Seattle Times' Geoff Baker on Mariners' dysfunction

[Steak Snabler]

Scathing indictment of GM Jack Zduriencik, president Chuck Armstrong and CEO Howard Lincoln, with on-the-record comments from ex-manager Eric Wedge and several former front.office staffers. Ken Rosenthal tweeted this morning that the story is already the talk of the winter meetings.

http://seattletimes.com/html/mariners/2022420240_mariners08xml.html

Among other things, it argues that the credit for the Mariners' celebrated 2009 season and trend-setting focus on run-prevention should have gone to since-deposed special assistant Tony Blengino, not Jack Z:

One of those speaking out is Blengino, the former No. 2 in Zduriencik’s front office. Blengino, who was working for the Milwaukee Brewers with Zduriencik at the time, said he authored virtually the entire job application package Zduriencik gave the Mariners in 2008, depicting a dual-threat candidate melding traditional scouting with advanced statistical analysis.
Blengino said he prepared the package because he was versed in the hot trend of using advanced stats for team decisions.
“Jack portrayed himself as a scouting/stats hybrid because that’s what he needed to get the job,” Blengino said. “But Jack never has understood one iota about statistical analysis. To this day, he evaluates hitters by homers, RBI and batting average and pitchers by wins and ERA. Statistical analysis was foreign to him. But he knew he needed it to get in the door.”
The Seattle Times obtained a copy of the package, which talks of rebuilding with minimal pain through shrewd drafts, undervalued free agents and a “vast pipeline of young, homegrown star-caliber talent.” Advanced stats charts ranked every major-leaguer and top minor-leaguers, while computer spreadsheets depicted each team’s positional depth and payroll commitments.

 

[black dude with pompano]

Wow. Good stuff.

 

[LongTimeListener]

The sources say Wedge implored Zduriencik to stand up to unreasonable demands, like Lincoln and Armstrong wanting Felix Hernandez and other pitchers to throw live batting practice between starts so position players could work on bunting and situational hitting.

Good Lord. The Mariners' top two executives think they're running a Little League team.

This story is fantastic. And goes so far to explaining how they knuckled under to Cano's demands.

 

[Mark2010]

It's been one bad move after another for about a decade now. Some of the signings seemed reasonable at the time, others were grossly overpaying for average players, there were injuries, just all sorts of stuff.

I've even heard that once they moved into the current stadium, players had things too easy and weren't motivated to work as much.

 

[DanOregon]

Typically a GM will get three manager hires before he's tossed. Jack Z is on number 3. I don't know if its the scouting or the player development - which is what the M's were said to be building around - but it's not happening in Seattle.