Win… Or Go Home
It’s May 21st. The season is seven weeks old, and the Mariners have only played 25% of their season schedule to date. There’s a lot of baseball left to be played. Or, as you’ll hear people say all around the country, its early.
In most cities, that’s true. Not in Seattle, though. The Mariners struggles over the weekend while the Angels surged ahead have put them squarely at a crossroads. At 19-20, the M’s stand five games behind the Angels, and while five games doesn’t sound like a lot, it is a big lead. It would be one thing if the Mariners were clearly the most talented team in the division or had a hall of fame pitcher building up arm strength in Double-A while waiting to join the rotation. But that’s not the Mariners – this is a flawed team with issues hitting right-handed pitching and no answers in the back of the rotation.
This team can’t afford to dig any kind of significant hole. They are teetering on the edge of putting themselves into a situation that they can’t get themselves out of.
Cool Standings gives the Mariners a 4% chance of making the playoffs. The BP playoff odds report is a little kinder, putting the mark at 11%. Either way, that’s a veritable longshot.
This Mariners team isn’t good enough to run down a better Angels team late in the year. This Mariner team needs to keep on the Angels heels the entire year. The M’s simply have to begin winning ballgames starting today. With back to back series with Tampa Bay and Kansas City after the one game interlude in Cleveland, the M’s have a chance to make up some ground before they travel to Anaheim. They need a 5-2 or 6-1 east coast swing before they come back west to face the Angels, because a 4-3 or 3-4 trip against some easy opponents is only going to serve to put the M’s down 6 or 7 games in the standings and give the Angels a chance to drive a nail into the coffin of the M’s playoff hopes.
It’s only May, but it’s not early. The M’s need to win, and they need to do it this week.
At what point will the M’s front office shift strategies? Or since this is Bavasi and Hargrove’s last year without a playoff berth are they going to go all out regardless of standings?
Hargrove’s not going to shift strategies. He’s going to try to win as many games as possible this year, no matter what. That’s what his job description says. If the organization wants to move in a player development direction, they’ll do so with a different manager.
But the M’s aren’t going to be waiving any kind of organizational white flag until the all-star break at the earliest. And even then, the team probably would have to be 15+ games out of first place for them to pull the plug on this $108 million dollar roster.
I’m more worried that the front office could make some questionable trades down the stretch hoping for one last push to get past the Angels. But then again I don’t know how much leeway Bavasi has with dealing the top-tier prospects in the minor league system this year.
This blog gets accused of being negative, but that simply isn’t true. The only sin that the proprietors and readers of this blog have committed is caring too much.
Nothing would make us happier than to see Vidro, Sexson, Ibanez, Ramirez, Batista, and Weaver either turn back the clock 4 or 5 years, or discover something completely new about themselves, and help the Mariners win 12 out of their next 15 including a sweep of the Angels. But age and the odds are really, really against that happening.
No one doubts that Bavasi and Hargrove have given their best efforts to make this team a winner. The owners and Lincoln have also done a great job of underwriting the payroll and making Safeco a great place to watch a great place to watch a game. Yet, for all of this effort and cash it is likely that the day is fast approaching when the Mariner’s front office makes really dramatic changes. And it will be a really sad day if it comes to that.
So let’s go Ms! Let’s knock out 12 wins in the next 15 games, and let’s start today.
with the next two opponents (not counting cleveland) we could catch the angels before we get there…if we falter against the scrubs, then the season is over…
on the side, [deleted, ot]
how is asking about a player that seattle signed a bad question to be deleted? is there an “ask dave” link so that we can get informed answers to questions and rumors? i respect the knowlege and opinions here and was just wanting an answer…
Regardless how we wanna paint the M’s chances, their run differential needs to improve dramatically…and soon. Until it at least gets into the positives, its gonna be tough to seriously contend.
It’s off-topic. Off-topic questions get nuked. Mostly.
And yeah, there is – it’s our email address.
“But the M’s aren’t going to be waiving any kind of organizational white flag until the all-star break at the earliest. And even then, the team probably would have to be 15+ games out of first place for them to pull the plug on this $108 million dollar roster.”
Well, they are looking at the same stats you are, right? What do you think they will do before the All-Star break in terms of adjustment (sitting Sexson more is a good start, I guess)? Sexson is not getting it done. Ibanez isn’t producing like he should. Vidro is an albatross on the basepaths. You said that Sexson is the best option at clean up a week or so ago. Do you still believe that? With this line-up lacking serious power, what do they do? When can they reasonably go out and find some help? Is that even a good idea?
