A punishment of years, not weeks
I like to think that our sentence is nearly over, that we’ve got a few more weeks and then we can enjoy the playoffs, start speculating about our new GM, and thinking about how the team might turn around and finish the season with their heads above water.
I worry that it’s not. I’ve been torn about whether or not to even voice this because it’s so negative, but in the end, I think we have to talk about this. Every time I seriously consider this it makes me want to throw up, or close up shop, replace USSM with a page that says “We’ve been promoting your shitty product for years and years now, and it turns out we have a limit. Call us when you’re ready to be smart.”
In a way, though, that makes it the most important thing to talk about.
Here’s the short version:
– They announce that there will need to be a rebuilding effort after all, and payroll will need to come down (check)
– In the off-season, Mariners hire seemingly decent GM
– No higher-up changes happen: Lincoln and Armstrong aren’t held accountable for their responsibility in the long failure of the franchise
– They dump Beltre for very little
– The team doesn’t make any other significant moves because L/A are unwilling to dump salary even when it’s clearly in the team’s best interest (see: Washburn) and goes into next season with this squad essentially minus Ibanez
– The new GM does a better job at assembling the overall roster and putting a working 25-man lineup together, but
– They stink next year, because there’s no money to spend on $2m-$4m stop-gap and injury-return contracts
– Attendance drops even further
– Wamu and other corporate sponsors are toast
– With a drastically lower payroll and a ton of MLBAM cash, the team makes money
– The “rebuilding” goes on, as the team cuts payroll again, so money rolls off (like the Washburn contract) but is not re-invested
– The team makes more money
– Maybe the GM gets fired at some point
– Four years from now, after nearly a decade in the dumpster, the Baseball Club of Seattle either sells out or is re-organized and new owners seize control
– The new owners take over a team with newly-horrible media deals, Felix gone, Ichiro gone, and the only good players in the farm system the products of continually high draft positions
– Hope
“Rebuilding” will be a cover for how bad they are at putting winning teams on the field, a continual excuse for bad records, and at the same time justification for not spending while taking money out of the team through the back door.
I’ve tried not to engage in the “as long as Lincoln and Armstrong are here, there’s no hope” pessimism, but it’s an entirely valid viewpoint. They hire the new GM. But they’re entirely unqualified to do so. And even if we’re lucky and the right candidate makes an absolutely stunning presentation and is hired on the spot, we’ve already seen that they believe their baseball judgment is better than whoever they have in the job.
Consider how depressing that is: the maximum effectiveness of any GM candidate is likely to be determined by the baseball incompetence of Chuck Armstrong. Or: they can’t be smarter in running the team than Chuck is dumb in approving or overriding their decisions.
A point I haven’t made much that backs this up– the Mariners ownership consists essentially of Lincoln for Nintendo of America (and really, for Yamauchi). They’ve recently tried to sell the idea that the minority owners are somehow involved in the team — probably to spread blame more than anything– but this isn’t true. They have minority owners who have massive tech chops, and they have no say at all in the team’s operations. They have a stake in the team, their interests are aligned, but Lincoln’s never reached out to them for help, say, the wholesale construction of the kind of data infrastructure the Indians have.
Armstrong believes himself a sabermetrician, good enough to justify his team’s horrible ignorance of new statistical methods, and he’s not.
Armstrong believes himself a baseball talent evaluator and a better negotiator and a better GM at least than the man he put into the job, when Lee Pelekoudas worked for the team since ’79, and worked himself into the front office, and Armstrong got his because he knew George Argyros.
And this is my greatest fear, that he and Lincoln will run and gut this team for the years no matter what name appears on the front office page as “general manager.”
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And I should also say that as much as I think Pat Gillick would love to assume his shadow-GM position here with a better title (and presumably better pay), it doesn’t make a lot of sense that the people now running the team would bring him on except for PR purposes.
