The Lueke Situation
I generally prefer to stay away from gossip. I’m not an investigative journalist, and we’re not here to try and dig stuff up. But, given what has come out in the last few weeks, and given Carmen Fusco’s firing today, this is something I feel compelled to write about. And yet, I don’t necessarily feel qualified to do so. I generally write from a place where I believe I have some steady ground to stand on. I like the evidence to be on my side, and I like to be able to point to facts to support my opinions. On this issue, those are unfortunately few and far between. Here is a timeline of what we know to be factually true about the Josh Lueke acquisition.
July 10th – The Mariners traded Cliff Lee to the Texas Rangers for Justin Smoak, Blake Beavan, Josh Lueke, and Matt Lawson.
That’s it. That’s the entirety of what we know. We don’t know what happened leading up to the deal being completed, and we don’t know what happened after the trade was completed.
What we do have are public comments from people, all of whom have their own agendas, that we can choose to place degrees of trust in or not. I’m going to try not to tell you who to trust and who not to trust, because I don’t know who is telling the truth. Neither do you. We can make guesses, but that’s all they are, and we need to realize that. Among the quotes that we can choose to put stock in, we have the following, all courtesy of Geoff Baker:
July 11th
Chuck Armstrong tells The Seattle Times that he was “not aware” of Lueke’s legal problems before the trade was completed.
In the same article, Jack Zduriencik says: “We had a degree of information and we have flown Josh in for a face-to-face. We were satisfied with the interview and it’s an issue that’s behind us”
September 1st
Rick Adair tells The Seattle Times that he told Jack Zduriencik everything he knew from his time in Texas: “”I told him everything I knew about every prospect I was asked about, including Lueke, including any court case.”
Chuck Armstrong, on whether he ordered Zduriencik to send Lueke back to Texas: “We tried that on Friday night, but then, on Saturday morning, the Rangers said, ‘No, we’ve already notified the players. The deal stands as is.’ ”
Jon Daniels, on whether that statement is true: “We offered several times to reacquire Lueke in a separate transaction — an offer originally made the same night the deal was announced. That offer stands.”
Jack Zduriencik, on Lueke’s future in Seattle: “He’s part of our organization, he understands our policies, he understands that there’s a short leash … and believe me, we do not take it lightly. I think he understands that from us and here we are. We’re moving forward and he’s pitching for us.”
Obviously, some of those statements are mutually exclusive. You can’t believe everyone is telling the truth, since their statements conflict. There are half-truths and potentially even outright lies in there somewhere. How do we identify which statements to believe? There’s no magic formula – we can’t sick Jack Bauer on these guys and extract a confession. The best thing we can do is use common sense and understand the limitations of our knowledge, refraining from drawing conclusions that outstrip what we can know.
Let’s put the story that has gained traction in the last few weeks to the common sense test first.
The Mariners didn’t know about Josh Lueke’s past issues and found out about the true extent only after the deal was completed. At that point, the Rangers wouldn’t take Lueke back as the deal was done.
That wouldn’t be how they would phrase it, of course, but that’s essentially the story that is most often repeated, and it’s somewhat pushed forward by the company line that is being peddled by the organization. Does any of that make sense logically, though? In order to believe that story, you’d have to believe that the Mariners knew less about a player that they were trading for than I did. Forget the ridiculous “they didn’t google him” thing that has somehow become part of the narrative – there was no googling required. Josh Lueke’s history was, as Rick Adair stated, common knowledge among anyone who followed the Texas Rangers or the minor leagues with any kind of diligence. Jay Yencich, in his post reviewing the prospects the Mariners received – this was published on our blog within an hour of the deal being finalized, by the way – talked about Lueke’s history.
It would take a ridiculous leap that is beyond reason to believe that the Mariners were unaware of Lueke’s past. Did they know everything about the situation and what happened? Maybe, maybe not. Did the people who knew communicate well enough to the upper management? Maybe, maybe not. We don’t know the full extent of what they knew and when, but it is outside of the realm of common sense to believe that the front office – one that had been negotiating with Texas for several weeks – did not know about Josh Lueke’s past. I think we can essentially reject the notion of ignorance as just overly implausible.
So, why does the company line push forward this notion? It could be because its the one that someone in the organization decided would appease sponsors and allow the team to try to treat it as a finished story and one that they could move on from, with Josh Lueke remaining in the organization. Both of Jack’s quotes above, as well as the fact that the Mariners haven’t taken the Rangers up on their public standing offer to take Lueke back (assuming that Daniels is telling the truth on that), point to the Mariners wanting Lueke in the organization. Somewhere, the decision was apparently made that they would rather have Lueke than not, baggage and all. There is nothing forcing them to keep him around. If he was seen by the management of this club as a bigger liability than an asset, he wouldn’t be closing for the Tacoma Rainiers in the PCL championship series.