At some point Washburn will have bad back-to-back starts, Batista – Baek will all come unglued 2 series in a row, we’ll see a stretch of like 19 right-handed pitchers, and suddenly we’ve gone 0-10 or 1-9, and it’s all over. Maybe it’s just me being an M’s fan, but until I looked again, I had forgotten how far mediocrity got us last year before that big losing streak. Besides Felix, what kind of slump stopping insurance do we have? Can we really contend most of the year with the team’s collective wheels secured by one lug-nut each?
Surely there are some things the Mariners can do? Bloomquist is on track for a historically bad season; he projects to over 200 hundred at bats with an OPS of .299! There must be somebody in Triple-A, maybe Morse, who can come up and take Bloomquist’s role and not be a complete black hole in the offense?
Dave and/or Derek,
Do you believe we have reached the point where changes need to be made? If so, would you support either promoting or trading some of our better prospects to make a run at winning this season? If you were running the team, what would you do at this point?
In general, I think this site has the ability to see every cloud on a sunny day but Dave hit the nail on the head with piece. If LAAA can begin to open up a commanding lead on the division with the injury problems they have had to date, the M’s are in real trouble. Oakland has had similar health issues. The Mariners best chance at winning the division is start trying to fix the parts of the team that aren’t up to snuff ASAP.
The only ray of sunshine is that the Angels and the A’s are not great teams, so with the correct moves the M’s could run them down.
The rotation needs to be fixed and the offense needs to start hitting. At some point the M’s need to give serious thought to letting the boys from AAA come up to the show and help the club win the division.
Well, they are looking at the same stats you are, right?
No. If the M’s cared about probability the way we do, they’d have done things a lot differently.
What do you think they will do before the All-Star break in terms of adjustment (sitting Sexson more is a good start, I guess)?
Probably not much. There’s really not much they can do, honestly. There aren’t any pitchers in the organization who are going to constitute any kind of real upgrade in the rotation, and the only guy in Tacoma who could provide any extra offense is a right-handed hitting outfielder.
Sexson is not getting it done.
Sexson’s OPS on May 21st, 2006 – .627.
Sexson’s OPS from May 22nd 2006 through end of season – .924
The guy’s a remarkably streaky hitter with a long history of being significantly better as the year goes on. Is sitting through his awful two months annoying? Yes. Does it mean he’s done as a player? No.
With this line-up lacking serious power, what do they do? When can they reasonably go out and find some help? Is that even a good idea?
They sit on their hands and hope the guys they have play better. Really, that’s all they can really do. This roster does not lend itself to easily being upgraded.
If the organization wants to move in a player development direction, they’ll do so with a different manager.
And this raises a few more questions…
Who in the M’s system, were they to do a purging of the vets, would they want to see? I can think of a couple (Wlad, Jones, Reed, Feierabend…), but beyond that, I’m not sure our system is ‘thick’ enough to support the turnover that would be needed. I mean, yeah, we could probably trade Guillen (although I actually sorta like him) to make room for Reed/Jones/Wlad. But, Raul isn’t going anywhere, and I seriously doubt Vidro and Sexson would be either.
But, beyond the OF’ers we have a ’stockpile’ of (if you can call it that, really), there’s not much there in the way of reinforcements where we need ‘em the most (SPs, etc…).
Do you believe we have reached the point where changes need to be made? If so, would you support either promoting or trading some of our better prospects to make a run at winning this season? If you were running the team, what would you do at this point?
I would tell Hargrove to play Broussard against RHP more than he has. And that’s about it.
If Richie Sexson doesn’t hit, this team doesn’t have a prayer. Their only hope is that he has another big second half and carries the team offensively. Without him running up a .900+ OPS for the rest of the year, the offense just isn’t good enough to carry a pitching rotation that is beyond repair.
Really, the only thing to do at this point is hope the guys start playing better, because there aren’t any good answers to the problems with the roster.
M in Col-
I’m still curious to hear what Dave and Derek have to say, but in order for the M’s to win the division they need Sexson to start playing better. Sitting him down for a few days is a good idea if he can break through the mental block that is holding him back. The team is better with Sexson in the lineup. Ibanez and Vidro are the problems that need to be addressed. I can convince myself that Raul really isn’t this bad but Vidro is what he is and that just isn’t good enough to be a starting DH.
The real question though, is when does management pull a Cleveland and start building from the ground up so we have a chance to win for years on end?
Dave, in your opinion, are we really looking at a “head in the sand” issue here where the higher-ups are not seeing the flaws in how the team has been “re-tooled”?
