It’s A Good Start
Whenever the M’s get around to announcing who their new GM is, I’m pretty sure I know what my reaction will be.
“Nice, good hire, now let’s get started with the house cleaning.”
Whether it ends up being LaCava, DiPoto, Zduriencik, or Ng, I think we will have ample reason to be somewhat optimistic about what lays ahead. All have some really strong points in their favor, and they all differ significantly from the crop of people the M’s interviewed the last time around. While none of them fit the Epstein/Friedman/Byrnes mold that perhaps we would have preferred, they all come well spoken of and appear to be qualified to bring about the changes this organization badly needs.
But that last sentence is the key point. If the M’s just see this as a single job opening for a new guy to make decisions on trades and free agent signings, it won’t be enough. None of those four will be able to build a perennial contender with the organization that’s in place right now, because the underlying philosophies of the team have just been completely wrong for the last, oh, 30 years or so. The new GM has to be able to bring about significant change in the way this team runs its baseball operations.
The team needs a new player development plan. The scouts generally do a good job of bringing talent into the organization, but too often, that talent simply doesn’t mature into useful major league players. There’s a lack of cohesion in coaching from one minor league team to the next, and outdated philosophies about how to help kids improve being put into practice far too often. The club’s uber-aggressive promotion of prospects needs to be toned down, because it doesn’t help the club to push raw kids to Triple-A and have them stagnate in Tacoma for several years trying to learn things they should have picked up in A-ball.
The organizational also needs a real analytical department. No, having Mat Olkin on retainer as a consultant doesn’t count. The team needs to find a few of the hundreds of ridiculously smart college graduates who would literally work for free, give them some office space, and tell them to bring the team’s data analysis up to modern times. Create an internship program that brings the best and brightest of the game’s future executives into the organization, creating an in house future GM farm. Mine the newest forms of data, from Pitch F/x to advanced fielding metrics, to catch up with the rest of the American League’s elite in terms of understanding what to value and where advantages can be found.
And, the GM needs the power to say goodbye to the longtime organizational soldiers who simply aren’t going to be part of a transformation of this club. Lee Pelekoudas and Benny Looper (among others) have certainly earned their seniority over the years, and while loyalty is something to be valued, they should be thanked for their years of service and offered a nice retirement package. It’s simply time for a new direction, and the voices of the past don’t need to be continually pushing their antiquated beliefs on the upper management. The new GM needs to be able to build a support staff that will work together to foster new, better ideas about how baseball teams are run without worrying about offending one of the people who screwed up the organization in the first place. Those people don’t need to be in the room anymore. They’ve had their chance to run a baseball team, and they failed at it. It’s time for them to move on.
If the Mariners are really committed to seeing change come to the baseball operations department, this won’t be the last hiring announced before the 2009 season begins. No matter who the new GM is, they should be able to bring fresh voices at all levels of the organization, grabbing the brightest minds from around the game to help rebuild this team into something that actually resembles a forward thinking club. If they stop at just hiring one of LaCava, Ng, Zduriencik, or DiPoto, however, and ask them to fit into the structure already in place, then it really doesn’t matter which one they hire, because it won’t be enough.
A new general manager is a good start in the right direction, but it’s not enough. This needs to be the beginning of real change throughout the way this team runs on a day to day basis, or we’re going to be chasing the Angels, Rangers, and A’s for a long, long time.
Well said, Dave. I’d love to see them bring in not just one of those 4, but about 2-3 of those 4, a la Texas did with Grady Fuson once upon a time. It’ll take a team of bright minds to mend this team and allow it to begin to rebound from rock bottom.
Hopefully this doesn’t drag out for too long.
Hear, HEAR HEAR!!!!!
(Though, I’m afraid that any such change will be gradual and perhaps incremental at first…)
Amen. Particularly agree about the old admirals being gently put to pasture. With an adequate thank you, especially Benny.
I couldn’t agree more.
If they are really subject to change like they say, they will allow the GM power to do what is needed. It’s pretty clear that isn’t happening though, with Armstrong’s recent comments. This organization is going to take several steps back until Lincoln and Armstrong realize they need to let the baseball people do the work as they stay as far away from it as possible.
