If we ever build a FAQ, this will be question #1:
Q. I just read a column saying that Ken Griffey Jr. might return to Seattle. Have you guys heard anything? If we could dump Jeff Cirillo on the Reds, would this be a good idea?
A. We get this email only slightly less often than the child of the murdered King of Uganda asking to make us rich men. No, it won’t happen. Jr is no longer a major league center fielder and his contract is a giant albatross. It would be a fun story, but it isn’t happening. The Reds are stuck with that contract until he proves he can stay healthy.
I think he does have one good current comparison: Kenny Lofton. Ichiro is very similar to the 95-97 versions of Lofton, and they are still comparable players, even with Lofton in the decline phase of his career.
Over the past three seasons, Ichiro has 29 home runs. Juan Pierre has 4. Ichiro is a slap hitter with occasional power. Pierre is a slap hitter with absolutely no power. There are some similarities, but I think Ichiro is clearly a superior player on the field, and we can only speculate on just how much money his presence has made the M’s over the past three seasons.
Well, that’s part of the problem — Ichiro doesn’t really have any good comps in MLB currently, because he’s a throw-back to the way the game used to be played. I do think Juan Pierre is his most similar active player, though.
Now, Jason, let’s not get carried away. Sure, Ichiro may be overrated, and I’m not looking forward to seeing what kind of contract Tony Attanasio thinks is “fair”, but Juan Pierre? Might be a bit of hyperbole there.
Oh, and since Derek apparently wants me to fill in all the juicy details, here’s my take on Benny Looper. His strengths are his ability to communicate and delegate. He is well organized and ran the farm system professionally. He has a pretty good eye for talent. However, his biggest weakness is similar to Gillick’s; he is set in his beliefs. Looper is old school and will stay that way. When a player is tagged with a label, whether it be non-prospect, fringe prospect, or superstar in the making, it has been nearly permanent. He believes in tools over performance, and as guys like Greg Jacobs, Justin Leone, and Ryan Ketchner found, no amount of improvement is going to remove the label that has already been applied.
One of the frustrations I had with the Gillick regime was an unwillingness to admit mistakes and learn from them. This would likely be a problem with Looper as well. He has some positive traits, but is too similar to the past management style for my likings. He might deserve a shot, but I hope it comes with another organization.
I don’t think we’ve talked about Ichiro yet. I’m sure we’ll cover this at length at a later date, but if you’re one of the people advocating offering him a lucrative long-term contract, I’ll ask you this: Do you think any teams will be lining up to pay Juan Pierre $10 or $15M per season when he’s a free agent? Think about it, and then get back to me.
Hey everyone, Jason here. Sorry for my lack of posting activity this week; it’s been a busy week. In any event, I’m back — and just in time, too, with Derek down in Vegas — and ready to roll.
If KJR is any indication, there seems to be a feeling that Seattle’s baseball fans aren’t all that interested in the playoffs this year because the M’s are taking part. Boy, I hope that’s not true. Last night’s Oakland-Boston tilt was a great game, quite entertaining and with a dramatic finish. It was worth staying up until nearly midnight just to see the game-saving play Eric Chavez made in the top of the 11th. In conclusion: Baseball good. Watch baseball.
I feel like there’s much to talk about on the GM front, but I don’t know what to say that Dave and Derek haven’t already covered. The top four candidates as of this moment would appear to be Benny Looper, Lee Pelekoudas, Omar Minaya and Jim Beattie. This is all subject to change, of course, and as far as I know there hasn’t even been any official contact between the M’s and any of these potential candidates. In the next week or so we’ll be posting, as Derek mentioned, some sort of GM scorecard with the top 10 or so candidates ranked in order, who they are, where they’re coming from, some comments about each and perhaps a momentum meter showing which candidates are on the way up, and which are on the way down. My endorsement (look left) of Paul DePodesta is extremely preliminary — I’d love to see him get the job and he’s not even going to get a call, but I haven’t done enough looking to pick someone else quite yet. Ng, Antonetti and Tim Purpura (Asst. GM, Astros) all sound intriguing to me right now.
I ran across an interesting Pat Gillick quote today. When asked what it takes to be a successful GM, he said, “A willingness to work hard, a lot of creativity and imagination. It’s a changing field, and you can’t stay on just one course for long.” I hope that, in coming up with potential candidates, the M’s take this quote to heart. They’ve been on one course for quite awhile now, and hiring an in-house candidate would do nothing to change that. It is indeed a changing field, where those at the top are young, well-educated, hard-working and creative. I think you know where I’m going with this. It’s time to look outside the organization, outside the “old guard,” and hire a bright young GM with new ideas.