I don’t know who made that call, when it happened, or who all was involved in the conversation. But, I think we can look at fact that they traded for Lueke, and that he’s still in the organization, and make some assumptions about how the organization views the respective costs and benefits of employing him. And, since those calculations have been made, it doesn’t take much of a leap to believe that those calculations were probably made before the deal was consummated. Do we know that? No, but it makes the most sense, right? Could I be wrong? Of course. But, gun to my head, that’s my interpretation, based on what appears to be common sense to me.
So, that brings us to yesterday, and Carmen Fusco’s firing. How does that fit into all of this? We don’t really have any additional facts to go off of. It certainly seems suspicious that Fusco loses his job a few weeks after the Times story comes out. As Larry Stone noted today, Jack and Carmen go back a long, long way, and their friendship extends outside of the game. The safe assumption is that Jack did not fire his long time friend. I have a hard time buying any explanation of the move other than upper management deciding that someone had to get fired because of how this has played out, and Carmen Fusco was the unlucky fall guy. I don’t know that to be true, but it’s the only explanation that makes sense to me. If you want to punish the GM for how this was handled without actually firing him, making Fusco the fall guy is probably the most severe action they could have taken.
There’s no doubt that this situation has been handled poorly all the way around. The M’s screwed up, plain and simple, and they’ve perpetuated the mistake with public comments that could best be described as cryptic and unsatisfying. The organization deserves to take heat for the debacle that this has become. I would guess that, given a chance for a do-over, they’d go back and take the Yankees package. Acquiring Lueke set off a series of events that they didn’t see coming (presumably – if they knew this would happen and went through with it anyway, they’re insane), and they should have seen a good deal of this coming. You can’t acquire a guy with who plead no contest to a terrible crime and hope no one notices.
We can argue about whether they should have been willing to acquire Lueke in the first place. I don’t know where I stand on that, honestly. And, really, that’s another issue, even though its connected to this one. This story is about what the M’s knew and what they’re being honest about. The organization’s lack of transparency has been disappointing, and it’s a big black mark on everyone involved. This whole thing is, quite simply, an organizational failure. It probably cost Carmen Fusco his job. It might cost more people their jobs before this thing is over with. It might cost Jack Zduriencik his job. He’s done a lot of good things since he’s gotten here, but this is clearly not one of them. I think he’d admit that. Mistakes were made. Pretty big ones, at that.
But, at the end of the day, we don’t really know what exactly went on. We weren’t there, and the only thing we have are statements made in self interest. So, we can speculate, but we have to acknowledge that’s all it is. Beware of conclusive statements – there simply isn’t enough in the public arena to build a foundation that would support dogmatic claims. It’s up to you who and what you want to believe. It’s up to you whether you want to root for Josh Lueke, or an organization that employs him. You can make your own choices about who is credible and what statements pass the smell test. I’ve got my theories, but that’s all they are. That’s all any of us have.
Game 144, Red Sox at Mariners
Lester vs Fister, 7:10 pm.
Insert pithy comment about game here.
Ichiro, RF
Figgins, 2B
Branyan, DH
Gutierrez, CF
Lopez, 3B
Kotchman, 1B
Tuiasosopo, LF
Moore, C
Josh Wilson, SS
Carmen Fusco Fired
As first reported by King5, and now confirmed by the team, the Mariners have fired Carmen Fusco, who was serving as the director of professional scouting. It was originally reported that he would be relieved of duties at the end of the year, but it’s now been made effective immediately, likely due to the fact that this became public – hard to have a guy hanging around who knows he’s a dead man walking.
I’m working on a longer post that I’ll publish tomorrow about how this move fits into what we’ve seen happen since the Cliff Lee trade went down. I’m still gathering information, so I don’t want to comment about Fusco’s firing prematurely. I did, however, want to tell the Carmen Fusco story. Those of you who have been around a while have already heard this, but for those of you who have found the blog in the last year or so, here’s why I’m a Carmen Fusco fan.
A few months after the Mariners hired Jack Zduriencik and re-tooled the front office, I invited him to come hang out with us at the Seattle Central Library for a Q&A with the readers. We’d done these with Bavasi and other friends of mine in the past, but I didn’t know Jack at all, and I wasn’t sure how the new front office would take to us. Due to a radio commitment, Jack couldn’t make it, but he made sure to send all of his top lieutenants in order to make sure the event was a success. Along with Tony Blengino, Tom McNamara, and Pedro Grifol, Carmen came and introduced himself to 275 of our readers on a Saturday afternoon.
It’s the only event we’ve ever had that I couldn’t attend. I really wanted to be there, but I just couldn’t make it happen. After the event was over, I got a report from Derek on how it went, and while it seemed like a success, he threw out one thing that I thought was odd – apparently, Fusco went through about half of the two dozen water bottles we had provided on stage. Everyone I talked to couldn’t stop talking about how much water Fusco drank. It was the story of the day.