At what point (if ever) can we see Management switch to a sell high mentality on some of the older players in order to grab some interesting prospects who could help for the next decade?
As an outside observer it’s painful to watch guys like Gil Meche start 10-2, have a high trade value and be kept with the “logic” of he’s turned a corner when all peripheral analysis shows luck. Wouldn’t now be a good time to start looking to move a Washburn or a Vidro (since the superficial stat of hitting .300 is appealing to some teams)?
With respect, I think it looks that way to some folks because this site has the ability to see and acknowledge problems that are likely to drag the team down while those problems are still being denied by many other folks.
In other words, hoping for the best, but preparing for the worst.
The real question though, is when does management pull a Cleveland and start building from the ground up so we have a chance to win for years on end?
The end of the year.
Dave, in your opinion, are we really looking at a “head in the sand†issue here where the higher-ups are not seeing the flaws in how the team has been “re-tooled�
I don’t think they have their heads in the sand – I just think the people in charge don’t understand what makes a winning team as well as they need to. They overvalue things that aren’t valuable and undervalue things that are. They’re trying to win, but they simply lack the understanding required to build a winning team.
At what point (if ever) can we see Management switch to a sell high mentality on some of the older players in order to grab some interesting prospects who could help for the next decade?
When we get new management.
Wouldn’t now be a good time to start looking to move a Washburn or a Vidro (since the superficial stat of hitting .300 is appealing to some teams)?
I can’t think of a team in baseball that would take Jose Vidro, even if the M’s put him on waivers. There’s no selling high there – he’s just not a good player, and everyone else in baseball knows it.
Washburn, you can’t really deal right now unless you’re willing to just burn the whole thing down, trade Ichiro and Beltre, and accept a 100 loss season that ensures that average attendance next year is about 15,000 a game. If you’re trying to convince your fans to come to the ballpark, Cha Seung Baek can’t be your #2 or #3 starter.
Again with respect, I believe this site is not pessimistic … or optimistic. It is honest, with intelligence. To think the Mariners are doing well requires, I submit, delusional stupidity. What is the fun, or the point, in that?
The problem with trying to emulate what Cleveland has done is that it takes a long time to achieve what their organization has. That is the sort of thing that many fans would grow impatient with, while those who would laud the efforts, like most on this site, seem to be few in number. The Marlins experiment was seemingly a one-time event in that they were a vastly under-achieving team with quality parts that could be turned for high-end prospects… this team does not have the same resources. Look at the Dodgers… how much of their success was started by DePodesta, who was run out of town in favor of Ned Colletti. Colletti has made very poor moves, in terms of trades and free agent aquisitions, but is hailed as brilliant because the team wins while he is in charge. This Mariner team probably needs to hit rock-bottom before any decisions will be made that could put a brighter perspective on the future.
On another day, I’d make this a post of its own, but because this thread is relatively fresh and we’ve got a game in three hours, I’m just going to stick it here for now. Maybe we’ll get back to it tomorrow.
Geoff Baker talks about the team’s lack of guys who yell and curse and don’t care what people think about them after having a conversation with a team insider who has pegged the Mariners problem as “being too nice”.
And while I like Geoff, I want to beat my head against a wall when I read stuff like this. It’s like the organization absolutely refuses to learn anything.
The M’s, more than any other team in baseball, make personnel decisions based on a player’s perceived clubhouse intangibles and personality. Scott Spiezio was acquired because he was a fiery clutch veteran with World Series experience. Rich Aurilia was brought in to replace Carlos Guillen because he was a gamer and would play everyday. Eddie Guardado was lauded as being a great leader because he played pranks on everyone and made jokes all the time, and his heart was admired for taking the ball everyday even when his arm hurt. Jarrod Washburn was acquired because he was willing to pitch inside. Carl Everett was acquired because he yelled and cursed and played with fire. Chris Reitsma replaced Rafael Soriano because he was tough and mentally strong. And on and on it goes.
A note to the M’s team insider, and the rest of their management squad – it’s about talent, not personality. Baseball is won on the field by guys who can hit, field, and pitch, not by guys holding team meetings in the locker room and commanding respect in the clubhouse.
The Mariners don’t need more pricks who get mad when they make outs – they need guys that make less outs!
Stop it. Stop your ridiculous obsession on building a certain kind of clubhouse. Stop paying people for what you think their personality is. Stop valuing things that don’t matter.
Bring us baseball players. We don’t care if they are soft spoken polite guys like Edgar or John Olerud or if they’re annoyingly self-absorbed guys like Manny Ramirez. Bring us guys who can play, and let the clubhouse crap sort itself out.
