Bryan Price to resign
Dave · October 3, 2005 at 5:12 am · Filed Under Mariners
According to Finnigan, Bryan Price has resigned as the Mariners pitching coach.
Rather than rehash the good and bad of Price here, I’ll simply point you to the back and forth discussion Derek and I had about him a few weeks ago. Basically, I don’t expect this to be a huge deal either way.
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136 Responses to “Bryan Price to resign”
I’m a little surprised tha Jeff Newman is leaving; he was a Hargrove guy. Guess he didn’t like the Northwest – or he sees nothing but cellar dwelling in his M’s crystal ball.
Mark Wiley was Grover’s piching coach for years. I don’t recall where he went off to, but if he’s available, he’d have to be a consideration. However, with what I know right now, I’d put a nickel on Slaton.
Edgar as hitting coach? Not likely. Moyer as pitching coach? A great choice someday, but he’ll be back in the rotation next year.
Interesting quote from Baylor in the seattle times article and seems to tie into starks comments:
Yet Baylor was not happy with the way this season has gone, either for the Seattle offense and hitters, well down the league lists in average, power and run production, or about the way the instruction had evolved this past year.
“Too many guys are on their own program, working with other guys or focused on film and not on the coaching input,” he said. “That’s not the way you do it, not in my mind.”
98 – No Albert Pujols?
“Too many guys are on their own program, working with other guys or focused on film and not on the coaching input,’’ he said. “That’s not the way you do it, not in my mind.’’
however, it is the way just about every baseball team does it…. 🙂
Benno,
I think the way to fix that is to make sure your 7,8 and 9 hitters aren’t AA quality…
#98: I’d add Albert Pujols, remove Carl Crawford and add Jeffrey Francoeur.
well, here are some nice numbers when you think about the number of rookies the Ms played this year….
89- if a 1b/dh were picked up, i would play him as a dh most of the time, with sexson at 1st and ibanez in left. playing ibanez in the field is a hit the team would have to take defensively, but it would be made up for 10 times over offensively. i think ibanez is too valuable at his current contract rate to trade for anything but major-league ready top prospects, $3.75m for 4-5 wins is a pretty good deal right now, and it will probably look even better after this offseason.
93. By McGrath’s logic, Richie Sexson should’ve hit 75 HRs this year, Moyer should’ve won 25 games, and Guardado should’ve been perfect in his save opportunities. They also should be blamed for the 69-93 record. In all seriousness, Ichiro’s age may be indeed be something to keep an eye on in the next year or two, but to trade him? No. Not unless Sheffield or Manny were coming here, and I doubt either scenario would occur.
He’s certainly entitled to his opinion, and I’m sure McGrath’s e-mail and voice mail are flooded with messages from Mariner fans telling him exactly where to stick that opinion.
Now, if there’s a Seattle-area sports figure I’d like to see leave, it’s Mike Holmgren. I’ve had it with his clock management strategy. The goal is to get the ball closer to the goal line to increase the kicker’s chances of making that kick. Why did he insist on handing off to Alexander twice without calling a timeout until he absolutely had to?! I’m not defending Josh Brown, just saying he had a better chance to make a 32-yard field goal than a 47-yard field goal. That’s on the head coach/offensive coordinator for play-calling more conservative than the Senate. I’ll save my other thoughts on Holmgren for another blog, but this thought of trading Ichiro just brought this rant to the surface.
107- that list is a little misleading, dont you think? if you look at that list, you might mistakenly think that the yankees are a good defensive team, and i would guess that their pitchers would heartily disagree. heres a list for defensive efficiency-
http://www.baseballprospectus.com/statistics/sortable/index.php?cid=206
Re Baylor’s comments.
Sounds to me like he is pointing out a problem that should sound familar to any Husky football fan during the Hedges years, “Lack of institutional control.”
If Baylor is to be believed, the Ms are 25 guys doing their own thing.
I’ve made a hysterical arguments along these lines in the past. I’ll tone down my Chicken Little tendencies and simply point out that the evidence on the field seems to indicate that that we have a group of guys at all levels of the organization who aren’t functioning as a team. This lack of coordination seems to have been going on for years.
