Bavasi and the Randolph firing
One of the things Dave mentioned in the post on Bavasi’s firing was that as much as we disagreed with Bavasi, we’ve always had a lot of respect for the way he did his job and treated people. It showed up in ways that we saw as fans — for instance, they agonized about how best to move away from Bret Boone when Boone was clearly done as a player, going so far as to give him to Minnesota where he’d have a shot at playing time. And it showed up in ways many fans didn’t see — under Bavasi, the M’s were an organization where if you were a AAAA player and there was a chance to get some major league service time with another organization due to injuries or whatnot, they’d release you from your deal and let you go sign somewhere else, with their best wishes.
Bavasi deserves credit for facing the press after his firing (in which he does fire some spicy parting salvos at the players, but he also admitted the towel thing was a bad idea) but moreover, I wanted to point out that in his time here, the M’s never had the kind of issue that other teams have — releases conveyed by text message, coaches fired through intermediaries, all of that. The kind of thing that just happened to Willie Randolph, where he and the coaching staff were sent on a road trip not knowing if Randolph would be managing the next game or if any of them would have jobs in a week, only to be fired… that’s an awful thing to do to someone, no matter what they thought of Randolph’s performance, and it isn’t something I can even imagine happening in the last few years, no matter how bad things got.
I don’t know how much that’s worth to everyone, but it’s worth something.
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Agreed. As stupid and dysfunctional as the M’s organization has been, it’s almost never been obliviously cruel or deliberately evil. Looking around the major leagues, that’s a surprisingly and sadly rare thing. Of course that has its downside, too, inasmuch as it prevented them from making cold-hearted evaluations to maximize trade values and they pretty much always hung onto people longer than they should have.
Bavasi’s press conference was good but I think I’d be careful attributing “white line fever” to a team heavily stocked with South Americans or they’ll be forever getting through U.S. Customs on the next Toronto road trip.
The Randolph thing was seriously sleazy, and it’s odd that it happened because you hear all the time about how the Wilpons are supposed to be good people.
I’m glad that Bavasi’s departure was handled better than that, and I hope that McLaren’s will be also.
What Bavasi lacked in talent as a GM, he did make up for as a very nice and honorable man. I am not at all happy what he did to our team, but I wish him the best of luck in his future endeavors.
IIRC, when Bavasi was introduced as the Mariners new GN Lincoln made a comment about Bavasi being a “perfect fit”. I’ve always thought that the Mariners assessment of Bavasi’s personal professionalism and personal ethics was a significant part of that statement.
I’m also sure that will be a major consideration in the selection of the new GM.
Bavasi was never lacking in the integrity or character department. He was oblivious in the evaluation of players and rosters, though, and that’s what a GM is judged on in the end. The good thing is that his honor and integrity will play very nicely in plenty of other jobs that have nothing to do with evaluating what players the Mariners should acquire and use. I wish him all the best. As for the Mets, well, that’s one horrible organization right now with a total lack of depth in the minors, a bunch of aging and nearly walking dead players in the big leagues, and a jackass of an owner and general manager.
So are managers only allowed to be fired during home stands? A manager works half the time at home and half the time on the road. He got fired on the road, what’s the big deal? Maybe they weren’t sure on their decision before the team left on the road trip. Getting fired is not pleasant in and of itself, I’m not sure that him getting fired after the first game of a road trip is that big of a deal.
vr, Xei
The comparative classiness of Bavasi’s departure has to attributed in large part to the man himself. Not many organizations in any field would allow a just-fired executive to remain on company property, much less face the media in a press conference with their logo behind him. That they did suggests they had a lot of faith he wouldn’t lash out or otherwise embarrass them, and he didn’t.
I haven’t been following the Mets in detail, but from what I have seen it seems the relationship the Wilpons had with Randolph specifically has been in a downward spiral for a while. (There was Randolph’s comments to the media, and then his apologetic phonecall to them they didn’t return, etc)
I would love to work for Bill Bavasi. He’d be great boss. I’d invite him over for BBQ. Just not a great baseball boss.
