Status Quo! Woo!
Chuck Armstrong announced a few minutes ago that Bill Bavasi and John McLaren would both return to their jobs in 2008. P-I story is here.
“We’d just come off three losing seasons,” Lincoln said, “and it was important to put a winning team on the field. Bill did that. And John came on in very difficult circumstances and did a superb job. He had the confidence and the trust of the players, and he’s maintained it.”
Regular readers of this blog will know our general reaction – this isn’t a surprise. The Mariners need an organizational overhaul, but they’re blissfully ignorant of that fact, just like they’re ignorant of every advance in baseball analysis in the last 50 years.
If you’re looking for a good side of this, look at this way – if we’re right, then we’re going to see another terrible offseason, the team won’t win next year either, and we’ll be talking about new GM/manager candidates twelve months from now. If we’re wrong, the team will make a good move or two, some players will take a step forward, and we’ll hopefully be preparing for a playoff series twelve months from now. Win-win? It’s all we got right now.
He’s also done some organizational good – the payroll isn’t saddled with boat-anchor contracts (for the most part) and the farm system is in decent shape.
That’s like saying that we should eat a piece of dog crap because there are some chocolate pieces mixed in there.
Just paying attention to the state of baseball analysis would give the team potential to make A LOT more money. But these conservative old men would rather just continue to be lazy and drink the milk of the cash cow that is the taxpayer funded Safeco Field.
97- “He says he was trying to convey to the fans that they were all aware that they HAD to get a winning season under their belt”
I don’t get that. Why the hell would anyone care about a “winning season?” Who does?
the team should be getting into the postseason or be getting better.
I’ll never understand that thinking. A winning record is only useful in getting to the playoffs. If it doesn’t… don’t talk to me about success, Howard. You failed. For too many years in a row.
Since Lincoln and Armstrong don’t respond to obvious performance metrics or Net/media criticism, I suggest that the best way to drive a GM change is to boycott Mariner games. Significant drops in attendance and associated game revenues has a better chance of being a catalyst for change. I will not attend another Mariner game until Bavasi is gone. i suggest that the trest of you do the same
What are the ‘positives’ for 2008? What is the reason for Joe Fan to give a flying ‘duck’ about the Seattle Mariners next year?
OMG. Is today April 1st?
One thing I’ll add to msb’s summary of the Lincoln interview: Drayer asked him about priorities going forward. He talked about “a nucleus of good, young players,” and the excellent bullpen, and then he said the offense was good enough (I forget his exact wording) while noting that had been the problem in the recent past. So then he began talking about the problem being starting pitching, but he downplayed free agents and talked up the M’s excellent drafts and farm system and how they’ve been aggressively promoting their young guys, using Morrow as an example (completely ignoring that Morrow isn’t a starting pitcher, and has had his progress towards being one slowed, or possibly completely aborted, by this aggressive policy). He also mentioned their foreign recruiting in this context.
To the extent that actually reflects the direction Bavasi has, or has been given, we could view it as hopeful inasmuch as they’re preparing us to not see an overpriced arm signed in the offseason. But to the extent that they think they’re getting starters out of the farm (who are these magic AA or AAA guys and where have you been hiding them, Lincoln?) it suggests a rather dispiriting departure from reality. And I’m not sure the HoRam, Weaver, Parish, and White experiments give us much confidence in Bavasi’s ability to evaluate pitching and to find a hidden gem anywhere else.
It was also apparent that “defense” has not crossed Lincoln’s mind as a category that matters in baseball or one which the M’s might hope to improve.
103 – I wish I had season tickets to cancel.
I’m going to cancel my Extra Innings package with DTV so that it doesn’t renew.
I hope a lot of people do cancel.
Ah, waiting for the public to get upset enough take action… that’s a completely non-frustrating activity.
And – “If your goal at work was to increase revenue and you increased revenue, would you expect to be fired because you didn’t go about it in the ‘right’ way?â€
Possibly, yes. This is true in any pretty much anything. The results are not always the only criteria. A reporter sells newspapers, but by fabricating the whole thing?
No. You set a performance metric, you delegate to your employee the means of reaching that metric. If they reach the metric you don’t fire them for underperformance unless you enjoy spending time in a courtroom.
I have quibbles with the way they evaluate talent sure, but you are ignoring the fact that they’ve continued to develop a farm system, they really don’t have any really awful contracts (despite efforts to sign Zito) and they were in contention this year (granted luck played a big part).
