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• Reference Material

  The Future Forty 3/19/09
  Evaluating Defense Evaluating Pitcher Talent
  Evaluating Managers
  Bugs Bunny, Greatest Banned Player Ever Selected for Best American Sports Writing!
  The Attrition War

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  The U.S.S. Mariner is in no way affiliated with, condoned or given any notice by the Seattle Mariners baseball team, who have their own website. Similarly, we have no association with the ownership group or any businesses related to the Mariners. All article text is written by the authors, all pictures are taken by the authors, who retain copyright to their works. No copying or reproduction of any content here, photographic or otherwise, is authorized. Please email us if you wish to reproduce our work.

Lincoln, Armstrong, and the business side

Speculation and more speculation from a still jet-lagged author

Much is frequently made of what kind of a leader Howard Lincoln is, as a representative of the team’s ownership group, of which Nintendo of America forms the bulk. Lincoln is the Chairman and CEO of the company, and Chuck Armstrong is the President.

Howard Lincoln gets singled out for a lot of attacks. He’ll say things like “we have talked to a lot of season-ticket holders over the course of the last year, and one of the things we hear consistently is the following, we love this team, we love to watch major league baseball in Safeco Field, we appreciate the fact it is safe, secure, offers a family-friendly environment, and yeah, we’d like to see the team win (so would we) but nevertheless we like to come to Safeco Field. ” (msb sent us a whole transcript of an interview he did. msb is awesome, and feel free to thank her when you see her in the comments)

That kind of talk makes the serious fan blanch. The immediate reaction is “who the heck are they talking to?” followed by “would people please stop telling them that?”

Lincoln has fought the widespread belief that the team only wants to field competitive teams, and seems to make it a point to slip “World Series” in every time he says something like that. A statement like that, where he seems to say “we know the fans will come out to Safeco Field no matter what as long as it’s safe, secure, and family-friendly” is always paired with “of course, we fully intend to be contend next year and eventually win a World Series”.

The front office is also dishonest to the fans and the public on a regular basis, both in downplaying the profitability of the franchise and in other, generally financial, matters. This is not hard to prove and our dissent on these topics are easily found, so I’ll spare everyone a rehash. They have also in past years gone in front of small crowds and said that they budgeted a payroll for x attendance, and if more people came out they’d be able to spend more. When many more fans showed up, no players were acquired, and at the end of the year, Lincoln would say that the books were closed, and no profit would (or could) carry over to be used for payroll the next year.

Dishonesty from the heads of companies, particularly in accounting matters, where real profits can easily be turned into paper losses (or the reverse) while still using recognized, above-board methods, is unfortunately common. For a baseball owner, it’s almost a condition of the job. Still, the effect of this is that the suits are not to be believed when they say things like “we expect to compete this year” or “we are committed to providing a top-tier product”. There’s almost no point to evaluating those statements as true, or false. We must look at what they do, and how that matters.

The role of ownership in any team depends greatly on the owner. Peter Angelos was willing to spend a ton of money to build a great team, started to screw around with who ran it, and how, and they still haven’t recovered. The Twins owner, Carl Pohlad, is one of the richest people in the world, and his role with that team has been to allow them extremely small payrolls and fight for a new, publicly-funded stadium. George Steinbrenner has famously muddled in his team’s affairs and, at times, let his baseball people run them (for instance, when he was banned for misconduct). Groups with distributed ownership are generally less involved than a single person with their personal fortune heavily invested in the team, obviously.

What we know about the Mariner ownership, now that it’s moved to Nintendo of America, is that they have generally not gotten their hands dirty. In “Out of Left Field” the only instance where ownership mattered in the pursuit of Japanese players. There are a couple of others we know of or were rumored:
– an earlier trade of Randy Johnson was opposed by local ownership (possibly one of the Microsoft guys) and later approved
– ownership was behind Jarvis being showcased and then after one horrible outing, Lincoln told Bavasi he could dump the guy into the Sound

We also know that for all their talk about fan-friendly, the ownership either doesn’t pay attention sometimes or is willing to look the other way if they’re convinced a player would help the team (Al Martin is a particularly good example here, but there are others).