Well thanks for the uplifting comments on a gloomy, rainy Monday. I emotionally survived the financial meltdown last week, but not sure I can survive this.
Seriously, you only wrote what many of of think may happen. With an absent owner, it isn’t likely that real change is going to happen.
Yup. Seems about right.
These fools lucked into their success. And totally frittered it away. I mean, they had Jr., the Unit and A-Rod together. AND COULDN’T EVEN GET TO THE WORLD SERIES.
Wanna talk records and baseball management? There it is, in black and white….
Baseball is an odd business, in that when a major company goes down the CEO gets fired. But in baseball middle management goes first, the GM, Manager, Hitting Coach, and so on…
Armstrong and Lincoln need to be gone. They are the real problem here.
Sorry, Derek:
As long as Lincoln and Armstrong are here, there is no hope. I refuse to even pay my way into the ballpark until they are gone, and I have told them so, for whatever that is worth.
Seattle, the Cincinnati Bengals of major league baseball….
Sorry, Rick.
Certainly what you fear is a linear extrapolation of what’s preceded. Could have written it myself.
Events have a way of throwing a wrench into linear extrapolations, however. Dozens of scenarios suggest themselves here. Yamauchi may become embarrassed enough to replace or supercede Lincoln/Armstrong; Yamauchi may sell the team; Lincoln/Armstrong may simply resign; Ichiro may finally be frank with Yamauchi in their annual off-season chat; Selig’s successor might intervene “in the best interests of the game”: the PFD that “owns” the stadium may kick up its heels; fans may boycott; etc. The one thing that we can predict is that the future is unpredictable. As they say, “that’s why we play the game.”
So yes, we’re probably in for some more bad seasons. But with the potential revenue stream this team as already demonstrated, a terminal spiral is unlikely. As fans, our job is to make it clear that the current state of affairs is unacceptable, and the only tool we have to do this is not buying tickets. With attendance dropping another 12+% this year, it looks like many fans “get it.” If season ticket sales continue falling 10%/year and broadcast contracts continue dropping 50%, heads will roll before we field the Royals West. Remember too, that operating profits are nice, but that the gold reaped when the team is sold, and a hollow shell of a team is worth a fraction of successful one.
In the Japanese tradition aren’t guys who’ve screwed up as badly as Lincoln and Armstrong supposed to just gut themselves and save their master some embarrassment?
Traditionally yes, but Lincoln and Armstrong aren’t Japanese or playing by Japanese rules. Still, a scenario I hadn’t considered!
Given the realistic depiction of the M’s future as written by DMZ, I think that the Schick Shadel radio ads will become more and more relevant to all of us. At least one sponsor should benefit from all of this.
Ouch…Pat O’Day may end up being a bigger celebrity than Eddie Vedder.
I will withhold this judgment until I see who they hire. But, Yes…this is my deepest fear.
Let me share another ray of optimistic hope – ICHIRO’s relationship with Yamauchi. Here’s how it plays out: The season comes to a merciful end. Ichiro has his annual meeting with Yamauchi and tells Yamauchi why the fish stinks. Yamauchi comes out of his office with his Ninja swords asking where Lincoln is.
We can only hope!
I can completely understand the gloomy nature of the post, but allow me to put forward an even gloomier scenario: Being a Sonic fan.
With all due respect, as bad as it feels to be a Mariner fan, and as empty as you may feel for putting forth such incredible and time-consuming efforts over the years on behalf of a team that seems to provide as much respect to its followers as the Bush Administration does to its citizenry, believe me, as a Sonic fan, there are worse feelings.
Maybe you should look at your efforts as akin to a tugboat (a USS Mariner, perhaps?) pushing an oil tanker. Initially, it seems as though the tugboat is doing nothing, and the tanker will never move. Eventually, though, the tanker changes position and starts going in the right direction.
They did manage to hire Pat Gillick, who was good enough to build a really good team for a couple years there. While shredding the future, I know. But the point is, either his reputation or his authority was strong enough that Lincoln and Armstrong either deferred to it or were persuaded that they agreed with him.