Bavasi got lucky. He didn’t ‘fabricate the story.’
And worse, the ML team did zero to get better for next year.
Do you really believe that?
1) Resigned Ichiro
2) Called up Adam Jones (caveat – they didn’t play him nearly enough)
3) Brought up a number of farm system pitchers (caveat – they continued to rely too much on retreads and Morrow would have been better served in the minors)
4) Good draft
It was also apparent that “defense†has not crossed Lincoln’s mind as a category that matters in baseball or one which the M’s might hope to improve.
I guess I just don’t understand why you would expect that level of detail from Lincoln. If Bavasi comes out tomorrow and says ‘our defense is fantastic’ then I’d be worried, but Lincoln’s (hopefully) not making personnel decisions.
98:
I like the Safeco ‘family friendly’ standards. It allowed me to rid myself of a couple of drunk rally monkey a–wipes a few years ago.
These guys were out of hand, their Angels were making a run, they spent the money to travel and it just got rude. Umpire calls a strike: Bullsh-t! Bull-F—ing Shit!
Like that. People around me with kids. I had mine there. Talked to the guys. Got told to F— myself. Got the usher, he brought security, a–holes gone. ROUND OF APPLAUSE. So, you like the Meadowlands, or Oakland Coliseum? There are plenty of fights to be had. No families though.
This will be a very interesting off season. It is my perception that Bavasi stresses the building of the farm system, and I think he’s done an effective job of doing that. Unfortunately, he is an abysmal trader, so some of the prospects that he has stockpiled over the years have ended up helping other teams to the playoffs.
Given McLaren’s apparent reluctance to use “inexperienced” players, I wonder if we’ll see a systematic purging of our best major-league ready prospects in an attempt to procure the stabilizing veterans we need to push us to playoff level. I hope not.
108- “No. You set a performance metric, you delegate to your employee the means of reaching that metric. If they reach the metric you don’t fire them for underperformance unless you enjoy spending time in a courtroom.”
Sorry, that’s a massive oversimplification. There are all kinds of reasons for firing someone. Meeting someone mediocre milestone doesn’t grant immunity, that’s ridiculous.
“Bavasi got lucky. He didn’t ‘fabricate the story.’”
Really? Did you really think I was saying Bavasi was a reporter? Come on.
I was giving you examples of exceptions to the your absolute you gave.
Another you are about to see happen a lot would be fall tv shows whose ratings are ok. But if the network thinks they might be able to do .1% better in that time slot… they make the move.
The idea that they could hit a mediocre rating and have some sort of immunity is crazy.
A good network will do what it has to to get better ratings. And a smart one will do it with long term thinking, nurturing the shows that will help them in the future, even at the expense of the present if necessary.
And firing Bavasi wouldn’t get them sued. Not unless he was sleeping with Lincoln.
“Do you really believe that?
1) Resigned Ichiro
2) Called up Adam Jones (caveat – they didn’t play him nearly enough)
3) Brought up a number of farm system pitchers (caveat – they continued to rely too much on retreads and Morrow would have been better served in the minors)
4) Good draft”
Well, I should have been clearer, but to be fair I was talking about when they had to make decisions between present vs. future, not on things that benefit both. But I should have been clearer.
1 – Both
2 &3 – Playing AJ helps us for the future. Calling him up does nothing.
That’s exactly the kind of thing I’m talking about. Saying they prepared for the future by using farm pitchers and AJ is way unfair… they were horrible at that. They don’t get any credit.
4. We’ll see. And they have a draft every year.
I think you know what I was talking about. The Mariners chose to focus on eking out meaningless wins instead of getting better for next year. I guess I should say “trying to eke out meaningless wins.”
The clean up needs to start within the roots. So until Howard Lincon dies (because that is what is gonna take for that man to quit), we are not going to be able to sport a winning baseball team.
109 – “I guess I just don’t understand why you would expect that level of detail from Lincoln. If Bavasi comes out tomorrow and says ‘our defense is fantastic’ then I’d be worried, but Lincoln’s (hopefully) not making personnel decisions.”
Well, for one thing, he did give that level of detail on other aspects of the game, conspicuously not mentioning defense.
Maybe it’s indicative of an organizational philosophy, maybe it’s not.
But it was certainly a valid observation by joser.
#105, I was thinking more of Feb. 2, as in Bill Murray in Groundhog Day. I’m dreading this offseason, again.
