to think of managers/coaches getting hired right after a season ends, it usually doesn't happen that way. Even Skip Schumaker, who was the obvious heir apparent to Bruce Bochy with the Texas Rangers, was hired on Oct. 13. Everyone knew he was getting the job, and it still was later than this date.

Just going off Drayer's list, for example: The Tampa Bay Rays and Milwaukee Brewers both have candidates the Mariners could and should be interested in talking to. Both of those teams are still playing in the playoffs. The Mariners likely want to respect the playoff process before interviewing candidates associated with those teams, but they need to wait for the season to end - or to have gaps in the schedule.

While preliminary calls are a good thing, the M's likely don't want to stagger their interview process. Do they want to do an initial batch of interviews, and then wait weeks for another batch of interviews with these playoff coaches? Probably not. They probably want to do everything close to all at once. Just an assumption.

All things considered, the Mariners need to get this hire right, not be worried about being first. So far, only the Philadelphia Phillies job is also open, so it isn't like the M's are competing against a bunch of other teams for this candidate pool.