What this suggests is that our best hope might actually be for the Gillick-replaces-Armstrong rumor to be true. That, or at least to bring in an experienced GM rather than one of the young up-and-comers. And one with an actual track record of winning, more than Bavasi who may have helped build the Angels’ eventual Series-winning squad, but whose teams won no titles during his tenure. Gerry Hunsicker or Kevin Towers, maybe?
In the Japanese tradition aren’t guys who’ve screwed up as badly as Lincoln and Armstrong supposed to just gut themselves and save their master some embarrassment?
“Eviscerated Chuck Armstrong Bobblehead Night” would be a game I’d drive up for.
There’s no way in h.e.double.hockey.sticks that Gillick comes anywhere near this team with Howard Lincoln anywhere near it. While there’s certainly some debate as to whether or not Gillick’s return to Seattle would be a good thing — it’s in-debatable that if he DID return, good things happened (Howie’s departure, for one).
Thanks for finally taking a dive into the minds of those of us who’ve been saying that this team lives and breathes by Howard & Chuck, and that the Mariners won’t really change for the better (and return to the playoffs) until they’re gone. I think you can see why we’re so frustrated. I mean, really, you can put different shades of lipstick on a pig, but it’s still a pig.
Chuck Armstrong has been with this team essentially since 1986 (had a few years out of power during the Smulyan years). While some may say that he’s more Grover Dill than Scott Farkus, he’s still a huge nuisance to this club, and a thorn in the side of all of us.
While Chuck Armstrong still may yet be the “casualty” in all of this, if the ownership group remains the same, both he and Howard have to go in order to see the massive change that’s needed in this franchise…
I think Derek is spot on. The M’s have no chance with Howie and Chuckie in charge. It does not matter how brillant the GM may turn out to be.
M’s fans have to contrast their plight with that of the Oakland A’s. You know that the ownership and management is absolutely dedicated to putting the best product on the field. If they can manage to get their proposed ball park built in Freemont (no easy task as the California legislature is not as stupid as ours and will not be handing them blank checks)….then look out because it will be like the Red Sox and Yankees in the East, and the division will be contested solely by the Angels and A’s, with the M’s doing their best impersonation of the Orioles.
Check out the interview with the A’s owner on the blog “Athletics Nation” and tell me that you would not swap the entire M’s ownership for him in a heartbeat.
it makes you wonder just what they do talk about at their regular board meetings ….
Thiel had his two “change needed at the top” columns in June and July which both seemed to all resolve into, “no matter what, Howard stays in charge” …
How do you get the bosses fired?
And Edgar!
Do Chuck Armstrong and Howard Lincoln even have a leg to stand on anymore after basically leading this team to 100 losses TWICE in 5 years?
I don’t care whether or not this team is rebuilding, Mr. Spin Doctor and Super Mario have run out of excuses in terms of having this team lose, even if rebuilding is the right thing to do.
Chuck and Howard have in just 7 years time turned this team from being one of the greatest in history to being in the same ranks as the Pittsburgh Pirates, Baltimore Orioles, Kansas City Royals, etc. if not lower.
So if that is the case, why the heck should we fans give Chuck Armstrong and Howard Lincoln a free pass on the next few seasons because the team is “rebuilding”?
I know I’m not going to.
Face it people, this ownership is moribund as long as they make a profit and give fans the PERCEPTION that their trying to win; they want to make money.
And if you don’t believe me, talk to Bill Bavasi considering he had zero say on the Kenji Johjima extension.
Here’s hoping that Chris Larson becomes majority owner of this team sooner rather than later and Gillick is the next president. It may not be the BEST option available, but it sure as hell is better than what we have now in purgatory.