But the M’s aren’t going to be waiving any kind of organizational white flag until the all-star break at the earliest. And even then, the team probably would have to be 15+ games out of first place for them to pull the plug on this $108 million dollar roster.
So the M’s could be, oh, I dunno, a couple games under .500 and 10 out in the division AND wild card, looking up at multiple teams, and they’d think “Hey, let’s go for it, no problem, it’s 1995 all over again?”
That’s kind of scary.
That’s not a proble,, that’s a feature, given how he team got old so suddenly.
Susutained success needs a rich farm system, with a willoingness to promote that talent to the big team to refresh the team. That hasn’t been the philosophy here…
unless things get better in a hurry, we’ll see ichiro, guillen, ibanez, sexson, johjima, vidro, wash, bautista, weaver, and ramirez on the block in july…and the sad thing is, nobody will take any of them except ichiro, joh, and guillen…and those guys aren’t the problem…
Amen.
I’d take eight Edgars in the lineup every day. I’d think you could do a lot of damage with eight Edgars…
“Armstrong said the Mariners will not use the Cleveland model of stripping down the ballclub to rebuild. Last winter, the Mariners dished out more than $100 million on free agents Adrian Beltre and Richie Sexson.
“It’s incumbent on us me, Bill (Bavasi), the baseball guys to try to get the kind of players that will get this turned around as quickly as we can, as opposed to embarking on the Cleveland approach,” Armstrong said. “Cleveland has such a nice little ballclub, yet we’re averaging 10,000 more a game. We think we have a compact with the fans ownership does.”
Armstrong is fully aware of the perception of some that the loyalty of Mariners fans could work against them. Since the fans keep flocking out through losing seasons, the reasoning goes, the club isn’t motivated to maximize the product.
Not true at all, he said.
“We don’t take them for granted,” Armstrong insisted. “We know we have to put a good product on the field. If we did take it for granted, we would have adopted more of a Cleveland approach and cut back.”
i would have loved to get manny this winter…for whomever…who cares that he’s a nut…he can crush the damn ball…
“Washburn, you can’t really deal right now unless you’re willing to just burn the whole thing down, trade Ichiro and Beltre, and accept a 100 loss season that ensures that average attendance next year is about 15,000 a game.”
Just curious – do the M’s really think that attendance could drop to 15K per game? It’s currently at 29K per game (just below last year’s 30K) and the summer weather hasn’t even begun. I feel like drawing 2M+ at Safeco is almost idiot-proof at this point. All the fans need is summer weather, a few Yankees/Red Sox/interleague series, some 1995/2001 promotional nights, and a relentless stream of family-focused promotions to draw at least 25K/game over the course of the season. They can balance out those 20K weekday crowds with 35-45K weekend crowds. I personally think 25K/game is the lowest it could drop, though I hope I’m wrong.
Its like they are saying, “hey, we draw 20k fans and we don’t want to lose them… so we will keep putting out the same product that gets us those 20k.” While teams like Cleveland thought, “whats the problem with drawing 10k fans a few years in order to get back to the 35k we used to draw.” This team is too short-sighted
The M’s have scored 173 runs and given up 196. I figure that Good Washburn and Weaver have cancelled each other out so far, and all of our other pitchers have performed about like we thought they would – so defense (pitching) rates are probably pretty accurate as far as what we can expect for the rest of the year.
It seems very likely that the offense will improve since Sexson and Ibanez have been terrible, but it would have to be a huge improvement to get to the point where we’re scoring significantly more than we’re giving up, as the Angels are doing now.
You can burn down the M’s for the insurance money multiple times, but it still won’t fix the problems of poor senior leadership and ownership.
And it also won’t fix the underachievement and injury problems we keep seeing, or the strange ability for M’s free agents and traded players to suddenly do better in a different environment.
You want to fix this franchise? Find $500M and buy the team. I know I would if I had that much money — it doesn’t matter how much you lose from season to season, because you’ll always recover your losses by flipping the team in ten years.
The whole clubhouse chemistry thing is something most teams will always talk about. What’s scary is while other front offices are saying those things because they’re easy answers that the press will eat up, you get the feeling that the Mariners’ front office are saying it because they really believe it.
Of course, this is how we end up with Willie Bloomquist as the face of the franchise.
#24
Dave, I agree 100%. Demeanor isn’t all that important in players, but it is crucial in the manager.
If we keep falling back step one is to fire Hargrove. Shake things up. Bring in a pissed off Piniella type to kick some butts and get rid of the complacency Baker is hinting at.
This team is not that far away from being good. Maybe a new manager is the missing piece.
