Guardians' fears of Stephen Vogt's departure should intensify after D-Backs' Torey Lovullo decision

Although the Division Series hasn’t started, one of the biggest stories of the offseason reached its conclusion earlier this week when Torey Lovullo agreed to a two-year deal to return as Arizona’s manager.  

Lovullo may be an Arizona sports legend, but there seemed to be some legitimate questions about whether he’d come back to the D-Backs after a stressful 2026 season that included yet another Ketel Marte saga and a postseason elimination on the last day of the season. 

But just because Lovullo has found his new home doesn’t mean the managerial rumor mill is going to slow down. During the threeish days where Luvollo was in purgatory, his name was floated as one of the top targets for the Mariners’ managerial opening after they fired Dan Wilson. 

Luvollo being off the market means the Mariners are back to square one, which also means they could be back to putting all their attention on Guardians manager Stephen Vogt, who previously coached in Seattle and still has plenty of fans in the team’s front office. 

Stephen Vogt is going to be a mainstay in rumors around the Mariners' managerial opening

Vogt’s name first hit the rumor mill when the Seattle Times’ Adam Jude included him on a list of potential managerial targets for the Mariners, and there’s been a steady drumbeat on social media in the time since of Mariners fans begging Seattle’s front office to bring Vogt home. 

The Mariners would need to trade for Vogt, which makes it tougher (but not impossible) for Seattle to steal Vogt from the Guardians. But that would also require the Guardians to agree to any trade of Vogt, which seems hard to believe given how his time in Cleveland has gone. 

Vogt opened his Guardians career with two Manager of the Year awards and should finish in the top-three this year after another late season comeback to win the American League Central. 

Wilson did a great job leading the Mariners in his first full season at the helm when Seattle came within a game of making it to the World Series, but they had some serious regression this year largely due to a lack of accountability in the clubhouse. Vogt’s done the exact opposite in Cleveland. 

Even if Vogt isn’t going to go anywhere, it’s still not going to be great to see his name floated in managerial rumors all offseason. The longer the Mariners go without hiring a manager, the more the MLB world is going to keep bringing up his Seattle connections until it becomes a national story. 

Vogt is one of the Guardians’ greatest advantages, and him being a mainstay in Seattle’s managerial rumors is another example of that.

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