Game 47, Mariners at Tigers
Washburn vs Rogers, 4:05 pm.
Before the game, McLaren announced that Jamie Burke is now going to be the personal catcher for both Jarrod Washburn and Erik Bedard, meaning that Johjima and Burke will split the catching duties 60/40.
“You’ve got to look at it two ways,” McLaren said. “If a guy is having success with one guy, you’ve definitely got to really weigh that heavily. That doesn’t lie. We’ve got kind of that situation with Burke and Bedard. It’s been a good combination and so we’re going to stick with it for a while.”
In this paragraph, John McLaren reinforces that he doesn’t have any idea how statistical analysis works. He sums up about 34 logical fallacies in a few sentences. He demonstrates ignorance of all the research done on the relationship between a catcher and a pitcher’s performance (there’s almost none), his inability to understand that the “hot hand phenomenon” is a horrible way to make decisions, and his remarkable lack of leadership.
Jarrod Washburn sucks. He’s a replacement level starting pitcher, not much better than guys sitting in Triple-A riding buses from Toledo to Durham. Jarrod Washburn doesn’t like pitching to Kenji Johjima, who the team is committed to as their starting catcher through 2011. A real manager, one with some semblance of authority and a willingness to do whats best for his team’s record, would tell the replacement level starting pitcher to learn how to like throwing to Kenji or sit in the bullpen and not pitch.
No other team in baseball would let a replacement level starter dictate the benching of their starting catcher. Not one.
John McLaren doesn’t deserve to be fired because this team is 18-28 or because they’re losing ugly. He deserves to be fired because he’s massively unqualified for a job that requires both real leadership and an understanding of how baseball works. Those are his two jobs; motivate his players and put the best team on the field. He’s incapable of motivating grass to grow and has no idea what his players can and can’t do. He neither leads nor understands, and it’s only in a backwards organization like this one that this guy could have ever been hired in the first place.
Go M’s.
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For your entertainment pleasure, this quote from the 2008 Media Guide, Bavasi’s bio:
“Bill and his staff had another busy, and productive off-season. The added one of the top available free agent pitchers (Carlos Silva), as well as a veteran outfielder (Brad Wilkerson) and bench help (Miguel Cairo).
McLaren looked, literally, as if he was on the verge of tears in the post-game.
I feel sorry for him, but the sad fact is that he has a bad team, AND it’s underperforming.
After a year McLaren is still digging hard, looking for that pony and not finding one. No wonder he looks to be nearly in tears.
OMG, just channel-surfed over to KJR a minute ago and heard Elise Woodward ranting and raving about how bad this team is playing — and how useless she thinks Bavasi is!
Did you just hear the Washburn interview on Fox? He only threw one bad pitch, to Thames. The other hits he says he was throwing good pitches, hitting his spots, and the Tigers were hitting them.
What is “playing Marco Polo in a swimming pool” supposed to mean?
I heard Elise also. She is on fire.
Washburn was perplexed post-game — according to him he was pitching well and hitting his spots. Maybe that one home run ball was a “little” fat….
If you could bottle self-esteem some of these guys would have trucks following them around to pick up the product.
206: Sheez, he’s a legend in his own mind, isn’t he?
Well, at least Washburn made himself accountable by giving an interview. Now we know he didn’t actually suck.
I was so stunned by Washburn’s comments I completely missed 206.
It’s a game you play in a swimming pool.
Now, some moron called Elise suggesting that they “tear down Safeco Field and build a state-of-the-art basketball arena” to keep the Sonics here.
Yikes…they’re coming out of the woodwork these days, eh? >:(
Thanks!
Washburn is an 18 game winner with both playoff and world series experience. You can’t get any further from replacement level than that……Jarrod is PROVEN.
Yeah, and after Wash got that WS ring, he should’ve been paraphrasing Lou Gehrig — since he truly was “the luckiest man on the face of the earth.”
that wasn’t the GM, though — the baseball people had to fight George Argyros who wanted them to draft pitcher Mike Harkey.
they’re a good-hitting team, you know. and they had that inspiring ‘accountability’ lecture from Leyland to spur them onto greater heights.
You guys are too much. I wouldn’t let my kids get away with that. It would be hysterical if a major league pitcher actually said stuff like that. . .
Someone just please BLOW THE WHOLE THING UP!!!!
It’s time for heads to roll.
NOW.
Edgar was drafted in 1982, also before Woody’s time. Woody did do the Moyer trade, which was tremendous, and both sides of the Randy Johnson saga (it will be ten years since the M’s were certain Randy was going to have back trouble; they were right!!), which both got us value. His worse trades will need no introduction.
And he traded Jay Buhner for Ken Phelps. While with the Yankees.
Yep…like the guys from Del Amitri once said: “C’mon baby, let’s KISS THIS THING GOODBYE!” 😮
Prompting my favorite line from Seinfeld: “Why the hell’d you trade Jay Buhner?!” 🙂
The Buhner/Phelps trade was probably why the M’s hired him….out of gratitude!
Actually, Phelps was a hell of a power hitter. I can see why someone would have wanted him aiming at the short right field porch in Yankee Stadium.
But, it didn’t work out for them, did it?
225: Not really, no…and the sad thing about having both Phelps and Jim Presley around at the same time is that it wound up keeping Edgar down in the minors longer than he should have been. I know it’s hindsight, but I’ll bet ‘Gar would’ve finished in the neighborhood of 3k hits if not for those lost seasons.
226: The M’s had gotten rid of all their good young (and I might mention mainly black) players over the years: Ruppert Jones, Dave Henderson, Phil Bradley. But they developed a fetish for Jim Presley, whom they could easily have traded two years before Edgar came up for good. There is always a market for a power-hitting third baseman. And Edgar had only batted .372 in his cup of coffee in 1987, so why he was sent down to win another PCL batting title was beyond me.
147: That’s called folding pre-flop.
Used to be, I’d read the sports pages for comments/observations on this team from the night before. Now, I come here to get honest, objective news about this train wreck of a MLB team. This morning’s blast about Washburn insisting on his personal catcher was the final straw. Couldn’t agree more with comments from today. While signing Kenji for 3yrs at his age and level of production was a stupid move, to bench him half the time now and thus provide a wall for Clement to return. You truly have to wonder which inmates in the asylum are running things today. Or, do they take turns? McLaren has zero nads to let any player dictate to him, Washburn or otherwise. It should be painfully obvious to anyone (although not noted in the PI or anywhere else I could find)that he has lost dynamic control of his troops. He must go, in an effort to retain some of the new manager’s respect level for this club. If not, these troops will be dictating other “terms” to McLaren in the near future.