Great post. Small point of clarification. You wrote about Armstrong and “his team’s horrible ignorance of new statistical methods.” I talked to Armstrong about the new statistical methods and he is not ignorant of them in the sense of not being aware they exist. He just thinks they are not useful or accurate or that his analysis is better than the new methods. He is dismissive about the methods and arrogant in his own views but he knows of the new methods. The problem isn’t creating awareness of the new methods but in creating an understanding of what they mean and how they can be used. I’m concerned this can’t be accomplished with Armstrong so put me in the camp of those who believe this thing can’t be turned around with Armstrong in his current position of power.
Want some science to make this even more depressing? There’s an article in Salon, pertaining to the presidential election, but the studies it references pertains just as well to Armstrong. Here is the key part of the article:
Unfortunately, cognitive science offers some fairly sobering observations about our ability to judge ourselves and others.
Perhaps the single academic study most germane to the present election is the 1999 psychology paper by David Dunning and Justin Kruger, “Unskilled and Unaware of It: How Difficulties in Recognizing One’s Own Incompetence Lead to Inflated Self-Assessments.” The two Cornell psychologists began with the following assumptions.
# Incompetent individuals tend to overestimate their own level of skill.
# Incompetent individuals fail to recognize genuine skill in others.
# Incompetent individuals fail to recognize the extremity of their inadequacy.
And these assumptions were validated by the research these professors conducted.
I would say, unfortunately, this description fits Armstrong perfectly.
Thanks Derek, now I’m feeling optomistic, uplifted, happy, and chipper. I have hope for the future, but if Felix walks out the door because of these guys’ gross imcompentence, I’m walking out too.
Derek’s opening post noted the core problem: major league baseball’s business model involves a huge disconnect between winning and making money. Deep down, what American executive worth his excessive salt intake would believe he was an idiot while the cash was still rolling in?
Amen, Derek! Unfortunately, you’re probably preaching to the choir. Hopefully someone else is listening.
My concerns can be captured by the interview that Chuck Armstrong did with Ian Furness on KJR on 9/5. During that interview, Armstrong was exasperated when describing why he had blocked the trade of Washburn to the Twins. His logic was that if the team gave away Washburn “for nothing”, meaning for no returning players, then the team would have to go out on the FA market this winter. For a FA lefty starter who had pitched as well as Washburn had for the past couple of weeks, they’d pay more than Washburn’s current salary. Therefore, the move didn’t make sense.
The problem with this of course is that Armstrong doesn’t realize the concept of replacement level talent, and that’s not the only pool from which to pull talent from.
Additionally, he completely dismissed the impact of Raul Ibanez’ defense, the possibility of Bedard’s injury stemming from last season, and many other items.
He was flabbergasted that, “unlike 2001”, everybody on the team had missed their expected output. He included Beltre in that pool.
Executive leadership MUST consider all possibilities, and not get trapped into thinking that their way is the only way. And this is where Armstrong appears to be living.
I’m going to remain as cautiously optimistic as possible that, in the end, what the Mariners need more than anything is a competent GM to oversee operations. If you look at the MO of this team, it suggests that, absent the GM, this is a team that is dedicated to winning:
– For better or (mostly) worse, the Mariners have been active in free agency. While most of their spending was misguided, that L/A put their faith and wallets in Bavasi for as long as they did is a sign that this team 1. doesn’t care enough about their product as long as it generates revenue or 2. acknowledges they’re not competent enough to micromanage personnel decisions. Either way, it suggests a GM carries a good deal of authority in personnel decisions.
– They’ve been hesitant to drastically trim salary. Whether this was due to a faulty belief that they were near contenders or cognizant that most teams need to spend to win, it’s also an encouraging sign that, at the basic level, the front office cares about winning.
– They’ve fostered and maintained their strong international pipeline.
– They haven’t been scared to shell out money for high-risk high-reward prospects, whether international or through the amateur draft.