There are people managers and there are production managers. I’ve worked for both and I have had good and bad instances of both. The worst IMHO is a bad production manager, the reason being that any good performers are overshadowed by the manager’s failure to get the team to meet its goals. Not much better than that is the bad people manager, the worst aspect of which is that poor performers are coddled, which the good performers come to resent.
The contrast with Bavasi was the first thing I thought of when reading about how Randolph’s firing went down.
You don’t fire a manager on the road because you’ve stranded him. He’s not taking the team flight home.
Aside:
Am I the only person whose first association for “White Line Fever” is not Bolivian Marching Candy but the 1975 Jan-Michael Vincent movie? Am I a comparative teetotaling cinematiste who misses out on all the best parties, or are you all a bunch of drug-addled philistines ignorant of the lowbrow high points of film history?
I think it’s somewhat of a tradition to fire a manager after the last game of a homestand, so that the team is on the road away from home fans for the first few games under the new guy. Maybe the idea being that when the team arrives back home, if they’re still losing the boos are a little lessened by the passing of a week or so; and if they won a few on the road trip, even fewer boos.
That’s not the issue at all — and if the post makes it seem like that, I’m sorry. It is, as others noted, a whole deteriorating spiral that ended with Randolph heading out under a cloud and then being fired.
The traditional baseball thing — and they do this for a good reason — is that you fire them on their way out, so the manager doesn’t have to travel with the team and then get stranded, the new manager doesn’t have to go in front of the home crowd for a week or so… it makes things easier on everyone involved.
The thing is — if he’s going on the road and the next game determines whether he’ll be fired or not, just fire him. The die’s been cast, so to speak. Even if things have gone downhill, you can avoid making him and your relationship the story for two days.
Bavasi is a class act. I’ve never heard anyone suggest otherwise. Showing up at a USSM even after a season of being criticized says all you need to know. Even his bizarre “white line fever” comment seems to be more of ignorance (it’s an AGING curve not a character defect) than cruelty.
That said, he was absolutely horrible at his job. The people who hired him and took 4 1/2 years to fire him share some responsibility for that.
You don’t fire a manager on the road because you’ve stranded him. He’s not taking the team flight home.
You also don’t fire a manager by issuing a press release at 3:15 in the morning. At the least you fire him in a telephone call. Better yet, you meet with him face to face. If some of his coaches are being fired as well, you let him provide some input in how the news will be given to those coaches.
I’ve heard countless times that Bavasi was a nice guy, just not a good basball guy. But does his comment about Bedard (”he’ll give some dumbass answer”) merit this?
I understand he’s frustrated he got fired, but really, trying to shred Bedard when you’ve got fatboy Silva, Batista, and Washburn all infinitely worse?
Give me a break. Good riddance, Bavasi.
Right, because one comment invalidates every other thing he’s said and done.
I had this complaint about Woodward… like never returning Mike Jackson’s calls after 1996 (and then having to trade for Slocumb).
I don’t think I’ve ever been this sad to see someone lose a job in sports. All the more bizarre because I don’t think he was good at his job.
Which is not to say he was a good GM. And his press conference comments about chemistry demonstrate he’s as clueless at the end of it as he was at the beginning.
The people who hired him and took 4 1/2 years to fire him share some responsibility for that.
And that’s very true too.
for instance, they agonized about how best to move away from Bret Boone when Boone was clearly done as a player, going so far as to give him to Minnesota where he’d have a shot at playing time.
The prime (and best, IMHO) example of this is when they traded Jamie Moyer to the Phillies, where he’d have a shot at the postseason (and indeed, he did the following year.) Trading a fan favorite (who had an ERA+ of 101 to boot) mustn’t have been easy.
By the way – don’t look now, but Jamie has an ERA of 4.12 at age 45… go Jamie!
When speaking publicly, Bavasi generally gave forthright and frank evaluations. I disagree with many of his evaluations, but they were always clearly honest (you might say brutally honest), which is one thing that earned him respect. His comments about Bedard are in that vein, a bit like his response to Dave Samson’s criticism of the Ichiro extension.
