In Defense Of Wak
In a season of disappointments and struggles, no one has taken more of a beating than second year manager Don Wakamatsu. The manager is always an easy target to blame when a team starts losing, so its no surprise that the reactionary fans who call into sports radio are calling for Wak’s head. That’s just the nature of the beast.
But it doesn’t stop there. We try to be a bit more measured around here, but we’ve criticized a lot of the things Wak has done this year. His bullpen management has been curious at best, disastrous at worst. His line-ups have generally not been anything close to ideal. He’s shown questionable talent evaluation skills, including a far-too-strong emphasis on spring training performance – his infatuation with guys like Matt Tuiasosopo can be easily understood when you realize how much stock the manager has put in March performances the last two years.
However, most managers are going to make curious to bad decisions from time to time. In general, all you can hope for from a field general is that he’s more good than bad and that his players respect him and work hard for him.
It’s that last point that offers potential to be the biggest problem. In the last few weeks, the team has seen Griffey retire with something less than grace after Wak benched him, Ian Snell speak with frustration about his manager’s comments about his tempo, and Chone Figgins publicly push back against the line-up changes that saw him moved down in the order. On their own, none of these things might be all that big of a deal, but there is certainly a growing feeling among those around the team that the clubhouse is anything but the unified fun house we saw a year ago, with a good amount of blame being shoveled Wak’s way in the process.
I’m not saying he’s handled everything perfectly, but I’d like to suggest that it’s highly unfair to lay the perceived ills of the clubhouse at Wak’s feet. He didn’t sign Ken Griffey Jr, who made a lot of statements about being perfectly content playing “any role” on the team but showed that to simply not be true once he was finally removed from a regular job. He didn’t anoint Junior as some kind of sacred cow, a hero to the boys in the locker room who could not be treated as the player that he was – not one worthy of a big league job. And he didn’t cause Milton Bradley, Chone Figgins, Jose Lopez, and Casey Kotchman to hit like Double-A rejects, sinking the offense and the team’s chances at winning in the process.
This entire situation reinforces a point we’ve been making for years; chemistry is a byproduct of winning, not the other way around. The team is losing, so frustrations that would have been washed away in victory celebrations are now coming to the surface. Griffey’s lifeless bat was okay when his teammates were covering for him – once they fell down on the job, his inability to perform became the elephant in the room, and Wak was left with the decision of putting the best team on the field or angering those who worshiped a guy who shouldn’t have had a job in the first place. It took him too long, but he finally made the correct decision, and now he’s taking heat for it.
Wak’s not perfect. I’d probably argue that he’s had as bad of a start to the 2010 season as some of the underperformers in the line-up, and he’s made mistakes that he needs to learn from. But just like we’re not abandoning Michael Saunders as he struggles in his second year on the job, neither should we bail on Don Wakamatsu just because he’s had a rough few months. Instead, the organization needs to learn from yet another failed attempt at winning by chemistry, rather than focusing on putting the best major league roster on the field.
Last year’s leader is this year’s petulant divider. Last year’s joy is this year’s frustration. Rather than trying to fix the clubhouse, the Mariners should focus on fixing the team, and once they’ve done that, the off field stuff will work itself out. The only thing predictable about clubhouse chemistry is that it follows winning around. If you want harmony in the clubhouse, win games.
Wak shares in the blame for why the team hasn’t won games. The clubhouse stuff, though – there’s not much he can do to ease the frustration causing the problems. That will get taken care of when they start playing well again. Or, maybe at this point, if they start playing well again.
Game 58, Mariners at Rangers
Hernandez vs Lewis, 5:05 pm.
Happy Felix Day.
The M’s hope that Felix can match Lee’s performance from last night and put them back on a winning streak, but I have to say, as much as I love Felix, he’s no Cliff Lee. Holy crap is that guy good.
Line-up the same as last night.
Ichiro, RF
Bradley, DH
Gutierrez, CF
Lopez, 3B
Carp, 1B
Josh Wilson, SS
Johnson, C
Saunders, LF
Figgins, 2B
M’s Select RHP Tyler Burgoon for #312
I said I’d be around for ten rounds and we’re obviously getting into territory not as interesting to people who are not me. Burgoon is a right-hander out of U Michigan. Unlike the other guys selected thus far, he’s not a big Goon, in fact he’s under 5’10, but he throws low-90s and has managed to get up to 95 a time or two with some natural tail away from right-handers, and complements the heater with a great slider. Some outlets had him as a potential top 200 player here. Size and his probable future as a reliever is probably what allowed him to drop this far. If he does stay in the ‘pen, he’s another candidate to move fast. There’s a lot to be intrigued by there.