Let’s contrast the Ms v the As whose success is well documented. I’ll offer up a new theory as to why Beane and the As are successful. Beane is successful, and his owners demand success, because they HAVE to be. Unlike our ownership which has already made its money, Billy Beane is managing his team like his future depends on it because it does.
Beane knew that when he started that if he failed the old boy’s network in baseball would have forced him out of the industry. He knew that if he failed he’d be selling real estate in Tucson. The owners are also in a position where they can’t afford to simply draw on a big bank account to make up for drop in revenue.
In contrast, Lincoln, Armstrong, the principal owner in Japan and the minority owners have made their money. If necessary, they can always get some more cash. They won’t like it, but they can. Even Bavasi knows that if he fails here he’ll get another job somewhere.
I heard Bavasi on the radio Sunday. He mentioned they were having a long series of organizational meetings. Clearly they made the decision to change the pitching and hitting coaches. But I hope they realize that the new coaches can’t just be teachers, they have to be leaders. And they need to be able to push their philosophy and leadership throughout the org.
Don’t get me wrong, I worship at the altar of Edgar just like the next Ms fan. Like Dave wrote in BP a couple of years ago, Edgar was everything that was right about baseball.
But if the Ms hire Edgar to be hitting coach, then we’ll know that Bavasi and Lincoln aren’t serious about making the Ms better. They’ll just be giving us rubes shiny things and hope we aren’t smart enough to notice.
#109: That’s exactly what McGrath wants. The more people who respond, the more he justifies his job to his superiors.
Yeah, McGrath is cearly an idiot.
and he’s now on the radio, explaining that Ichiro wouldn’t mind leaving Seattle because all his friends from 2001-2002 are gone and he doesn’t know these new guys. I’m not sure just how McGrath has this deep insight into Ichiro’s personal life, but….
Kelly M said:”Re Baylor’s comments. Sounds to me like he is pointing out a problem that should sound familar to any Husky football fan during the Hedges years, “Lack of institutional control.†If Baylor is to be believed, the Ms are 25 guys doing their own thing.
I’ll say it again, that is the way most teams operate. Can you tell me that all the A’s hitters all cluster around Dave Hudgens rather than checking film or talking to the guys who have helped them in the past? if so, it isn’t working.. the A’s offense wasn’t that great this year….
I heard Bavasi on the radio Sunday. He mentioned they were having a long series of organizational meetings. Clearly they made the decision to change the pitching and hitting coaches.
or not.
112: I agree. That’s why I’m not wasting my time with a response to McGrath. I don’t get KJR where I live, but I wonder if David Locke interviewed Mr. McGrath today and said something along the lines of “Amen, brother!” I’ll check past threads, but I seem to recall the authors blasting Mr. Locke, and rightfully so, for the stand he took on Ichiro.
Back to the original topic at hand, BP leaving.
I think we all agree that the Mariners need to get significantly better at pitching next year. Barring the significant lack of TOR guys other than Millwood, I’d like to see if the org could offer someone like a Rick Peterson insane money to join the pitching staff. Instead of signing a guy who adds marginal value as Dave and Derek have hypothesized, why not spend money on a pitching coach who can improve this team through philosophy ala Mazzone.
Insane money for a pitching coach is $2M per season, or 1/3 of Piniero’s salary.
Just worth a thought.
98 – No Albert Pujols?
I don’t know how I forgot him.
remove Carl Crawford and add Jeffrey Francoeur.
Crawford is at 24 what Ichiro is right now, only with a big power upside and signs he’s going to transmogrify into a mid-order banger once he starts losing his speed. Would you trade a 33 year old Ichiro for a 24 year old Ichiro?
I’m not sold on Francoeur at all. His walk rates have been low throughout his career, and after the big breakout in July he really crashed in late August and September.
There are at least 25 guys I’d trade Ichiro straight up for. Pujols is at the top of that list. But you’re not going to get the deal you want now. You might have at the July trading deadline.
Personally I rate “PR value” as nothing. The best PR comes from winning baseball games. We don’t seem to be able to do that very often.
