On Sunday night, we heard that former Minnesota Twins manager Rocco Baldelli had pulled out of the managerial search for the Seattle Mariners, citing family issues.

Also on Sunday night, we heard that there were "mystery candidates" involved who were gaining serious traction. 

On Monday, we heard that former Houston Astros manager Joe Espada and current Chicago Cubs farm director Jason Kanzler are coming in for in-person interviews, and on Tuesday morning, we heard that they are the finalists.

There are no mystery candidates in the mix any more.

That's a lot to digest there, so let's take a deep breath and kind of examine things.

I do. Some people think the Mariners wouldn't pay enough for him and turned him off to the job, but I don't think that.

Baldelli is 45 years old and lives in Florida. He has three young children, including twins who were born in 2023. 

Seattle is 3,000 miles away from Florida, and the Mariners also don't have a Florida-based spring training home. That's a really hard sacrifice, especially with young kids who are growing, and will be in school soon enough, and developing their own lives and interests.

I understand why he didn't want to make that sacrifice and miss those milestones. If it was a different job closer to home? Then sure. Maybe there will be one in 2027.

Well, Espada served as the manager of the Astros for the last three seasons, winning two American League West titles. He was also on staff under Dusty Baker and AJ Hinch, so he's been a part of winning teams and winning cultures. He has the experience that the Mariners reportedly coveted, and as a native of Puerto Rico, he brings a Latin influence that could prove useful in the clubhouse as well.

Kanzler served as a major and minor league hitting coach, and a farm director, so he brings unique qualifications to the table and multiple perspectives. He's also supposed to be an effective communicator, which is something this team really needs.

A little. But I don't think underwhelming and bad are the same thing.

Given how private this search has been, it feels like us all of a sudden arriving at two finalists means the Mariners were swimming in a shallow pool of candidates, but I think we're looking at it from the wrong perspective.

In the NFL, we hear all season about who the hot coordinator candidates are for head coaching jobs, and we get public confirmation of interviews during well-defined interview windows. I think we're all happy to hear about 8-10 candidates because it signifies that an organization is doing proper diligence for the job.

I think we all need to understand that baseball is different, myself included. There is no defined interview window and a lot of the interviews do happen outside the public sphere. Just because we didn't hear the conversations and all the names doesn't mean that the search wasn't exhaustive.

The Mariners have taken a month since firing Dan Wilson. That certainly lends credence to the idea that they did turn over every rock and every stone.

Now, it's just about trusting they are going to make the right call.