Things I would be surprised to hear a new manager say

DMZ · November 20, 2008 at 6:22 pm · Filed Under Mariners 

“I liked the old approach, and don’t think I’ll be changing it.”
“We’re not going to work on fundamentals this spring — we’re good enough at that kind of thing.”
“We’re going to be less aggressive on the basepaths.”
“There will be no real competition for jobs unless there’s a major injury.”
“This is a bad club with no chance at contention.”
“I want to lose coming out of the gate and establish a losing atmosphere that can carry us all season.”
“I’m going to try to divide the team into warring camps I can play against each other.”

Comments

20 Responses to “Things I would be surprised to hear a new manager say”

  1. Typical Idiot Fan on November 20th, 2008 6:32 pm

    What brought this on, friend Derek?

  2. msb on November 20th, 2008 6:56 pm

    “damn, my star player is an ass, and if he never gets off the bench I’ll be happy.”

  3. msb on November 20th, 2008 7:23 pm

    hey, you can see if Wakamatsu used any of these in his long interview this afternoon

  4. Breadbaker on November 20th, 2008 8:05 pm

    “I’m quite unimpressed with ownership here and hope in my next gig to have a better front office supporting me.”

    “I understand these are the worst fans in baseball and I’m hoping to match their expectations.”

  5. Ruuupe on November 20th, 2008 8:29 pm

    “We’re trying to get our pitchers to concentrate on throwing more first-pitch balls.”

    “We’d like our hitters to show a little less patience at the plate.”

  6. King Rat on November 20th, 2008 8:42 pm

    I was irritated that he was so anti-rebuilding periods. I hope that doesn’t mean he starts looking for “established veterans”. I wouldn’t mind a few losing seasons if the teams were filled with young up and comers who will make a great team a couple of years from now.

  7. msb on November 20th, 2008 8:45 pm

    I didn’t get that he was anti-rebuilding, just anti the phrase ‘rebuilding’

  8. Buckyfan on November 20th, 2008 8:52 pm

    “There are just too many Asians in baseball!”

  9. drjeff on November 20th, 2008 9:18 pm

    “None of these young kids on the club can be compared to a well-known star.”

    “Last year was fine. I don’t really see any reason we should try to improve on it.”

  10. msb on November 20th, 2008 9:34 pm

    “winning breeds infighting, jealousy and general all-round laziness”

  11. kinbote on November 20th, 2008 9:45 pm

    “My wife and children don’t like the area. We’ve done very little research on the schools, but from what we can tell they are quite poor.”

  12. Mothy on November 20th, 2008 10:34 pm

    Didn’t McLaren say pretty much the same thing as the 4th one? Maybe that’s why they sucked so much.

  13. DaveValleDrinkNight on November 20th, 2008 10:40 pm

    Or how about,

    “Not only will this Team lose at least 90 games for the next two years, were also raising the price of Beer at Safeco.”

  14. earinc on November 20th, 2008 10:53 pm

    Ladies and gentlemen, The Zduriencik/Wakamatsu era! It rolls off the tongue.

    In all seriousness, I’m pretty stoked. Let’s give ’em a shot.

  15. joser on November 21st, 2008 9:30 am

    “I’m not going to sit up here and promise the moon. Obviously, someone promised the moon last year and it didn’t work out.”

    Wait, Wakamatsu did say that at at the press conference.

    I like him already.

    Also — happy birthday to Ken Griffey Jr (39), Hank Blalock (28), and Stan Musial (88).

  16. joser on November 21st, 2008 9:38 am

    The Zduriencik/Wakamatsu era! It rolls off the tongue.

    It’s the Waky-Z era. If it doesn’t work out, they can do hip hop.

    Z’s the MC dealin’ whack rhymes
    Wak does the scratchin’ while ridin’ the pine
    Z’s on the phone, rappin’ out deals
    Wak’s in the dugout, keepin it reals

  17. msb on November 21st, 2008 1:19 pm

    [scratching ’til fade]

  18. Soundview on November 21st, 2008 2:52 pm

    Great humor. Yes it would be nice to see some unvarnished commentary from the always PC Mariners management. Unfortunately, what we got from Wak was the good old “We’re going to try to win right away”, and even better “just with osmosis, we should be better than last year”. Heaven help us.

    Haven’t we heard this before, and before that? The schizophrenia remains: are we (re-)building for the future or will we just try to patch things up around our veteran players and see if we can trick the fans into coming back to the ballpark. When fans are being lost at the rate of ~500,000 a year for last several years, I’d think some candid comments would be very appropriate…as noted in this thread!

  19. joser on November 21st, 2008 4:37 pm

    Well, I don’t know about “osmosis” but he’s right, even if they changed nothing they should be better than last year, because last year they significantly underperformed their Pythagorean won-loss (67-95). Just as they weren’t as good as they appeared in 2007, they weren’t quite as bad as they appeared in 2008 (though they were still pretty bad). But Wak has a valid point that the team was/is a little better than people might believe. That’s a sane observation, and if he (and more importantly Zduriencik) also realizes when the team is over-performing, then we won’t have a repeat of the “trade away the farm to get one piece to push us over the top” insanity like last year’s offseason.

  20. JerBear on November 21st, 2008 10:38 pm

    Z’s the MC dealin’ whack rhymes
    Wak does the scratchin’ while ridin’ the pine
    Z’s on the phone, rappin’ out deals
    Wak’s in the dugout, keepin it reals

    [scratching ’til fade]

    Classic, guys. Classic.

    Yeah, I can’t fault Wak for anything he’s said yet. He did make some semi-valid points, and he’s a new manager – he’s supposed to say these things.

    I think it’s obvious by now that we can expect anything but “more of the same,” and I couldn’t be happier. I know a lot of us have been (understandably) conditioned to be pessimistic, but, quite frankly, we should all be jumping up and down right now…

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