I just would like to mention that Beltre looked almost ready to commit murder after his last at-bat yesterday. For what it’s worth.
At this point, if they’re going to lose I would just as soon wait for the end of the season, can Bavasi, and let a new GM be in charge of a tear-down/rebuild. I don’t trust Bavasi to make those moves during this season. Unfortunately, he will have to be the one trusted to get maximum value for Ichiro at the deadline.
Mariner attendance is a bit bloated because they’ve HAD their Yankee series (huge draw).
Here’s a big reason why Cleveland went so far into the toilet, IMO:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_metropolitan_areas
Seattle has half again the metropolitan area to draw from, AND that doesn’t include the fact that Seattle’s nearest team is 750 miles away.
Baltimore hasn’t gone under 2 million, either, FWIW.
The Cleveland plan was more than just slashing salary. Cleveland also used the draft to rebuild and emphasized player development, which the M’s have done the last few years. Nor have the M’s traded away their best prospects for current major leaguers — when trading, they have dealt surplus like Choo rather than core talent like Jones.
The problem is, the payoff from guys like Clement, Jones, and Feierabend will not come until next year at the earliest, and the real stockpile of talent is currently playing in low A-ball.
37. oh you mean the last at bat that failed to move the runner to 3B which would have scored on the following fly out? Yeah, I’d be pissed at myself too.
#36 – I don’t think a manager has to be a crazy yelling type to be successful. People up here remember the success under Lou and equate having that kind of manager to creating a winning environment. If the talent on the field was actually good enough to consistently win games none of this would matter.
To me clubhouse chemistry in any sport is something that’s only discussed when the team isn’t winning and fans and the media are searching for answers as to why. Nobody cares about chemistry or having a few bad apples or even a whole bushel of them on a team that wins 90+ games. Except the M’s it seems, who in best Chicago Cubs fashion remain determined to be as lovable as they are inept.
Dave — you’ve talked about there being little that the Mariners can do except hope for improvement from the existing roster. What realistically would you say is the chances they can pull off a trade for legitimate improvement — maybe someone who is slightly under the radar but would be a substantial, well-designed piece that can “dramatically” change the way this roster sets up — left-handed, power, high OBP — someone at least metaphorically speaking perhaps like an Adam Dunn or Chris Duncan?
#40
Great points. Again, this team isn’t that far away and they are building for the future.
If things continue to go south make the obvious first move – fire the manager.
Well the Jays have made Towers and Ohka available already. Not that I’m suggesting the M’s go get one of them, just that we’re far enough into the season that Tacoma/the bullpen are no longer the only places you can look for pitchers. There are teams in worse positions than the M’s, and that means other players will be out there for a team desparately trying to stay above .500, hang with the division leader, and keep its GM employed.
(BTW, while I was digging around for stats at THT, I found the list in the middle of this article: look! It’s official! This year the M’s are the most boring team in baseball!)
Dave — you’ve talked about there being little that the Mariners can do except hope for improvement from the existing roster. What realistically would you say is the chances they can pull off a trade for legitimate improvement — maybe someone who is slightly under the radar but would be a substantial, well-designed piece that can “dramatically†change the way this roster sets up — left-handed, power, high OBP — someone at least metaphorically speaking perhaps like an Adam Dunn or Chris Duncan?
Here’s the problem – where do you play that theoretically left-handed OBP guy?
Left field? Ibanez is the new Mariner-for-life. It’s annoying, but he’s not going anywhere.
DH? Vidro’s hitting .300 and is due $12 million over the next two years. The organization won’t bench him.
First base? They’re already paying Ben Broussard $3.6 million to not play much, and as mentioned earlier, this team can’t win without Sexson providing some power in the middle of the order.
So there’s nowhere to stick a newly acquired bat.
If we keep falling back step one is to fire Hargrove. Shake things up. Bring in a pissed off Piniella type to kick some butts and get rid of the complacency Baker is hinting at.
Lou Piniella’s Win-Loss Records since leaving Seattle:
63-99, 70-91, 67-95, and now 20-22 with the Cubs.
Having a manager who yells is as overrated as having players who yell. Joe Torre’s not a yeller, and he won all kinds of World Series titles when the Yankees had a pitching staff. Now that he’s throwing Darrel Rasner, Kei Igawa, and Jeff Karstens, he’s losing.
Talent wins baseball games. Lou Piniella couldn’t make Horacio Ramirez not suck any more than Mike Hargrove can.