SO Bavasi had great people skills and awful baseball skills.
Would it hurt so much to have mediocre people skills and great baseball skills?
The other thing nobody’s mentioned about the Randolph firing is that the Mets won his last game (and the first game on the road trip). There is no reason at all for them to have waited that one extra day to make the decision when the information derived from that extra day was in Randolph’s favor — a win.
If that’s the worst he said on the way out the door, then he’s got more control than I do.
Look at it this way. Bavasi put together a team he honestly thought would be a competitor. He organized a trade for the 1 guy he thought would put them over the top. That guy is now 4-4, missed a bunch of time due to injury, won’t give the media the time of day and apparently asked out of his last game because he felt that after 100 pitches his job was done. Honestly, I’m not even sure that Bedard enjoys playing baseball.
He’s seen the team he assembled, fall apart and put together the worst record in the league at a payroll of $117 million. He’s now out of a job.
He’s got to feel that the players let him down.
Forget the reality that he built a team of craptastic proportions, managed by man totally unqualified for the position. Bavasi’s got to feel betrayed by his team and he’s handled it with a lot of class. The M’s in turn handled his dismissal with equal class.
It seems pretty clear that Bavasi’s comment about Bedard was a product of what sounded like multiple conversations with Bedard about pitching deeper into games.
And frankly, although he could’ve phrased it better, if Bedard is seriously setting a pitch count on himself to preserve himself for his next contract (which is wild speculation on my part but seems to be what a lot of people are saying), I can’t blame Bavasi for not being happy about that, and what’s the point in him hiding that on the way out?
Let’s ask Paul DePodesta.
This practice isn’t unique to baseball companies. I’ve seen ordinary companies adopt the same practices when it comes to firing someone. Don’t fire someone if he is on the road for the company, or even if his spouse is out of the country, etc. I have no idea how widespread this is, but I’ve seen it.
Seriously, you should treat people like people.
That should be the minimum for any management position. The next is to be good at what you do. If you only have the first, you have Bavasi, and that’s no good. If you only have the second – well I’m sure that stockholders / fans will be happy, but the fact is you can seriously traumatize your employees. I’ve seen that too: Bosses who treat everyone like crap and manage to get things done, but who destroy the psyches of their assistants and other bystanders to their irrational rages or fits of peevishness. Not a good thing either.
if Bedard is seriously setting a pitch count on himself to preserve himself for his next contract
I really don’t think it has anything to do with his contract at all. Once he hits his payday, is Bedard suddenly going to turn into Randy Johnson?
Rather, he understands himself and accepts his limitations, which is not something you can say about the man who traded for him. Talented as Bedard may be, the one giant concern about his track record was that it didn’t exactly scream workhorse.
I don’t know a ton about Bill Bavasi’s character, but take him out of Seattle and put him in New York under the Wilpons, and then see how he responds. It’s one thing to be the way he is when your city has like two newspapers, but it’s another to be that way in the media firestorm that is New York.
That is not to say that the Mets’ management has to be so sleazy, but it’s very hard for them to break out of the pattern of alternately doing what the media wants and catering to the media, and being antagonistic with the media and avoiding them. Not only do the Mets have to deal with that, but they also think they have to compete with the Yankees.
The situation would have turned out a lot better if the Mets organization wasn’t so leaky. There are forces working against each other, with each having their own media pets. Minaya wants to go one way, Assistant GM Tony Bernazard wants to go another, and the hapless Fred Wilpon is stuck in the middle issuing senseless directives. This is not just characteristic of the Mets during the end of the Randolph era; it’s how the Mets have always been.
More importantly, Omar Minaya isn’t much better than Bill Bavasi at the player evaluation part of the job.
Were the Mariners showing some class in the timing of Bavasi’s firing as well? Waiting until several weeks after his father died to do it?
Well, that’s why I labeled it as speculation. Your explanation is a possible one too, and it’s the one I hope is true.