Why do people think Ichiro can play center field again?
DW: Some other guys who were forgotten on your list.
Vlad Guerrero
Jason Bay
Andruw Jones
Miguel Tejada
Maybe Jhonny Peralta, David Wright, Michael Young
I’d like Carl Crawford a lot better if he weren’t batting leadoff. He can’t get on base enough to help a team that way, even hitting .300.
I would love Peterson, but he is under contract for another year, he appears to be in no danger of losing his job, and he went East for family reasons:
Peterson, who turns 49 today, joins the Mets after Oakland GM Billy Beane let him out of the final two years of his contract. Peterson signed a multiyear extension with the A’s last winter and intended to move his family from New Jersey to the West Coast, but “when it comes time to put the ‘for sale’ sign in the front yard, you start thinking,” he said. “We moved to New Jersey for family reasons.”
things may change some day, but not this year, sadly.
#114– and on the heels of my comment about Hudgens … “Dave Hudgens won’t return as the Oakland Athletics’ hitting coach next season, the club said Monday. Hudgens served two stints as the A’s hitting coach, starting in 1999 and taking over again in May 2003”
Honestly does anyone anywhere really think the hitting coach matters even a little bit?
Hitting coach is no big deal – unless you fix someone’s problem, like they say Ron Jackson fixed Davis Ortiz’s hole. But soemtimes another person can do it to – didn’t Raul attribute his improved performance to Kevin Seitzer, in KC? I don’t believe he was a major league coach.
I’ve wanted Ichiro in CF and out of the #1 spot for so long that I’ve given up on it. But since you asked – let him stay in RF, but bat him #2. I don’t have a good idea for a #1 hitter, but I don’t see a 2-hole guy I like on this team now, either.
a coach is dealing with human beings– and no matter how good that coach is, he isn’t going to reach every single person… using the example of Ibanez above– think of the hitting coaches Raul had (including Lee Elia & Lou Piniella at the major league level) and for whatever reason, the way Kevin Seitzer broke down hitting & thinking about hitting made sense to him. The same way that Cal MacLeish got across to Meche what several other pitching coaches had been preaching… and thinking about what Baylor said, I’d love to know just how much attention that he himself gave the hitting coaches through the years 🙂
First, I want to say thanks to the guys at USS Mariner for providing great infotainment during sucha miserable season.
On the Ichiro article, I agree that the guy didn’t do a good job of writing. It what quite sloppy. All one has to do is go to mlb.com and the instantly show Ichiro climbing the wall to rob Anderson of a homerun — sure he never risked his body to make a catch… Anyway, I think that guy just has some displaced anger.
As for Price and Baylor, I think for the average fan Baylor looked bad: Olivo becomes a “monster” hitter in San Diego, Winn, too, and Beltre sucked compared to last year. Now, I’m not saying he’s bad (and maybe no media has focused on it) but to a causual fan of the game, he had a “bad year”. Price… well, I’m not sure what to think but I really hope they bring in Peterson because I have read he was the one who instituted that preventative and maintainence program for pitchers in Oakland. The M’s desperately need such a program.
Ichiro’s value cannot be measured merely in his performance on the field. He brings in so much revenue from Japan for a team that is owned by a Japanese Company. NHK have a $15million hi-res outside broadcast truck built just for Safeco Field. (It’s really slick).
What the M’s should do is forget any lunatic ideas about trading Ichi, and make an offer on Hedeki Matsui that blows the Yankees out of the water. In one move they’d give the M’s the best leftfielder they’ve ever had (and a source of left handed power at that) and regain sole ownership of the Japanese market. They could offer Matsui A-Rod money (although not for 10 years) and probably still break even.
The main thing about Price’s departure that cheers me is the suspicion that he has been preaching to Felix about ‘pitching to contact’. If he’s been selling that snake oil to the best pitching prospect baseball has seen since my First Communion, then good riddence.
Otherwise, Brian, we’ll miss you. A bit.