So we’ve been remiss in not mentioning that Benny Looper, M’s VP of Player Development, is the leading internal candidate now, to the point where he’s starting to get a lot of publicity and people in the know continue to bug us that he’s got the ‘in’. At some point (unless the hire occurs this week) we’re going to put up a GM Scorecard or something so everyone can keep track of this stuff, and who’s got the what on who.
Looper’s spent 17 years with the M’s, joining as a scout and working his way straight up the scouting path. Played minor league ball for St. Louis, and holds a B of S in math and a Master’s in Counseling (!). Now folks, here’s Dave to talk about the life, times, and pro reputation of Looper, as I’m off to Vegas, returning in a while.
And I should mention that Derek’s article on Edgar today was the best writing I’ve read in quite some time. If you haven’t followed our copious amounts of links to it yet, do so.
Lots of questions about Omar Minaya and Grady Fuson rolling in. Derek will have more on Minaya, so I’ll make it brief, but we’re not fans of his. Fuson is still in line to take over the GM job in Texas after this coming season. John Hart has one more year left on his contract, and then will become a consultant with Fuson hand-picked to take the job. I think Fuson is going to make an excellent GM, but I don’t see him wanting to come here, or Texas offering to let him out of his contract.
Also, let me reiterate Derek’s point about Beane being totally unrealistic. The Red Sox gig is a far better one than the Mariners gig, and he stayed in Oakland last year. I’d be stunned if he even had any interest in coming here.
And hey, the Arizona Fall League kicked off yesterday. Follow all the fun as Matt Thornton gets beat like he stole something. God bless the AFL and their wacky stats. Jaime Bubela just might hit .450, but he still won’t be a prospect.
I should mention my article on Edgar’s last game that ran today at Baseball Prospectus is free — you don’t have be a subscriber (though that’s a good idea).
Hey, lot of email about Beane as a possible GM, following Larry Stone (“Official Seattle Baseball Print Writer of the U.S.S. Mariner Even Though He Sometimes Does Stuff Like Repeat the Mariners Lie About the $92 Million Payroll”) suggesting it in the Seattle Times (“Paper of Quality”).
Not going to happen and, I don’t really want it to happen. I’d rather have either of the two candidates we’ve discussed already, Kim Ng (endorsed by me) or Chris Antonetti (endorsed by Dave) (which is not to say our endorsements are mutually exclusive, as I like Antonetti too), than Beane (and as a side note: I was entirely serious about taking suggestions about possible GMs. If you’re curious about a name, drop us a line).
Beane’s one of the best GMs in baseball, and he’s massively overrated at the same time. He’s smart and personable and I really like him, but he’s not without flaws. Beane’s a guy who can see the value in picking up the Scott Hattebergs and taking a flyer on them, but when he gets attached to these guys, he doesn’t think “Hey, I found one of these guys in a pile for $.99, I can just go buy another one,” he spends a ton of money on the one he knows and likes. He’s into the numbers, but if the numbers don’t tell him a guy he likes is good as he thinks, he ignores the numbers. He doesn’t get along with a bunch of other GMs. I think his dedication to overthrowing the system has gone too far, and I agree with Dave that there’s a time to draft high school players (carefully, with caveats we’ve talked about elsewhere here), but Beane’s out to not only win, but to make a point while winning.
None of that is really important — Beane’s still one of the best. The deal-breaker is that I don’t think he’d get along at all with the ownership and particularly Lincoln (Larry Stone touches on this in his piece). Steve Schott’s a Scrooge McDuck owner, but he says “Beane! Run this thing with a payroll of $1” and pretty much leaves him alone, and if Beane can convince him there’s a good money-saving move that costs more now (even if this move is dumb), Schott will assent. The kind of problems our last two GMs have had (“I want to trade x for y, and it’s under your payroll constraints.” Long pause. “No.”) would drive Beane insane.
Which brings up another point. If you’ve read Thiel’s book on the M’s, or (and) followed the team for a while, you know that Lincoln’s got to go, and this team needs to hire someone to run the baseball team and let them do their thing: screw up, succeed, but have the freedom to make the moves that their talents and experience tells them to make. Certainly the M’s ownership is going to have some say in these things: the Japanese connection, for instance, means it makes perfect sense for someone to come in and say “You’re authorized to spend whatever you have to to get Matsui” and there’s always the occasional “Al Martin’s not the kind of guy we want on the team” standard ownership has every right to impose… but the team’s ownership, if they’re going to be ruthless profiteers, should at least set the conditions for operation and then let the right people do their jobs.
Kim Ng for GM.