107: I can totally sympathize with that sentiment, John…and you may be right about a few people cancelling their package. However, since I’m in Seattle to begin with, I may finally break down and subscribe to the Extra Innings package next year just so I can watch some other out-of-market teams that at least have a chance of actually COMPETING for something (i.e. Tigers, D-Backs, etc.).
113: Sad but true, unfortunately. 🙁
No surprise, really. Given how the Mariners cleave to their veterans, of course Bavasi and McLaren were retained. They are vets with PROVEN track records.
I’m too tired to mount any real outrage right now. This season was cooked before the first pitch was thrown in spring training. Today we learned that next season is already cooked, and the last pitch of this season hasn’t been thrown yet.
The only bright side of Bavasi’s moves this season were his refusal to trade good young prospects for magic beans. I suspect even that bit of sunshine disappears by December when we welcome Barry Zito and some other reanimated corpses and say goodbye to Jones, Clement, Balentin, and the rest of the farm system.
Howard Lincoln delenda est.
I admit, I’m surprised that they retained McLaren. The man did preside over a significant decline in team performance (even if we generally understand that it was more returning to the underlying stats which the team had been overperforming). In some career tracks, doing 20% worse than your predecessor gets you actively fired, let alone moved from interim to permanent.
Bavasi, in Baker’s blog:
I think we’re at a point we should be able to put a competitive club on the field. By that, I mean, get to the postseason and compete successively in the postseason.
“I think we’re there,” he added. “Those are the expectations we can make of ourselves.”
OK. That’s the bar he’s going to be held to. We’ll see if the team can get there, but I like those expectations more than the “just be a little better than the previous year” kind.
Ditto what NBarnes said. While I (and most of us) would have fired Bavasi and McLaren and not had to think hard about it, we know the Mariners are into results-based analysis. This team won more games than last year and Guillen, Vidro, and Batista had good seasons (if you don’t understand what “good” is). We knew Weaver and Reitsma were gambles so he gets a pass. And thus Bavasi did a good job.
But McLaren took over a team that was in first place (winning 57% of games) and led them to play less than 500 ball. And he presided over the worst losing streak for a “good” team in baseball history. And they looked bad doing it. Without going to deep into his managerial style, his decisions to continually run HoRam and Sexson out there were a direct cause of the Mariners failure. How can one spin his performance to be “acceptable” much less “good”?
I do subscribe to the theory that managers don’t make much impact, but John McLaren cost the Mariners a real shot at playoffs this year (obviously he had some help) and returned the Mariners to an empty stadium in September, and that should get you fired 10 times out of 10.
Do the Mariners have the worst GM and the worst field manager in baseball right now?
Do the Mariners have the worst GM and the worst field manager in baseball right now?
McLaren, maybe. Bavasi, no. Colletti, Sabean and whoever Angelos’ puppet in Baltimore certainly beat him out in that regard by a long shot. I think Kenny Williams is worse given some of his signings/extensions.
Well, for one thing, he did give that level of detail on other aspects of the game, conspicuously not mentioning defense.
Maybe it’s indicative of an organizational philosophy, maybe it’s not.
But it was certainly a valid observation by joser.
I don’t read too much of what Lincoln has to say to be honest, so if that’s what he normally does then, yeah that doesn’t seem great.
On the other hand, it really shouldn’t matter much what his statistical philosophy is – that’s Bavasi’s job. There are certainly some organizations out there where the decision maker abvove the GM level has no background in baseball.
The M’s win 79-83 next year. McLaren and Bavasi don’t go anywhere.
Felix Adam Jones and Ichiro can cover for a fair amount of mismanagement. Bavasi at least can do a passable mediocre, which was known about him at the time of his hire. Worse managers than McLaren have had long uneventful careers in MLB.
This ain’t just about the M’s. Read the BP article about the good old boy network. MLB is not a place where comfort is generally sacrificed in the pursuit of excellence. (with notable exceptions)
The M’s win 79-83 next year. McLaren and Bavasi don’t go anywhere.
I don’t buy that. If the team falls backwards, there’s going to have to be people tossed out the Kremlin window.
Also, something to ponder:
2007 Mariners under Hargrove: 45-33, 395 runs scored, 380 runs allowed
2007 Mariners under McLaren: 40-41, 384 runs scored, 426 runs allowed
If the Mariners had been 40-38 under Hargrove, similar to what their Pythag SAID they should be…