Brock and Salk segment
Dave · September 16, 2010 at 10:37 am · Filed Under Mariners
I’m doing my regular spot with Brock and Salk at 11:30 today. My post for them will go up tomorrow instead of today as usual, by the way.
I’ll have something up here on USSM later today, but for this morning’s recommended reading, check out Shannon Drayer’s latest post, dealing with the involvement level of the ownership during the last few years. It’s good stuff.
Shannon’s post is excellent if you don’t dismiss her as being a mouthpiece for Ms management. I don’t dismiss her that way – her blog is part of my regular reading – so I thought it was good background. (It especially gives good context to the reports of people in scouting and front office looking to bail, if Jack has a closed circle of people who do a lot of the conversation and consideration around scouting.)
But I could see some people rolling their eyes about that post saying “well, of course she’s not going to find anyone who supports the fire-Chuck-and-Howie crowd… and if she did she wouldn’t blog about it without potentially losing some of her contacts”.
She works for the team. She is their puppet. She would not write critically of anybody or like Chris said, she could lose some contacts.
I’ll grant that she might not have blogged about it this way if the answers were coming back negative, but she does say she specifically focused on talking to people who have already left for various reasons (I’m thinking Pelekoudas types), so her contacts would be independent of the current regime.
Given the relative lack of success in scouting and player development pre-Zduriencik, is this a bad thing? Or am I over-emphasizing failure in the M’s system?
Prior to yesterday’s game, Lincoln and Armstrong came on the field to present a gift to the Japanese ambassador, who was attending the game. Not a boo to be heard.
Yes true, but my point was she didn’t want to come out, guns blazing and burn her bridges with current Mariner contacts.
Missed the first sentence lol
Doesn’t her article only prove Armstrong and Co. are incompetent morons? Drayer states
that during Gillick and Bavasi’s tenure there was an open-door-never-ending-meetings about moves. What did that policy do for the M’s except sell off young talent for more diamond-dry? Armstrong apparently used to ask tons of questions prior to acquiring a player. Once again, what did the M’s gain from these questions? except guys like Broussard, Perez, H Ramirez, Aurilia, Sexson, etc… No matter how you cut it, player evaluation has been abhorrent in the Lincoln-Armstrong tenure. And it was
much worse when they were included in the conversation. Keep your ‘closed circle’ Jack Z.
No, it means they understood the limits of their competency, which is primarily in business and law. Accordingly, Armstrong may have participated in discussions, but he left the ultimate player acquisition decisions up to those hired specifically for that competency. Now, they may not have hired well, but if you consider that deals like Broussard-Choo and Perez-Cabrera came during the “If I’m going to burn, I’ll do so on a bonfire of my own making” phase of the Bavasi era, it’s plausible that Armstrong’s input on the transaction side was actually mostly sensible.
Bill Bavasi followed orders, trying to win now, but HowChuck messed up by ordering “no rebuilding” and sticking to it by allowing transactions that exacted such a high price on the farm system.
If the GM has the latitude to do what he wants, within budget, without fear of losing his job, then he can build for the long haul. AS soon as his bosses pressure him to deliver in too-short a time frame, it’s like maxing out your credit cards to pay your mortgage when you’re unemployed and your loan balance is more than its worth – you might postpone the day of reckoning, but the long-term cost is much worse that the short-term pain.
So give Jack Z a ten-year contract and leave the other guys out of the loop.
If Armstrong is/was involved in player discussions, and doesn’t put-the-kibash on the deal, he should eventually be held as responsible as the men he hired, and fired.
She is an employee of 710 ESPN, and the Bonneville Corporation.