Will the team get better if they fire Hargrove? Probably, because he’s about as bad as it gets among ML managers. But the notion that they need someone who yells and throws bases is just misguided.
but watching Lou freak out was very entertaining…
#47
OK, but that’s not my main point. You are right when you say there is little they can do to shake up the line up. The only button to push is to fire the manager.
I was thinking for Vidro, with new guy and Raul manning OF and DH.
Alternatively, a trade for a potentially legit #3 — again perhaps under the radar but a legit MLB middle of the rotation pitcher? Like Jason Hirsh or even a Shaun Marcum?
I hear what you are saying that there is not much that can realistically be done, but what would a Billy Beane do with this situation? What would a Dave Cameron do with the challenge of winning intelligently this year given this current reality?
Sorry, I don’t already know this. But does anyone here have the number of 1 run games the Mariners have won/lost in the past couple of years. How about the number of come from behind late inning wins that haven’t been won with a home run? To me that’s a big part of where a manager’s credentials should come from, is the ability to use his team to win ballgames. I don’t see Hargrove doing that. I wanted him out the first two months he managed the M’s because of that. This last one run game just killed me inside. We had SO MANY opportunities to score the tying run…and actually win the game. But the way that it was managed was bad. Just bad.
Alternatively, a trade for a potentially legit #3 — again perhaps under the radar but a legit MLB middle of the rotation pitcher? Like Jason Hirsh or even a Shaun Marcum?
Why would Colorado trade Hirsh or Toronto trade Marcum? Neither of those teams is exactly overflowing with high quality major league pitching.
I hear what you are saying that there is not much that can realistically be done, but what would a Billy Beane do with this situation? What would a Dave Cameron do with the challenge of winning intelligently this year given this current reality?
Try to acquire some rotation depth with some guys who are being underutilized by their current clubs – Angel Guzman, for instance – and hope you get lucky with one of them turning into a legitimate option for the rotation. And, other than that, do a lot of hoping.
This team is not that far away from being good.
No, actually, it needs some fairly heavy roster retrenchment to really have a sustained run. The M’s don’t really have any internal candidates to play power positions (1B/DH/LF) that desperately need replacing, but the players who ARE in those positions are under contract past this season, and the rotation is woefully underpowered behind King Felix, with a fair amount of money tied up in two overpaid, back of the rotation guys (Washburn and Batista) who are also stuck around these parts for a while. Oh, and several of the M’s best hitters right now (Ichiro and Guillen) are short-timers.
BTW- my guess at the guy who gets flipped in July if the M’s are out of it? Jose Guillen. Perfect scenario- short term contract with the upside of a second year if the team he’s traded to WANTS to keep him, not an icon like Ichiro or Raul, and if he keeps hitting like he is now (.273/.350/.461), a credible upgrade… plus my guess is Adam Jones will be judged “ready” by the All-Star break.
The only button to push is to fire the manager.
Yeah, but the problem is the GM is almost certainly going to be fired in the offseason, and as we saw with Bavasi and Melvin, the GM brings in his own guy anyway.
My guess is, again, that the Mariners didn’t fire one of Hargrove’s best friends (Ron Hassey) and bring in John McLaren just because. I suspect McLaren becomes an interim field manager if the team stumbles, and presides over another “let’s look at the kids” session come August and September.
Makes a lot of sense EC, and I wouldn’t be surprised if Bavasi does that. What would surprise me is if he gets back anything like the value he should.
in my opinion, the best way to create winning is by drafting well…often times, you overpay for free agents that are past their prime, and trading usually only helps in the short term…so it might be a couple more years before we win the division…
Is Beltre and asset that can be flipped to balance the lineup? Given the lack of tradeable assets, Beltre may be our only moveable piece. I shudder to think of moving Vidro out to 2nd and Lopez to 3rd, but could moving Beltre net us anything we would want?
Mike Hargrove is a bad manager IMO because he is comfortable with losing. Winning is not his highest priority. Hargrove dogmatically uses the same players in the same situations, even though it is not the best move.
Look at his use of the bullpen. He is married to the idea that for the 7th he uses Sherill/Reitsma, Morrow pitches the 8th and JJ is the closer. I doubt we will see a different deployment pattern for his bullpen unless he juggles the roles of the members of the pen. Still Bavasi gave Hargrove a good bullpen so this area is about as Hargrove proof as any area of the team.
The real difference between Hargrove and Lou is not something that is easy to define, but it’s real. Does anyone really think that Lou would have tolerated Jeff Weaver for as long as Hargrove did? Lou wants to win and is willing to step all over a players feelings to do that. Would Lou have let Roberto Petagine rot on the bench while Sexson and Everett struggled?
