Uncertain Embarrassment
I knew, immediately, it was all embarrassing for the organization. There are, at any one time, 30 managers in Major League Baseball. Many of them are safe, not at all fearing for their job. It’s a tough gig to land, not unlike being a major-league broadcaster, and so when you have one of those positions, it seems like it would take an awful lot to be compelled to give it up. Eric Wedge was managing the Mariners, and because of his experience, he removed himself from the running for managing this team in a year. He probably wasn’t going to get the chance anyway, but Wedge went out because he wanted to. The Mariners, essentially, were rejected by their own manager, a manager who had so confidently bought in. There’s no way for that to not make the organization look bad, and now this is all people want to talk about. Wedge quit the Mariners, they say. It’s just the latest turbo boost as the Mariners rocket toward irrelevance.
I know this is embarrassing. What I can’t figure out, though, is how embarrassed to feel. So the Mariners and Eric Wedge didn’t see eye-to-eye. What reason is there to believe Wedge had the right ideas? What more have we really learned about how the Mariners are run?
It seems like maybe there were failures of communication. Yeah, that’s kind of a part of this team. It seems like there are some accountability issues up top. Yeah, same. Maybe the Mariners don’t come off committed enough to trying to succeed. People have been saying this for years. Where did Wedge and the Mariners disagree, beyond just the Mariners’ confidence in Wedge himself?
Obviously, Wedge and the front office would’ve shared in the goal of seeing the Mariners get good. Differences must’ve been in how to get there, and to be honest, as much as I’m skeptical about the front office, it’s not like Wedge is a roster-management mastermind. His job isn’t to build a team — his job is to manage a team, and we can’t speak to the respective plans without knowing what they are. Wedge talked about committing to development, implying the Mariners might’ve been wavering, but he also alluded to a need to spend more, implying the Mariners might’ve wanted to stick with youth. I don’t know, and I suspect we won’t know. We don’t know where they disagreed — we just have an idea the Mariners aren’t losing a brilliant strategist.
As for the Mariners not committing to Wedge, well, what has he done? He most certainly hasn’t been the problem, but the team hasn’t gotten better. Wedge managed for three seasons, and it’s not like this roster feels like it’s on the verge of something special. Maybe, a year ago, Wedge wanted a longer commitment, and the Mariners were reluctant to make it, and maybe it would be better to have Wedge still around, but just as Wedge wasn’t the biggest issue, is the manager going to be the Mariners’ biggest solution? Ultimately, it’s the players who play the game. They get instruction from coaches, teammates, opponents, and experience, and it’s up to the players to make themselves better.
Wedge talked about the need for personnel continuity, consistency. Said it was extra important for a developing team like these Mariners. The Indians switched managers and now they’re a wild-card team. The A’s took off not under Bob Geren, but under Bob Melvin. Wedge has a vested interest in asserting that consistency is important. Consistency means a kept job. What he actually needs, now, is inconsistency somewhere else, so he can get a job there. Because, you know, Eric Wedge is a free agent.
Wedge was all-in with these Mariners, and you could genuinely see it in his eyes, and now he’s lost faith in the organization. He did what he could to leave on his own terms, not quite quitting, but conveying the idea. That doesn’t look good, and we all have reason to believe the Mariners are headed in the wrong direction. But then, that doesn’t mean Wedge was right, and it doesn’t mean the Mariners are worse off without him, and it doesn’t mean the Mariners are any further from success. I don’t know what Wedge envisioned, and I don’t know what the Mariners envision, but I don’t want either building a roster. Endy Chavez just batted 279 times. Wedge went out like a man, but he very well might not have been the man for the Mariners. He didn’t quite seem like the man for the Indians, although there at least he had success, and again, a manager can get only so much blame.
The Mariners might have a hard time finding their next manager, given the situation with their next manager’s boss. What the Mariners need more than a good manager are good baseball players, and that’s going to drive everything. Talent means wins and fans and success and respect and appeal, and everything would be helped rather considerably if the Mariners just stopped being bad. I suspect Wedge would’ve had relatively little to do with that. I think Wedge now has some personal issues with Zduriencik and Armstrong and Lincoln, but we all already did. So. I think we were kind of already embarrassed, and losing Wedge seems a hell of a lot better than overspending on Josh Hamilton.