Consider how depressing that is: the maximum effectiveness of any GM candidate is likely to be determined by the baseball incompetence of Chuck Armstrong. Or: they can’t be smarter in running the team than Chuck is dumb in approving or overriding their decisions.
And there’s the rub: we’re putting our faith in Armstrong being able to make a qualified decision, which is a remarkable leap of faith. My optimism is buried in the belief that the Bavasi era has proved that you can’t get by on personality and lineage alone: you need to be more progressive and aggressive in the modern baseball world.
Sobering post, Derek, but totally bang on! Without mentioning any names, of course, there’s a distinct parallel there between baseball and “other” current events.
Or, even the Detroit Lions, for that matter.
Yes, they do. They turn a nice profit every year and will continue to do so for the foreseeable future, thanks to enough of a fan base who values the Safeco Experience and cuddly players more than actual performance.
“Or, even the Detroit Lions, for that matter.”
So which member of the M’s coaching staff is most likely to pull up to a Wendy’s drive thru naked?
Uh, folks, this is a GOOD thing. Being profitable in down years allows you to ride out the bad years without damaging the team too much.
It’s just that these jokers have no clue on how to build a good team. And they’d do even WORSE damage if they were under the gun and weren’t profitable in bad years.
Case in point, the Cubs — who always seem to draw at least enough profit out of their crap years to be able to finance their better ones.
s/Mariners/Dodgers/
Although I rarely post here, I read this blog a fair amount. Since I like to dissent when I comment and this isn’t a great place to do that, I tend to not post a great deal. That doesn’t mean, of course that I dissent all the time.
This is an example of a post where I couldn’t agree with the sentiment more. In terms of ability to assemble a competitive baseball team, I am far more in agreement with the assessment of the blog authors than not. For a long time, I’ve been hesitant to pounce on Bavasi specifically because there simply has not been the type of winning culture demanded here from the top that would facilitate improvement in on-field activities. I still withhold judgement on Bavasi somewhat because I suspect that he never had a completely free hand. I suspect there was more meddling that we don’t officially know about and the Washburn situation only serves to reinforce that.
As much as I like to be contrarian and post only when I disagree, I can’t do that in this case. Perhaps we can hope that the L/A regime ends sooner rather than later so our sentence can be shorter.
I find this somewhat funny because even if you use older methods as crude as OPS and ERA+, you could still do better than Armstrong at using results to predict future production.
Good possible analogies, both of them, but the really scary analogy is with the Ghosts of Mariners past; i.e. to take the worst case scenario that DMZ envisioned, but even more so: a vicious circle of reduced fan interest, reduced payroll, and reduced wins, returning the Ms to the bad old decades of the 1970s and 1980s and early 1990s. There was a time when Seattle wasn’t very interested in baseball, at least not bad baseball.
And then the spiral culminates as Sure described, with the M’s becoming the Oklahoma Wind or whatever.
The M’s have a couple of assets now that they didn’t have then. They have Safeco rather than the Kingdome. And they have the legacy and memories of 1995 and of Edgar and of Junior and etc., i.e. several tens or probably hundreds of thousands of people with memories that watching the Ms play can be a fun thing.
But that might be about it. They currently have an ownership that’s willing to spend money, but ownership can change (just ask Sonics fans), players can leave, etc. so the only truly reliable assets that they have are those two. Which hopefully will be enough to leave the M’s at worst at Dodgers or Cubs level rather than 1980s M’s level (and the Cubs level of 2008 isn’t a bad place to be).
But as a Sonics fan I can’t help but look at the future M’s years with just a touch of dread: far-fetched though the worst-case scenario may be, the departure of the Sonics was also far-fetched at one time.
One good thing about college sports, compared to pro sports, is that universities don’t up and leave town. But with the way the UW’s been playing … well here’s looking forward to the MLS!
I remember when Seattle University basketball — a school with an NCAA finals appearance, that boasted Elgin Baylor as an alumnus — left Division I in the late 1970s; that pretty much amounted to leaving, period.