To Bavasi’s credit, I’m not convinced that this team’s plague of bringing in players based on personality is entirely his doing. That just reeks of Chuck and Howie. If anything, having Bavasi around has helped them actually warm up to the thought of bringing in a guy, in spite of his perceived negative personality.
Now if we can just get the right, talented ‘manholes’ on the team, the M’s might actually get somewhere…
29 — Where did you get those quotes? I’d love to see the source story. My opinion is that they’ve already lost the fans … they just don’t realize it yet.
The problem with trading Beltre is that he’s simultaneously overpaid and undervalued, if you know what I mean. Teams will hesitate to take on the big contract, and it’s generally underestimate how good he is, IMO, which means we’re likely to get less value on the field in return than Beltre gives us.
It’s frustrating to think there is no path out. The issues that lead to Dave’s (and so many of our’s) angst is that the M’s problems: Vidro, Sexson, Ibanez, Batista, Weaver, even Ramirez — are untradeable. And dumping them is essentially untenable, for differing various reasons.
But it just seems to me that inteligently eating some salary and taking some losses combined with trading with clubs who are losing and want to re-build or are winning and want a veteran if we eat salary could put us in a position to win this year.
Its a mystery to me that with 100 million plus payroll this team doesn’t have someone who can put up an 900 OPS against RHP. with 75% or so of the picthers being right handed it is a big deal. Good teams can hit righties.
I seriously doubt that Hargrove’s problems have anything to do with being “comfortable with losing”. (WHY is that kind of mind-reading so popular?) He’s just not well informed about game or roster construction strategies, and is extremely set in his ways.
I doubt this too. Wasn’t Lou well liked by most of his players? What do you imagine Lou would have done about Weaver? Replaced him two starts earlier? And how much of a difference would that have made?
Hargrove needs to be replaced because he’s bad. All this psychological and attitude analysis is beside the point. And when Hargrove is replaced, the team will still be bad.
Cleveland’s other problem is the Cavs. Season ticket money that would have gone to the Indians now flows straight into LeBron’s pocket. And with the average income and population that metro Cleveland has, it’s going to be a slog to get back to 2.5M.
Cleveland’s situation is similar to Denver’s. When the Rockies debuted, Nuggets ticket sales cratered. Then the Avs came to town, won a Stanley Cup, and chipped away at the Rockies, who were bleeding players and generally sucking. And then came Carmelo.
The one difference between Cleveland and Denver is that Denver’s economy continues to grow while Cleveland’s stagnates.
To put it another way, if Lou won’t tolerate bad play, how did players keep their jobs in Tampa?
One of the great complaints about Piniella from the fanbase while he was here was that he stuck with his veteran guys way too long. I don’t know how many thousands of times I heard the “Does Bobby Ayala have pictures of Lou with a goat?” joke during the 1990s.
Same deal with Norm Charlton. Lou was extremely loyal to his guys, just like Hargrove is.
i hate watching losing, but i might honestly be alright with a fire sale, liken to the marlins…it would pay off in three to five years, and at least when we lost, we’d have an excuse…it wouldn’t be with a bunch of “proven veterans” that have just not gotten the job done…
scraps #65
Being set in your ways when you are losing and have been losing for the past 3 seasons is a sign that you are comfortable with it. Or at least comfortable enough that you aren’t willing to try anything drastic to start winning again.
Lou was liked by his players because he would try anything to win. Complaints about him were that he was too intense, which rubbed people the wrong way. He also wasn’t very tolerant of failure. If I was a major leaguer, I’d love that kind of manager as well.
i admire loyalty, and respect it…but sometimes it just needs to end…like with eddie last year…sentimentality is nice and all, and it’s great to see players stay on one team and such, but it usually doesn’t add up to a lot of on-field success…
Loyal maybe… but below the mendoza line for this long? I’m not sure he would have tolerated that.
-5 points for bringing up bobby ayala.
and yes i do believe that bobby had pictures of lou and a goat. or something much worse
etowncoug, Hargrove believes he knows how to win — since his early success with Cleveland — and he’s set in his ways because he “knows” that if he sticks to his guns, things will turn around, assuming the talent is there. And changes mean “panicking”. He’s wrong, but it has nothing to do with “comfort” with losing. There’s no need to attack his character like that. You aren’t inside his head.
73 – ROTFLOL…
Despite all of his ‘fire’, Lou had his share of losing seasons in Seattle, and beyond that he failed to even make a world series when given a roster that had three sure-thing HOFers, one guy who probably would have gone in had he not been ignored during the early part of his career, and a pretty good supporting cast.
