Actually, I’ll just be reporting that every free agent has agreed to join the Mets, then post a retraction 3 days later. Live by the source, die by the source.
I must agree with Derek yesterday, by the way. Our readers do rule. We have so many people interested in attending the U.S.S. Mariner Feed, we have to look into renting a conference room to hold all you folks. We’ve got a few ideas, including one potentially very cool one, but if any of you know of inexpensive facilities willing to house our little shindig, drop me a line. Also, we’ve still got room available, so if you’d like further information, email us with Feed Information as the subject and be sure to let us know how many people you might be bringing with you.
Also, if you’re annoyed I haven’t been posting long diatribes in the evening, when you’d expect them, please accept this explanation — when I turned my computer on, I heard a loud ‘snap’ and smelled a really nasty acid burned-plastic smell. Closer inspection revealed that a connector on my motherboard actually blown apart. Like seriously had exploded. I’d like to thank Computer Stop (no link for you), who sold me the memory stick (now almost certainly dead) that I just installed which is the almost-certain cause of the problem. I’ve got parts shipping now, but it’s likely going to be the weekend before I update the GM Scorecard. I’m sorry… but you know who should be sorry (shaking fist)…
Just popping in to note that by publishing reader email, it looks like we scooped the AP story on Matsui by a couple hours. Look for more rumor-mongering and wild speculation in the future — in fact, Jason, Dave and I are going to co-operate on predictions, whereby I will take the affirmative, Jason will take the negative, and Dave will argue why it won’t happen either way. Then later we’ll take credit for whichever prediction came right (this is the “Rush Limbaugh” guaranteed-predictive method).
For instance:
Derek: Mike Cameron will return to the Mariners
Jason: Mike Cameron will not return to the Mariners
Dave: Mike Carmeron will retire and join the Mariners as a defensive coach
(or something)
In fact, I’m thinking of going to a USSMARINER REPORT web page, with really bad organization and strangely-formatted breaking news headlines. Yeahh…
There’s a new hitting instructor candidate in the house: soon-to-be Hall of Famer Paul Molitor, he of 3319 career hits. I’ll echo what Dave said a few days ago about how the hitting instructor probably doesn’t make much difference except for in a few special cases, but you can’t argue with Molitor’s playing resume. It remains to be seen how this would translate to coaching, but he sure could hit.
In other news, Armando Benitez, Mike Cameron, Mark McLemore and Arthur Rhodes have all filed for free agency. Personally I don’t really expect to see any of those four back, with the possible exception of Cameron. Potentially left to file are Shigetoshi Hasegawa, Pat Borders, Rey Sanchez, Edgar Martinez and John Mabry (assuming the club doesn’t pick up his option, which there’s no reason they should). Again, it wouldn’t be a big shock if none of these nine free agents aren’t back with the team next season… mmmm, roster turnover.
Derek’s analogy is perfect. The Mariners are the kind of customer that caused Circuit City employees to light up when they walked in the store. Not only would they end up buying a machine with features that they did not need, they would pay an extra $400 to insure that those unnecessary bells and whistles were in perfect working order for an extra 4 years. This customer also owned a treadmill that was used for a coat-rack, several of those “natural garden fountains”, and likely took Tae Bo.
However, I think Derek is missing one key theme that goes through all the candidates:
Lee Pelekoudas: Financial expert, no experience as GM, limited background in scouting, groomed by Gillick
Benny Looper: Scouting background, no experience as GM, marginal background in administration, groomed by Gillick
Omar Minaya: Expert at bad trades, two years experience as GM, similar philosophy to Gillick
Al Avila: Scouting background, no experience as GM, heavy focus on tools, similar philosophy to Gillick
Bill Bavasi: Scouting background, 6 yeras experience as GM, heavy focus on tools, similar philosophy to Gillick
Mike Port: Scouting background, 7 years experience as GM, analytical mind, not similar to Gillick
David Wilder: Scouting background, no experience as GM, focus on tools, friends with Gillick
You know, I think I do see a theme.
And I have sorely neglected to mention how great our readers are lately — because they rule! They’re way smarter than and can beat up the readers of any other blog. Seriously.
And I wanted to say “Wie gehts?” to whoever’s been using Google to translate this page into German for their reading pleasure, and hope that that greet doesn’t get mangled too badly.
Reader Toshio Tsukiyama emails us with this Matsui update:
“1. Yomiuri Giants (NY Yankees of Japan) made it clear that they will
go after Kaz Matsui.
2. However, Matsui indicated that he wants to play in US.
3. He made it clear that he wants to play SS.”
Good stuff.
I agree with Dave. The Mariners have consistently shown in their interviewing processes that they don’t have any idea what they’re doing. Hiring a manager, the process went like:
1. Make a list. Allow anyone to add names to the list, no matter how preposterous.
2. Interview everyone.
3. Call back the guys who did well (who were still a weird bunch of candidates)
Their GM process has pretty much been the same. How should they do it, you ask?
Like any good shopping process, they should have sat down and said “What do we need as a team right now?” and come up with an answer — even if it’s the wrong answer, it should have been something like
Someone who’s good at assembling the back end of a roster under budget, and assembling a roster with tools our manager needs to win. Arbitration, economic good sense, and an understanding of free sources of talent are important. Strength in scouting helpful but not as important, since we have scouting expertise coming out of our years.
Or even “We need a scout hound to fit in here and to help us evaluate how to best use our bumper crop of pitching prospects, and being well-liked around the league would help us when it comes time to trading some of those kids to fill gaps on the major league roster.”
And then you take those criteria, whatever you came up with, and only consider candidates who meet them. If someone comes up to you and says “interview my old buddy Jim I knew back from the Braves,” you say “I’m afraid Jim’s not what we’re looking for, and we’re concentrating on finding the best candidate available.”
But that’s not at all what the M’s are doing — they’ve wandered into their local electronics store looking for an appliance, and they have no idea of where it’s going to go, or what it needs to do, or how much it’ll cost to buy, or operate, and the chances they’ll buy something that happens to be perfect are pretty slim.
Derek
Astros asst. GM Tim Purpura confirmed in his chat with Baseball Prospectus that the Mariners have not contacted him, but he would be interested in the job. For the M’s to not consider Purpura is a real shame. He is exactly the kind of person they should be interested in. Of course, with the News Tribune reporting that Bill Bavasi is a candidate, we shouldn’t be surprised. My optimism that the M’s will hire a non-retread dims each day.
Reader Andrew Kobayashi reports that Japanese news is reporting Li’l Matsui filed for free agency and can begin negotiating with other teams Nov 8th.
How’s that for hearsay?
Oh, with Duquette in for the Mets and O’Brien in for the Reds, the possibilities of who might go where start to thin down.