Whatever we might’ve thought of many of Bavasi’s goofy (if not downright illogical) personnel decisions, at least the Mariners had enough class to handle this the right way — as opposed to calling the guy they’re canning in the middle of the night on a road trip and basically telling him to pay for own his plane ticket back home.
Any shards of repect I might’ve had for the Wilpons and Minaya (if he, too, was in on this duplicity — which seems likely) as baseball people have now completely gone out the window. That is absolutely not a way to run an organization!
Yes, yes, New York is a crucible of pain in which human lives are forged and destroyed
Yes, yes, New York is a crucible of pain in which human lives are forged and destroyed
Yes, I saw movie about that once. I think it was called White Line Fever.
Unless I get a lot more information, I’m not going to criticize Bedard for taking himself out of games to protect his arm. He has injury history, and he’s been injured this year; of course he should look out for his health first. Maybe he’s taking it to extremes that make him less than a team player, but I don’t know why folks are leaping to that conclusion.
Don’t most of us agree that we don’t think less of Ichiro for playing with a modicum of caution and not getting injured?
I don’t blame Bavasi for saying what he did, especially since he knows a lot more about it. But it’s also possible that he’s lashing out at the guy that was supposed to be the big new addition that took the Mariners over the top, and who has, by his failure to do so, made Bavasi look bad and cost him his job. (Never mind whether there was good reason to put such expectations on Bedard.)
That’s why I don’t live there.
Oh, you were being ironic. Yea, it is exactly the same to be general manager in Seattle as in New York. That’s why, in your appeal to Chris Antonetti, you cited the relatively docile character of the Seattle media.
My point wasn’t that I was criticizing Bedard if that was what was going on (heck, I’d probably do the same in his position), but that I can see how Bavasi would be mad about it.
Two pretty different things, and I guess I should’ve made that clearer.
I might just not talk any more today.
Not to defend the way management in NY handled the Randolph fiasco, but a little background would make things sound a little better.
1. He was fired at 3:15 am EDT, but they were playing on the west coast, so it was only 12:15 am local. The papers in NY are reporting the time the press release hit their newsdesks (or whatever), which isn’t really a genuine reflection of what went down, but it makes for better copy.
2. Minaya and Co. met him at the hotel and told him face to face, assumedly after the team got back from the ballpark. I read it this morning on Olney’s blog, I think.
Again, still handled piss-poorly, IMO, but not nearly as bad as the press has made it out to be.
I don’t care so much that he threw Bedard under the bus, but if he’s going to go out of his way to sink Bedard, why not line up Silva, Batista, and Washburn as well?
It seems disingenuous to call out Bedard specifically simply because you disagree with his approach to the game.
How about calling out pitchers that simply are terrible?
Unlike my soon-to-be-former company, which let me move out of state with their OK to work remotely, only to call me up on my first day working remotely to let me know that my posisiton was beeing offshored to India.
(On the plus side they were giveng me 3 months notice and I just accepted a new job offer yesterday to start a week after this job ends, so it wasn’t all bad. Still though…)
Yes, I saw movie about that once. I think it was called White Line Fever.
Seriously, when somebody gets a hold of some beer from Papua New Guinea, there needs to be an official USS Mariner screening of that movie. Everybody can get together, get drunk, and boo.
DMZ with words like”Yes, yes, New York is a crucible of pain in which human lives are forged and destroyed.” You ought to be a writer…err… What was the name of that book again?
Things like how you treat people really do deserve to be recognized, so this thread definitely was a good idea.
Granted, I still wish someone would’ve asked him what formula goes into deciding how Norton and Wilkerson are valued less than Cairo.
I might just not talk any more today.
No, Jeff, you’re doing a great job of stimulating interesting topics of conversation.
The NY media are mad because the Mets sent the press release too late to make the morning editions… which they did on purpose, of course.
The Mets don’t know about the Internet yet.
I especially appreciate integrity and looking after your staff in an athletic environment where so many people (fans and management alike) care only about winning, sometimes at any cost. Sending Broussard to Texas seems like another example of his taking care of his guys.