Armstrong truly believes he is god’s gift to the Seattle Mariners, and until that perception changes, the Mariners are going fail.
You hit it on the head when you said this shouldn’t be just 1 job opening. The new GM will have to look at the organization from their position down and see who fits in their plan. If not then happy trails. They need to turn this #2 pick into something and that would start with the GM revamping the minor league model of how they develop talent in my opinion.
It’s interesting to see what path the M’s go down. As you written about and touched on here, the M’s need an organization change when it comes to AAA to MLB development and transition. With an emphasis on the fundamentals of working the count.
My hope is one of the four realized a smarter way to build this team.
Can’t wait till this is over. Then we can worry about who the manager will be.
Dave – very apt comments. Until reading this I hadn’t really thought about that very much.
As much as I would like to hope the team os focusd on “blowing things up”, given what I perceive of the corporate culture I fear there that incremental change will triumph over wholesale.
I had a chemical engineer working for me one time who told me that at his previous employer (downstream operations at one of the Big Five oil companies) his supervisors, in all sincerity, urged their engineering staff to “boldly follow the trails blazed by the company founders”. Much as I regret the admissions, I think that is precisely the philosophy embedded at Ist Ave So, and Edgar Martinez Way.
I’m one of those college students that would work for free. The past couple of weeks I’ve been getting annoyed with Civil Engineering (my major) and have considered switching to something like statistics specifically so I could find a job in a baseball front office.
Though if the reports are right that LaCava impressed them because he had his staff team all picked out are correct, that would tend to indicate that they’re going to let the new broom sweep pretty clean. Which, in all honesty, makes perfect sense to me. L&A recognize that this season was a disaster, and I can’t believe they’re stupid enough not to recognize that a lot of fans blame them for that, whether they’ll ever admit it or not; under the circumstances, I very much doubt they have any actual loyalty to Pelekoudas, Looper, etc. They’re committed to keeping themselves in the decision loop — and that, I think, is about as far as it goes.
That’s not a problem, as far as I’m concerned. If they get a guy who has puts them in the loop, but fills that loop with lots and lots of good info, then good decisions will come out of that.
And HowChuck do recognize that they are to blame for the past few seasons–it’s just that they don’t recognize HOW they were to blame.
I have no problem with keeping Pelekoudas or Looper around…just as long as the final say goes with the GM. And if they have insights to contribute, no problem…
I wasn’t saying that keeping them in the loop is a problem; I argued earlier that what we need is someone who can do that and bring them on board with good decisions. What I was saying is that I doubt they have any real commitment to anyone else in that regard, and thus that I don’t see them as likely to insist on keeping anyone else on if the new GM wants to send them packing.
Where I would be dubious about keeping Pelekoudas and Looper (and others of that sort) around is that their ongoing presence would likely undermine the real transfer of authority, and the new way of doing business; they would always be there to pull L&A back toward ways of operating with which they’re already familiar and comfortable. Better to make a clean break. We can always find people to do what they can do at least as well as they can do it, after all. (Easily, in fact, at least with Looper, whose work has never impressed me; as for Pelekoudas, I really have no idea what he did or how well he did it.)
Cole – finish the civil degree. Then you could design the ballpark, too.
Dave- Do you think these changes can happen with Lincoln and Armstrong in the organization?
The new GM is Jack Zduriencik.
Jack is the winner.
golf clap
Cole – finish the civil degree
Yes. We need people who can build things, not further optimize our breads and circuses (as fun as that may be).
Oh, and happy birthday Ichiro
The new GM is Jack Zduriencik.
And spellcheckers all over the northwest crash in protest. (And you thought USSM posters had problems with Piniella).
I’m sure we’ll be getting a post from the USSM guys shortly. In the meantime: Welcome Mr. Zduriencik, you have your taken on a huge and mostly thankless task. Good luck. We eagerly await your first moves with an open mind.
Sounds good! Now for the Manager!