After 2011, the Orioles had a hell of a time trying to find a general manager. Nobody wanted the job. They gave it to Dan Duquette, who wasn’t even involved in the game beforehand. It seemed like it must’ve been humiliating. Last year, the Orioles won 93 games, and this year they were involved in the race until the final one or two weeks. They seem to be in pretty good shape, and no one thinks of them as being a laughingstock anymore, at least. People don’t laugh at the Pirates, either. Maybe soon the Royals won’t be a joke.
And maybe soon, the Mariners won’t be, either. I know I’m supposed to be embarrassed by what’s happened, and I think I am, a little bit, but I have a stronger sensation of how I’m supposed to feel than with my actual feelings. Just how black is this black eye?
And So It Ends
The 2013 season is over. It was, in my personal opinion, the least enjoyable season to follow since I started paying attention to the team back in the mid-80s. There have been worse Mariners teams, certainly, but this particular roster represented just such a huge step in the wrong direction for the entire organization. And, of course, it didn’t have to be this way. That this was an intentional construction in an effort to build a winning team would have been hilarious if it wasn’t so sad.
The organization continues to sell hope, even as it looks more and more dysfunctional by the day. You’ve probably noticed that I stopped buying what they were selling a while ago, and 2013 didn’t do anything to restore my hope that the team was right and I was wrong. So, now, I’ve basically adopted a new hope; that this team was so awful, so unwatchable, so embarrassing that there’s a reevaluation of internal beliefs.
We’ve already seen this front office pivot after failure before. They went for pitching-and-defense, and when that didn’t work out, we got this abomination of a dingers-and-leadership roster. That it didn’t work either might — might — make a case for just focusing on good all around players. Guys who can hit, and field, and run, and pitch, and if they’re good in the clubhouse, then that’s a nice bonus. That’s what this team needs – good players, of all shapes and sizes.
The defense was atrocious, but it isn’t so simple as getting better defenders. The pitching was bad, but this team isn’t a couple of new pitchers away from being good. The Mariners need a lot of new players, most of them better than the ones that got a lot of playing time in 2013. My hope is not in these players magically improving, but in the 2013 season being a wake-up call that there is no championship core in place, and that the team needs to change course and go get some better players to open 2014.
They have two good pitchers in Felix Hernandez and Hisashi Iwakuma. They have a good third baseman in Kyle Seager, and a shortstop who looks like he might be pretty good in Brad Miller. Those four should enter spring training next year as the entrenched starters at their positions. The other 21 spots on the roster should be sources of potential upgrade. That doesn’t mean I think Mike Zunino, Dustin Ackley, Taijuan Walker, James Paxton, et al are totally useless. A couple of them might actually help the team next year. They just shouldn’t be counted on. Their contributions in 2014 should be bonuses, not a prerequisite for the team to succeed.
It’s time to move on from Justin Smoak as the team’s starting first baseman. The team needs at least two new outfielders, and if Kendrys Morales keeps asking for crazy money, they need a new DH too. They should acquire a stopgap catcher who can play everyday to start the year, allowing Mike Zunino to learn how to hit in the minor leagues like he should have done this year. They need at least one starting pitcher, maybe two. And the bullpen and bench both need work.
It’s a pretty long list. It’s a lot to accomplish in one winter. Maybe too much. Maybe there are just too many holes to put together a winning team next year. But, there are useful role players to be had, quality additions to be made, and the possibility for the team to go from utterly useless to at least acceptably okay. These upgrades are easier than going from good to great. It shouldn’t be that hard to find reasonable Major League players to fill the spots that were given to totally useless scrubs this season.
The organization just first has to realize that that’s actually what they did. They have to stop blaming the kids for this team’s failures and realize that it was the cavalcade of horrible veterans that dragged this team into the depths of despair. They need better veterans, and to get those, they need to realize that last year’s ideas about roster construction were entirely wrong.
That’s the hope I have. Jack Z and his team have changed course before, following an attempt to win that didn’t work. Maybe they’ll do it again. I have my doubts, but if you’re looking for hope in 2014, that’s probably a better spot to look than hoping that all the young kids magically become good overnight.