I’m still not quite sure what to make of Mac’s weird comment in the middle of his remarks yesterday when he called Bavasi “a man’s man.” Not that I’m reading something off-kilter into the description, just that it was another Mac phrase dropped seemingly at random, that didn’t tie into the sentences before or after it.
My guess is that if someone is awful, they can’t do any better.
His calling out seemed to be based on thinking Bedard can do better, but chooses not to. That would, presumably, be something a trader wouldn’t know about until after the trade was made, and the trader’s reputation was staked on a player.
I especially appreciate integrity and looking after your staff in an athletic environment where so many people (fans and management alike) care only about winning, sometimes at any cost.
You know what that comment reminds me of? Todd Turner. Maybe Bill Bavasi shouldn’t have been a pro baseball GM, he should have been a college athletic director.
Unless we’re referring to different things, I believe he was answering a direct question from a columnist (Jerry Brewer) who was writing a piece connecting the Bedard trade to Bavasi’s legacy. I think Bill deserves the benefit of the doubt on this one.
According to Buster Olney, the player evaluations Randolph made to executives during closed-door meetings were being leaked directly to the players.
It did seem like Bavasi spoke directly to a specific question about Bedard, and then shortly after that addressed issues about the whole rotation. Bedard does seem to be a bit unique among them, what with the self-mandated pitch count, if that is in fact how his mind is working.
Never heard “white line fever” as a baseball term before. I’ve heard of “triple-deck fear” for jitters when you’re new to the show, but never a generalized term for game-day jitters. Baker looks a little facile by linking to the Grandmaster Flash tune; that obviously brings up unfortunate connotations.
And, uh, with all due respect, Mike Snow (49), Todd Turner is not an example of a university “athletic director.”
Thanks for the Bavasi/Bedard/Brewer question connection. Makes sense.
Mike Snow,
You’re a stud for pointing out the Todd Turner resemblance there. That sort of attitude will take you straight back to “Lovable Losers” land, and I think after tasting a winning atmosphere, many of us couldn’t handle that.
Yes, yes, I know Turner is gone, I just meant that this kind of catering to the best interests of individual players, instead of treating things as strictly business, is closer to the way colleges theoretically deal with athletes. Turner’s comments on the way out the door are a reflection of the concern with college sports becoming too focused on the big business part.
I don’t know anything about Todd Turner. I wasn’t suggesting the MLB is a commune for therapy and I certainly wasn’t talking about catering to anyone. But I think losing and treating people with respect is a false dichotomy.
Perhaps catering was the wrong word. I generally agree with Bavasi’s sense of ethics on things like the Jeff Clement service time issue.
I’m a little less certain when it detracts from the roster management that’s one of his primary responsibilities to get right. Unloading Ben Broussard, or before him Yorvit Torrealba, for really nothing of value, are questionable for me although clearly not the biggest failing here in terms of player evaluation.
A business that is truly professionally run should be able to treat people with respect. That’s fine, and it’s always a balance to mix individual development of employees with serving customers. Bavasi clearly has some management and people skills in the former area, but has now failed abysmally in terms of the business product. With those strengths and weaknesses, I think it’s interesting how they match up with college athletics, where the AD does more to establish the culture but the coach pretty much controls everything that goes to performance.
The other thing nobody’s mentioned about the Randolph firing is that the Mets won his last game (and the first game on the road trip). There is no reason at all for them to have waited that one extra day to make the decision when the information derived from that extra day was in Randolph’s favor
Did you happen to notice how Wilkerson and Norton did in the games immediately before they were released?
Yes, yes, New York is a crucible of pain in which human lives are forged and destroyed
Yes, I saw movie about that once. I think it was called White Line Fever.
Actually, it was The Devil Wears Prada. Which I know nobody here saw unless it was part of some hopeless attempt to make up for some pain they caused their wife/girlfriend.
Unlike my soon-to-be-former company, which let me move out of state with their OK to work remotely, only to call me up on my first day working remotely to let me know that my posisiton was beeing offshored to India.
Hey, I saw that movie too.
Bavasi could be somewhat coldblooded at times too. DFA’ing John Olerud stands out in my mind. I suppose it was kindhearted in a way, as it provided Bucky Jacobson the one and only opportunity in the bigs.