Managers don’t really matter. This team won’t win until they’re spending their $110 million on people who can actually play well enough to help a team win.
I theorize the M’s would win (over a large enough sample size) the same number of games with Hargrove as well as without any manager at all. They would just democratically vote on lineups, bullpen calls, and strategical maneuvers. The players know who is good for situations and who is not, as long as it was a silent, private vote, no one would have their feelings hurt directly.
It’s infuriating to watch Hargrove not do everything to maximize the team’s chances to win, but ultimately it is the team that wins or loses, not Hargrove. With a low-talent team, a manager might be the difference between 60 wins and 65. With a highly talented team, a manager might be the difference between 90 and 95 wins. With the team the M’s have right now, Hargrove might be the difference between 80 and 85 wins. Which certainly is the difference between being over .500 and under it, but probably doesn’t win or lose the division (not if the Angels remain on their current trajectory).
not according to his players.
sorry, I forgot the citation: Seattle Times, Oct. 2, 2005
Loyalty is a serious character flaw in almost every walk of life. It’s what people resort in decision-making when they choose not to think and evaluate, and act accordingly.
resort TO
I wouldn’t be surprised if half of the regular starting 9 is gone by August 1st if the losing ways continue, and that sadly would include Ichiro. I could see 2 of the starters leaving as well.
Loyalty for Lou Piniella was sticking with Bobby Ayala and Norm Charlton. Both pitchers threw hard and were able to strike batters out (Ayala was k’ing close to a batter an inning throughout his time in Seattle, Charlton has striking out batters at a decent clip until the very end when walk rates went up and K rates went down, still in 2001 he was a good pitcher so maybe Lou was right in 1997 that Norm still had something left in the tank).
From a numbers standpoint, I’m not sure what was wrong with Ayala. If you took away his W-L record, his ERA and his name and asked if you would take a relief pitcher with his K/9, BB/9 and HR/9 I think a lot of people would.
Hargrove loyalty is different.
Hargrove loyalty is different.
For one thing, Grover has some competent alternatives…
I dunno, for someone who apparently couldn’t care less if he loses, Hargrove’s seemed pretty pissed post-game over the last couple days.
Hargrove might not care about losing games, but he cares about losing his job.
I don’t think Hargrove likes losing, it does seem to irritate him. It’s his actions based on his dislike of losing that show that winning is not his top priority.
Think of a person who says and acts as though he/she dislikes his or her job. If this person is really unhappy with the job, a new job will be found. Someone who really desires change, because current circumstances are completely unacceptable will go to great lengths to change.
Hargrove says that he dislikes losing, but based on his actions I can only conclude that it really doesn’t bother him. You do have to give the guy a little bit of credit for starting to tinker with the lineup though, but it might be to little to late.
I’ve already responded (in post 74) to your insistence that Hargrove’s actions prove that losing doesn’t bother him; I can only conclude that you are unwilling or unable to consider alternative conclusions that fit the facts just as well as your ungenerous mind-reading. Obviously we’re not going to come to an agreement about this, but I think it would broaden your understanding of human behavior considerably if you could find it within you to consider more charitable explanations for people’s failures than lack of caring.
Scraps- you say I am an ungenerous mindreader yet you offer the “charitable” explanation that Hargrove is either ignorant or incompetent.
I find it hard to believe that a major league manager wouldn’t have easy access to information like the stuff we can get on the blogosphere.
Whatever the reason, I think we can all agree that Hargrove should be removed from his position and replaced with someone who can be an asset to the organization.
Well, and putting Bloomquist in LF tonight over, say, Ellison, sure reeks of incompetance or ignorance in Hargrove. I mean, heck, we have to give him the benefit of the doubt that he wants to win, don’t we?
Don’t we?
Ugh.
Yeah Paul,
If you call me incompetent, ignorant or say that I don’t care about winning, I would take all three as an insult.
Incompetence we can demonstrate. Ignorance we can infer. Apathy requires mind-reading.
I’m not preferring to call Hargrove incompetent and ignorant. I’m pointing out that they are justifiable conclusions, more defensible than mind reading, and that for some reason I can’t understand, you insist that Hargrove not caring is the only conclusion you can reach. Forget generosity; it shows a lack of imagination on your part.
I admit that while I can’t stand Hargrove as a manager and want him to GO, I don’t feel compelled to conclude that he’s deficient in character, except in the very human way of calcifying around a set of beliefs that he’s probably always held.
It seems to me that the worst professional thing you can say about a sports person is that he doesn’t care about winning, and that such a serious slam requires some solid evidence.