M’s Tap Woodinville RHP Luke Taylor, #282
Represent, NW. Someone had to aside from the Rays.
At 6’6 and 200 lbs, it’s ridiculous to think that Taylor was at one point a shortstop. Scouts love his mechanics, but as velocity goes, he’s only sitting high-80s at this point. He was thought to have a pretty good commitment to Hawaii, though I’d say the M’s could help talk him out of that. Another guy who’s big on projection and a little short on present ability. It’s a solid pick if we can bring him in. I’m really loving everything we’re doing.
M’s Take RF Jabari Blash at #252
Well this guy is pretty much begging to get a rum-based mixed drink named after him, in no small part since he’s originally of the Virgin Islands. Close enough, right?
Blash has a couple of things going against him. He was kicked off the Miami Dade team earlier in the season for reasons I’m not privy to at the moment. He was a ninth-rounder with the Rangers last year and didn’t sign despite being offered a quarter million. Another 6’5 guy who’s a bit of a heavyweight, Blash hits well, just not for power, and that’s going to be key to his future success. He runs decently for his size and has a strong arm, so he profiles as a right fielder in the long run.
M’s Tag 1B Maguire Wiswall at #222
Fantastic name, not on the level of Gauntlett Eldemire though.
Wiswall, who goes by Mickey, is out of Boston College, a left-handed hitting first baseman. He did quite well in the Cape Cod League last year. He got a little bit of a big head about it, apparently, because he was trying to pull everything out of the gate this seasons and everyone abandoned ship on him.
Since we’re suddenly experts on horizontal vs. vertical leverage in our training programs and swings, we may be able to tweak him to the point where he’s effective and not quite so pull happy. He’s pretty much locked into first base, so that bat will have to carry him if he’s going anywhere in the league. There’s a lot of potential there, it’s just a matter of tapping into it.
M’s Pick C Keanu Carmichael at #192
Not a tremendous pick at this point. Catching is not regarded as a strength of this draft and I honestly thought that we’d bypass picking one for quite a while, but hey, someone has to back up all these pitchers.
Carmichael slipped down the boards because he transferred high schools in Hawaii earlier this year, which made him ineligible to play. He’s defensive guy, good feet, flexible, arm which while solid is not likened to artillery so far as I see. Behind the plate, he seems quite proactive, which is a good sign. The bat is not horrible, level swing, probably conducive to liners.
M’s Go with RHP Stephen Pryor at #162
Another college pitcher, this one a bit of an unknown relative to everyone else that’s been on the board so far. Pryor is out of Tennessee Tech, a transfer from Cleveland State. He’s another 6’4 guy, but considerably heavier than the other two we’ve seen thus far. He’s a reliever who has gained traction of late, recently gaining control over his body, and will pump in fastballs in the mid-90s while touching in the high-90s. The slider is still a work in progress, as he only picked it up after having trouble with his curve. Overall results were inconsistent for him, however. He could move fast and work his way into the bullpen within two or three years if everything breaks right for him.
M’s Nab LHP James Paxton at #132
Fan-tastic.
Paxton was a supplemental rounder for the Jays last year, but failed to come to terms. Because the Jays ended up negotiating with Scott Boras, Paxton was ruled ineligible for the NCAA season with U Kentucky bailed for the Grand Prairie Air Hogs in Texas. Last year, he was 93-4 touching 97, but this year he was down a bit, 88-93 with the fastball generally, and his curve wasn’t biting quite as much as it did in the past.
Other teams were probably scared off from Paxton both because he’s had nagging injuries over the years, elbow issues as a prep, back issues two years ago, knee problems recently, but I see a couple of reasons to be positive about the M’s taking him. For one, our Canadian scouting is pretty good, so you have to believe that they’ve had their eyes on him forever, and for another, we have a pretty solid minor league training and conditioning program now and are more than willing to sit guys with slightest hint of arm trouble. It seems weird to think that the M’s are now and organization that may be more capable than others of keeping a pitcher healthy, but I’d say we have a shot here. It’s a gamble. It could pay off extraordinarily well.
M’s Pick RHP Ryne Stanek at #99
Great, great pick for the time. Top-rated player out of Kansas as a prep right-hander, and as I said, I trust our Midwest scouting more than just about anyone else’s. We’ll have to buy him out of an Arkansas commitment, but it wouldn’t be the first time we’ve done that, as I think we did that with Nate Adcock a few years back.
If you liked the Walker pick, you’ll love Stanek. It’s the same basic profile, 6’4 already, approaching 180 lbs, throws across his body a bit, and sits in the low-90s while touching 96 now and then. The difference is that Stanek’s mechanics are clean and developed, as you’d expect from a lifelong pitcher, and his curveball as a result is deep and consistent.