When does KIRO’s deal actually start?

Why would that matter? The contract is to broadcast the actual games, which doesn’t matter until Spring Training. Anyone can report news about the team.

A couple of notes-First, JZ needs to hit Nordy’s after house shopping and mothball that double breaster he’s sporting around.

judging from the various photos that have popped up, I think even with a trip to Nordys, the taste would remain the same …

Zduriencik could overhaul entire M’s organization (David Andriesen)

Basically contains most stuff covered in the News Conference. The interesting bit is that Armstrong and Lincoln are going to let Zduriencik assess the situation of the current organization (below the two owners of course).

On the positive side, you can see this as an opportunity that Zduriencik gets to make whatever sweeping changes he wants (including possibly punting Lee Pelekoudas). Here’s a new quotable from Armstrong:

“I told Jack that there are no sacred cows here,” Armstrong said. “I want him to come in and evaluate it, and come to me with his thoughts and recommendations.”

In that quote, though, you can also see the negative side of this. Just to further elaborate:

Zduriencik asked Armstrong and Mariners chairman Howard Lincoln for their opinions on people in key positions, but Armstrong and Lincoln declined to give them. Zduriencik’s bosses want him to look at everyone and everything in the organization with fresh eyes and no preconceived notions.

Couple things here. Zduriencik could look around and see that the organization on a whole is not going to work and a completely fresh batch of personel is needed. Armstrong could throw in that we need to keep guys like Lee Pelekoudas and Benny Looper because “they’ve been around for a long time.”

Also, since Zduriencik went to Armstrong and Lincoln to see what who they thought should be kept in the organization we have to hope that these guys stay relatively hands-free of the baseball operations. Otherwise, their methods could be applied with little resistance from Jack.

But I’ve been leaning more towards the positive side throughout this whole process. So far, I don’t see anything that suggest that things are going to go downhill.

Also,

Lincoln, Armstrong laud new M’s GM for his preparation (John Hickey)

More interesting stuff:

“He was very prepared and knows a great deal about guys in our minor league system,” Lincoln said. “It wasn’t superficial, either, but in-depth knowledge about the strengths and weaknesses of our organization. He was the most statistically oriented of the four” (the Los Angeles Dodgers’ Kim Ng, Arizona Diamondbacks’ Jerry Dipoto and Toronto Blue Jays’ Tony LaCava are the others).

Whatever happened during the interview process, Armstrong and Lincoln are lead to believe that he was the most statistically oriented of the candidates (showing charts, graphs, and spreadsheets). What exactly was shown is left to the imagination.

At this point, I’m all on board the Z-train. If Zduriencik believes he can field a competitive team by 2009 then this offseason will answer the critical question, “Can Jack build a Major League Baseball team?”

Here’s to the M’s being a slightly less ass-backwards organization than they were last week. This strange feeling I have….is it perhaps….hope?

Going to a crappy team is a great way to get another shot at head coach.

It sounds like he is going to try and win by acquiring talented players. Nothing more, nothing less. I’m cool with that.