OK, that makes sense. I have a terrible memory (which comes in handy for Mariner games), but with Broussard, I thought they were at the point where he was going to be cut, and BB made the trade instead. Which didn’t really cost the M’s anything, since teams knew he was being cut, but saved Broussard a little embarrassment, and more importantly, landed him on a team close to his home.
On the whole, though, I would not be found in a position to defend BB’s trading abilities or roster construction. I agree he shouldn’t be a GM.
It’s said that managers have a lot less to do with a team’s winning and losing than is generally thought.
The same can be said of GMs and their personnel decisions. These decisions are usually made after consulting with coaches and scouts.
The buck may stop here, but it probably didn’t begin here.
Just as Woodward was convinced that the Mariners needed better relief pitching, Bavasi was convinced that Felix–who was envisioned as the Mariner cornerstone for the next ten or fifteen years–would never develop unless he could spend a couple of years not being the ace of the staff.
So Bavasi went after an ace.
Hey, don’t forget the USSM is home to people of all stripes, including women who like chick flicks.
I hear we even have a token chick!
Although she’s been conspicuously absent of late.
Shouldn’t there be a law that you can’t talk about Todd Turner and the Mariners in the same thread?
doesn’t that set a new meaning for futility?
Hey, it stars Josh Hamilton. To be leading the league in RBI and critically acclaimed movies after what he’s been through . . . wow.
You know, I took your word for how good of a guy Bavasi was. But, the quotes about “white line fever” (who signed those guys and/or kept them on the roster?) and Bedard’s interview skills (again.. who brought him here?) were childish.
For someone who is looked at as classy and all that, I was really disappointed to read those statements.
Take some damn responsibility and go look for your next job. You have the veteran grit now to land one, I’m sure.
I can’t criticize the Mets for firing Randolph on the road, even if it is a “baseball thing”. As far as the “baseball thing” goes, has there been data collected to see when a manager was fired during a season (home or away)? The 3:15AM press release doesn’t seem all that classy, but I have no problem with the firing on the road thing. I guess that’s just me. Is the fired manager really stranded? Does he have to pay for his own plane ticket home? I think they should atleast pay for his return flight home and if not, then it’s pretty bad. We don’t have all the facts. We don’t know what may have been said between Randolph and upper management. Maybe they were going to let him stay until the team got home, but he said or did something that really pissed them off/broke the camels back?? Who knows!??? I certainly don’t have all the details to make a judgement, do you?
vr, Xei
Speaking of Bavasi/Bedard . . . with Bavasi out of the picture does this mean Bedard becomes a legitimate, if not the most logical, trade piece on the Mariners roster? He is signed through 2009 and might be seen as an easy guy to lock up long term if he is at all concerned about his long-term health. Of course, any team that acquires him will also be concerned about his long (and short) term health, but I can’t a imagine why a team like the Yankees wouldn’t make an immediate inquiry. I envision a package involving some mix of Austin Jackson or Jesus Montero with Phil Hughes or Ian Kennedy or an even younger arm.
That would be an interesting study. Go look up the last, say, ten years of manager firings, map that out, and report back with results.
The problem with the team isn’t Bedard. It isn’t just this season or last. It has been a consistent inability to find talent commensurate with the payroll. That entire 25 man roster of that Florida team that swept us last weekend makes less than Sexson and Vidro. Their ranking in runs scored in the last 5 years, all the while having one of the top ten payrolls in baseball:
2008 – 27th
2007 – 12th (a fluke)
2006 – 21st
2005 – 22nd
2004 – 25th
and pitching and defense (runs allowed):
2008 – 25th
2007 – 20th
2006 – 17th
2005 – 18th
2004 – 20th
It was the Nationals that swept us last weekend. Florida’s only working on it.
71:
My bad, if I can’t keep track of who is currently sweeping us, what kind of Mariners fan am I?
Psychic?
It’s a natural mistake. D.C. feels like Florida this time of year.