DIRECT REVENUE STREAM FROM JAPAN (# 8) – While it is true that there is no “direct” revenue stream from Japan to the Mariners, there certainly is an indirect stream. One of the popular vacation packages is to fly from Tokyo to Seattle, and sit in the RF stands at SAFECO to watch ICHIRO play. (Many of those fans are not Japanese-Americans; they’re Japanese.)
BTW, (# 22) Hiroshi Yamauchi no longer owns a piece of the Marines. He sold his stock. http://tinyurl.com/c9nek
All I had to say about Price, I said in the prior discussion which Dave mentions. I’ve seen him as a positive, and I’ll miss him as a professional and a pitching coach both. The next pitching coach is highly unlikely to make the staff better; whether they make it worse will be determined in time. The impact is not likely to be major, no. Next year’s pitching staff has a great chance to be as bad or worse than this year’s was; I’m not looking forward to the situation at all, and if it turns out as negatively as it has the potential to do, I won’t be looking AT it at all.
I would be interested to know _why_ Bryan is leaving; clearly his resignation was pre-planned well in advance. The coaching turnover may just be situational, or normal following the stinker year that was Mariners ’05. Still, this looks something like a mini-purge.
Baylor’s comment about ‘too many guys following their own agendas’ is, unfortunately, too accurate, whether said from pique, to protect his own reputation, or whatever. Beltre and Ichiro are pretty much uninstructible, so far as I can tell. There is a group of guys—Betancourt, Lopez, Dobbs, Reed—who need to substantially upgrade their skills as hitters, while there is also a scattering of veterans all of whom have wildly contrasting approaches at the plate. . . . A difficult group of talents to instruct, to be sure. Baylor’s comment speaks to a deeper problem with the team to my mind, though: I never saw everybody on the same page on this team all year long, and I’m speaking of the whole team, not just the hitters. They never played together as a team, executed together, or any of that. I don’t blame Hargrove so much as the FO, since this group was clearly mismatched in skills and futures. I could very much see the coaching staff wanting to bail from that perspective, though. Hmmmmm.
To add to #129, Safeco does get a direct Revenue stream… ever notice all those advertisements in Japanese at Safeco field (rented ad space)? Ichiro also makes a many of his ads (in Japan) wearing the M’s uniform. Well, that’s not revenue but it certainly is a lot of free PR. By the way, other teams rent ad space (to Japanese companies) behind the batter when Ichiro comes to town. I bet they wouldn’t mind having him just for that or at least I bet they hope he doesn’t leave the AL.
quote from Price in the PI today:
“The most important thing is realizing how long I’ve been here,” Price said. “What I tried to explain to the guys is I’ve been here 18 years. I’m going to be in baseball hopefully until the day I retire, and I need to feel like I’m growing as a baseball person. It was becoming real easy to come back to the comfort zone of the Mariners’ organization. I began to wonder, will that hold me back? Nurturing and positive environment is great, but do I need to get out and get new experiences?”
Is it such a bad thing if BP was telling Felix to “pitch to contact”? I take that to mean go after the hitters, don’t try to strike everybody out, rely on your stuff. Which accounts for why Felix’ pitch counts are so low.
Pitch to contact as I understand the phrase doesn’t mean lay easy pitches in there and rely on your fielders. It means throw good pitches for strikes.
Shoeless Jose said: October 3rd, 2005 at 1:43 pm
After reading through most of this thread, I was going to comment that it seems like our local sportswriting group seems to have undergone a mass attack of senility, but…
…it’s kinder to them to assume they’re lying when they write this ridiculous stuff. It seems to be pandemic in the sportswriting field.
You all have some excellent idea’s. Fact is that no one person is responcible for he way this team played. I’ve been very vocial about Price, if he’d been named manager thing’s here might have been different, but he wasn’t. Good luck Bryan. Don might end up managing again, wish him luck. The fact remains that coaches don’t play, we can’t blame them. Everyone of us has turned into a back seat driver, hind sight is alway’s 20/20. It’ll be interesting watching how things go this winter, could be there’s a master plan, and not just a fire drill.
Ernie
I didn’t think of this immediately, but now Felix can wear #34.