The Mariners, as a business, are amazingly successful. From team stores to non-baseball revenue they make off Safeco Field, they’re a money-making machine. Armstrong’s primary interest, as head of the ownership group, is to make more money. A winning team would be nice, but if a losing team made more money, last season would be a prelude to a decade-long dirge. When they listen to their baseball people pitch a particular deal, their primary thought is not “will this get us a World Series” but “is the return worth the cost?”
This brings the business side into baseball decision in many organizations. Is it worth it to spend too much to bring back the team captain because the backlash will affect ticket sales? Will signing an expensive free agent sell enough season tickets?

It’s reasonable to assume, knowing what we know about ownership in general and how the relationships work, that Bill Bavasi, the team’s GM, operates under a set of restrictions.

Monetary:
– Keep payroll under this number

And intangibles:
– Ownership has to consent (either in advance or before a deal is made) on (all deals/deals involving certain players)
– Ownership can make some decisions against the GM’s advice (for instance, while the GM may feel a local, popular guy wants one year and $10m too much on a contract, ownership may decide that it has to be done)
– If you’re going to acquire with a player with baggage that might cause a public relations issue, consult us first

The second is the most interesting dynamic. We know, for instance, that the highest profile trades are often tampered with. In some cases, this is why teams have to get at least one major-leaguer in dumps of high-profile players: ownership wants to be able to point at a clear return, and is unwilling to risk having a basket of prospects all fail.

In the Mariners’ case, think of it like this: Lincoln has great things to say about Willie Bloomquist, and apparently sincerely believes that great things happen when he’s in the lineup. Lincoln’s expressed interest in having Bloomquist play everyday to show what he’s capable of, and so on.

Say that Bavasi disagrees: he sees Bloomquist as a useful bench player, but Bloomquist is likely to make $2m in arbitration. Bavasi wants to let him go. Would the ownership step in and force spending that small but significant chunk rather than lose him?

Or, say Bavasi wants to acquire a Marcus Giles clone, and can get MGC for a bag of cashews. Would the ownership authorize the cashew giveaway if it meant Bloomquist would assuredly never play a regular infield position?

It’s hard to say. In the past, there’s been almost no evidence of direct intervention in cases like that. But consider it a little further:
– Griffey demanded a trade
– Randy had feuded with management for years, and was forcing a trade
– Alex Rodriguez took the team to free agency

It’s natural that a person like Lincoln would respect and leave alone a GM of Pat Gillick’s stature. He might argue his case, but be extremely reluctant to overrule the judgment of someone known as the best GM in baseball. Coming into this year, Bavasi may be a better GM than Gillick (which is a whole other discussion) but with two terrible seasons here and no media seal of approval, the temptation to substitute his judgment for Bavasi’s will be much stronger.

There have been few cases in the ownership’s history where you might look for fingerprints. Dan Wilson’s retention, for instance, but even that wasn’t much money. Jamie Moyer’s 3-year deal was rich for a home-town favorite, but not out of the realm of reason.

This also becomes more important as Lincoln & Co. try to balance the fan issue (which I wrote about earlier). If they’re attached to Bloomquist, and they believe the fans are attached to Bloomquist, and they think it might be the last straw to trade away the scrappy local boy, they might step in.

And then we’re in trouble. The more frequently and the more directly ownership gets in the way of the baseball people, the less well the organization will do, the worse the team will fare, and the dimmer the fan’s chance of seeing a good team in the near future will be. It’s unfortunate that this year, as the team faces a huge season that could return them to grace or damn them to a long purgatory in the AL West cellar, the pressure and temptation for those at the top of the organization to meddle is greater than it has ever been.

Until we see that start to happen, though, we should discard public statements by Lincoln or Armstrong that show they don’t have a good idea of what makes a productive ballplayer, or how to construct a winning team. As long as they give people who do know those things enough money and freedom to do their jobs, the business side’s baseball opinions aren’t relevant, no matter how dumb they may seem.

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