Ichiro Being Ichiro
Jon Saraceno does a piece on Ichiro in the USA Today. It’s mostly about whether he wants to come back to Seattle or not, and the quotes honestly aren’t that positive. But when it veers away from his contract situation, there’s some really funny stuff. Such as:
On performance-enhancing drugs: “When you take steroids, it’s not as if wings grow out of your back, and you start flying all over the place and stealing home runs (from hitters). The word ‘cheating’ doesn’t apply for me regarding steroids.”
Tiger Woods’ athleticism: “Tiger is a great golfer, but … when you say athlete, I think of Carl Lewis. When you talk about (golfers or race-car drivers), I don’t want to see them run. It’s the same if you were to meet a beautiful girl and go bowling. If she’s an ugly bowler, you are going to be disappointed.”
He’s right about not wanting to see Tiger Woods run. I’m not so sure I care if a beautiful girl can bowl or not, however.
But ec, I don’t think any of us think success is a guarantee with smarter management. It’s just — pardon me if this is rilly rilly obvious — that while you can point to examples of short-term success translating to world series wins and long-term success not doing so, it doesn’t mean that your odds aren’t better with long-term success…. and I don’t think smarter management would have to come here and tear everything down, either. And while the Indians haven’t made the playoffs since rebuilding in a smart way, the Tigers have, and the Brewers are looking like a good shot.
I admit it’s going to be very hard to convince me that a playoff appearance by the Mariners this year would make it more likely they would win a world series under Bavasi than the likelihood of winning one under someone else if the team fails this year and Bavasi is canned. I’ll cheer for a playoff appearance this year, but I will feel better about our long-term prospects if we don’t make the playoffs (again, assuming that has no effect on Ichiro re-signing).
It is really quite simple. If Ichiro goes Lincoln will go. I think Howie will do everything he can to keep Ichiro here. He won’t though and heads will roll. I just don’t see Mr. Nintendo letting that one slide without serious recourse.
Also why is this board so focused on what a chump Bavasi is (he truly is too) when Howard Lincoln is clearly the real issue.
Will Carroll just said that he’d hire Gord Ash to be his GM if he owned a baseball team.
Wow.
Don’t forget that with Ichiro for the next ten years. . .
Ten years? Ichiro can do things nobody else can do but I don’t think overcoming the aging process is one of them.
[i]Also why is this board so focused on what a chump Bavasi is (he truly is too) when Howard Lincoln is clearly the real issue.[/i]
It’s been said that Lincoln’s not going anywhere unless he wants to because, as former chairman of Nintendo of America, the owners have huge loyalty to him. Bavasi’s tenure at GM is in jeopardy and the great hope is that an intelligent, persuasive replacement could improve the team in spite of Lincoln.
Gord Ash has great mechanics.
I admit it’s going to be very hard to convince me that a playoff appearance by the Mariners this year would make it more likely they would win a world series under Bavasi than the likelihood of winning one under someone else if the team fails this year and Bavasi is canned.
Well, by giving the M’s a playoff appearance BY DEFAULT in 2007 (and assuming you don’t know how the M’s appearance in 2007 will turn out, or what happens in 2008 on), you’re handing Bavasi a fairly decent advantage- he’s up 1-0 on Hypothetical GM of the Future in terms of playoff appearances, which are the prerequisite to championships.
As Billy Beane could tell you, smart is good, but it gets beaten by lucky a lot of the time, too, and the other point is rooting for your franchise to get pounded into the dirt so that you can hopefully switch to a smarter GM has downsides.
All told… well, as dm could tell you, I was yelling for Bavasi to be fired last year. My mind hasn’t really changed… but I guess what I am saying is that the equation becomes murkier to me if you say “but what if Bavasi pulls a division pennant out of his butt this year”. My take, FWIW, is that I don’t find that scenario amazingly likely…but it’s not looking like any team in this division isn’t going to blow the doors off of anyone else,, thus nobody’s really out of it, except for maybe the Rangers, and even they aren’t dead in the water yet.
Bah, that should read “is going to blow the doors off”.
Update on the Saraceno interview– apparently, it was conducted back in February, so not exactly late-breaking news or an exclusive in-season scoop…
Sometimes we behave as though smart and lucky are alternatives, but they’re different axes. Lucky and bad may beat unlucky and good sometimes, but lucky and good is best.
And like I said, I’m not rooting for the team to fail. But I will honestly feel better about the future if they do. I understand why some folks see those feelings as contradictory, but I dont.
I am cheering for the Mariners tonight. If they lose, I will have the small compensation of feeling that it is another step toward getting the team better management.
98.
You’re setting up a straw man. For the sake of argument, let’s say winning the world series is completely, 100% luck. That puts our chances of pulling that out our arses at 1/8 (and I don’t think anyone truly believes that). The chances of us losing in the first or second round are much much greater and would likely guarantee the rest of your first scenario playing out exactly the way you described, which basically means we get one long shot chance at the expense of having to wait 3-4 years before we get a GM in here who can actually help the team.
As for your second option, as Scraps said, I don’t think a smart GM would need to blow this team up for us to be competitive as soon as 2009 and maybe even 2008.
Obviously, this is all highly speculative, but I’m just trying to say I’d hate to sacrifice our team quality over the next few years for the immediate gratification of what I’d call a very long shot.
Sorry, ec, I posted before I could saw your comment at 107. I understand your point, but I’m still with scraps on this one.
You’re setting up a straw man.
Yeah, fair enough, but my thinking is the entire “what if the M’s gut out a playoff appearance this year” question changes things. There really isn’t any other way about it.
World Series titles aren’t awarded on GM style points, or even just on building a great team in the regular season, or else we wouldn’t have had the 2006, 2005, 2003, 2002 or 2001 World Champions that we did, Billy Beane arguably has a ring or two, and John Schuerholz has a LOT of rings instead of just one, and the Marlins probably should have nothing.
Realistically, what you should be hoping for is for the M’s to make the playoffs, win it all… and THEN Bavasi gets fired anyways because the onwership group becomes masters of sabremetric enlightenment and realizes the season was a fluke, and Bavasi still sucks as a GM, and Hargrove’s still a crappy manager. This is all “if my aunt had balls” kind of speculation anyway, so why not?
I guess I’d boil down the real question we’re talking about as: “Would it be good for the Mariners’ chances of winning a World Series in the next ten years if they made the playoffs this year?” (Leaving aside the Ichiro question.) I think it would be bad for our chances, the example of the Marlins etc notwithstanding.
114.
I’d also like to trade Jose Vidro for Travis Hafner, HoRam for Santana, and Jeff Weaver for a case of fine Trappist beer.
Doyle on the DL… why can’t he just stay healthy???
You know with the way the front office has spent money over the last 3-4 years (Batista, Ibanez, Weaver, Spiezo, Washburn, Aurilia, etc) resigning Ichiro might not be a bad idea.
As for Ibanez…he’s always been overrated to me. He had a career year last year, but when you look at his previous stats, 06 sticks out like a sore thumb. Had 06 been a contract year for him, I can only imagine what what kind of money this guy would have gotten from another team. IMO we should’ve used him as trade bait last year for some damn pitching.
please omit Ibanez from my first sentence in my last post.
Dave, sounds like Ichiro is gone. Why not trade him so that we get something more than two draft picks?