Yes – and Derek didn’t give you are a reference so I will. I believe that manager hirings and firing are included in the data at baseballreference.com. So you don’t even need to search all over the internet or go to a library to get it. After you research it, could you summarize it in a table, and get back to us.
[ot]
Bavasi’s take on Guillen was interesting. I felt that the biggest mistake coming in to the season was effectively exchanging Guillen for the mediocre Wilkerson.
Guillen was a rare Mariner FA signing who didn’t turn to complete garbage (Spiezio, Aurilia, Cirillo, etc.) or anyway disappointment (Sexson, Beltre–I love his glove, but his offensive output is a disappointment considering he was the biggest FA contract given by the M’s at the time) after coming to the Safe.
Guillen was a plus bat, and I thought it was BB’s bonehead in not signing him, because his three year deal was peanuts in terms of cost performance when you compare with contracts like Silva, Washburn, Batista, etc. But BB’s comments on Guillen indicate the possibility that he was severely constrained by Lincoln and Armstrong who must have had their pants in a twist by superficial concerns (the Mitchell report hasn’t seemed to effect Brian Robert, Giambi, Tejada, etc. etc.).
It’s also probably Lincoln and Armstrong who insist on picking up mediocre players because they happen to be “hometown boys”. When most of the other teams are playing rational hardball, such sentimental garbage can pull you down.
Anyway, I’ve been upset with Bavasi’s performance, but I’m getting the idea he was victimized more than we can know by incompetent meddling from above.
And regarding the Guillen topic, I can imagine some rationale to the recent McLaren (crazy man) moves.
If you move the best rightfielder out of his position, it’s with the idea that you are getting a plus bat (like Guillen) to man right.
But when you end up plugging terrible replacement level bats out there, it makes less sense.
The offensive numbers coming out of RF must be terrible this year (Wilkerson being a complete bust and Wlad having serious adjustment problems).
I’d rather see the Ichi-range manning center, but can understand Reed being there too.
Of course it could just be some random move by McLaren going crazy (which could actually be one attempt/way to jumpstart this complete carwreck of a team). Have a crazed unpredictable man drive.
Guillen is a mediocrity. The problem wasn’t letting him go, the mistake was inadequately replacing him.
There has been speculation (not just by bloggers) that the Mets were just going to fire pitching coach Rick Peterson and first base coach Tom Nieto, but Willie Randolph, when told of this, suggested that they just fire him along with them.
78:
If we had 3 mediocraties like Guillen to play first, DH/LF, and RF, and left Ichiro in Center, we wouldn’t be in the shape we’re in. Guillen is no allstar but he is a lot better than what we got.
Fine, but that’s not the argument.
If the only difference was Guillen out there in RF, would this team be a .500 team? Would this be a 90+ win team? Is Guillen really the biggest mistake coming into this season?
The Jose Guillen decision goes way beyond the debate of him versus Brad Wilkerson. It involved all of the horrors that still drive us crazy: Ibanez in LF, Vidro at DH, Sexson at 1B, the Adam Jones trade, the signing of Cairo, etc. Even at that point, when the Mariners still had Jones, they couldn’t fathom a starting lineup of Guillen/Ichiro/Jones with Ibanez at DH/1B and Vidro on the bench. Even Larry LaRue tried to defend the Mariners by saying something along the lines of, “Ibanez is the left fielder, Ichiro the center fielder and Jones the right fielder, so why would the Mariners pay Guillen $12 million to sit?” He also referenced batting average to defend Vidro as the DH.
And when you consider that the Mariners a) had all but decided to trade Jones at that point and b) would have received a sandwich pick had Guillen rejected Seattle’s offer of arbitration, it makes even less sense.
It’s crazy. The three absolute best case scenarios involving Guillen were considered the worst case scenarios in the eyes of the FO (and idiots like LaRue) due to their unwillingness to accept — or perhaps even see — previous mistakes and move forward. The timeline of compounded mistakes that sank the Mariners at warp speed during the Bavasi era is astonishing.
(OK, that rant was totally unnecessary and out of date but it still felt good.)