Fast forward to last August. I went to Burlington to watch Pulaski, the Mariners rookie level affiliate in the Appalachian League. I wanted to see Steve Baron, Gabriel Noriega, and a few of the other interesting guys on the roster. Sitting behind me? Carmen Fusco. I introduced myself, and we started talking about the event in January. He talked about how he had a great time, and it was something he would love to do again. I brought up the water drinking, and here’s a paraphrase of his response:
“You want to know the story behind that? I was in so much pain, and I was just trying to stay hydrated. I went home when it was over and passed two kidney stones.”
Carmen Fusco spent four hours talking baseball with USSM readers on a Saturday in January while passing two kidney stones. And he had a blast doing it. After that, he could strangle puppies in front of my bedroom window at 2 am and I would still be a fan of his.
Today’s Required Reading
In March, friend of the blog Jonah Keri traveled to Arizona to work on an epic story about how the Texas Rangers are developing their pitchers. The result was an 8,000 word treatise on pitching and history. Today, Jonah has published the article on his blog, and so when you have a good block of time, you need to sit down and read it. It’s really good stuff, even if I’m not completely convinced of the effectiveness of some of Nolan Ryan’s philosophies.
Here are a few of the highlights, for me:
Barry Raziano threw just 21.1 innings in his career and would make just eight more appearances after this game before tearing his rotator cuff and ending his career. On this night, Raziano came on in relief of Ryan, threw two scoreless innings, and collected the only win of his major league career. It wasn’t quite Moonlight Graham, but the night should have been memorable. But the win itself didn’t resonate. Raziano was young, pitched in a lousy bullpen that needed him, and figured there’d be plenty more chances down the road. No, what he remembered most clearly was Cecil Cooper striking out three times against Ryan that night, an outcome he found amusing because Raziano had done the same to Cooper once in Triple-A.
Only Raziano’s memory was faulty. Cooper struck out six times against Ryan. He went 0-for-8 for the game. When contacted for this story, Cooper issued the most understandable “no comment” of all-time.
Ryan’s own ironman history would seem to make him the perfect spokesman for pushing pitchers to go deeper into games. His 235-pitch slog back in ’74 marked the third time in three years he’d pitched 12 innings or more in a game. These weren’t what you’d call efficient efforts either. Ryan threw 332.2 innings, struck out 367 batters, and walked 202 in ’74, the season that produced his biggest workload. He threw harder than anyone, trained harder than anyone, struck out more batters than anyone and walked more batters than anyone in the game’s history, started in the big leagues as a teenager, and finished as a 46-year-old.
But Ryan also acknowledges that he was the biggest of outliers. Though he owed much of his success to hard work, he also knows he won a genetic lottery that helped make him one of the most successful and most durable pitchers of all-time. Having Nolan Ryan preach about the value of pitching deep into games is a little like listening to Yao Ming encouraging people to get taller. Easy for you to say, buddy.
Jaeger made some inroads with his approach. Top Arizona Diamondbacks starter Dan Haren, former Cy Young winner Barry Zito and 2009 AL Rookie of the Year Andrew Bailey rank among the big league pitchers that use some version of the Jaeger program as part of their training. Hundreds of amateurs have followed suit. Even a few progressive major league pitching coaches have taken interest. For the most part, though, Jaeger hasn’t had much luck convincing teams to overhaul their old training methods.
“Baseball has always been the good old boys sport,” said Zito, whose father Joe was such a big believer in long-toss that he insisted on a clause in Barry’s first contract guaranteeing that the A’s wouldn’t interfere with his son’s regimen. “You’ve got a lot of old-school guys with old-school methods. It seems other sports will adjust and change with technology, whereas baseball has always been slow to adjust to the times, and to new technologies.”
Rainiers PCL Playoffs Game 5
Feierabend v Mortensen, 7:00pm
The Rainiers won the first two games on the road, then saw the RiverCats pull the same trick in Safeco. Tonight’s the deciding game – the winner heads to Memphis for the PCL championship.
The series has been defined by command, or the lack thereof. Game 1 saw the Rainiers spot Sacramento to a 7-1 lead, but RiverCats starter Clayton Mortensen’s wildness gave the Rainiers an opening, and got to Travis Blackley to get the come-from-behind win. The Rainiers led most of game 2, thanks to another 5 walks in 5 2/3 from Sacramento starter Travis Banwart.
In Safeco, Rainiers starters Mauricio Robles and Yusmeiro Petit had decent off-speed stuff but little command of their fastballs, and while neither was hit terribly hard, the walks ran up pitch counts and meant the Rainiers were consistently playing from behind (Sacramento has scored at least one run in the first inning of 3 of the 4 games so far).
Tonight Sacramento starts Mortensen, their ace, on 3 days rest. The Rainiers will counter with Ryan Feierabend, who’s making his first appearance of the series. Game 1 starter Andy Baldwin’s available in the bullpen as well.
The Mariners start someone not named Felix Hernandez, so why not tune in to Mike Curto on 850AM or here? Better yet, come down to Safeco. The logistical issues of getting to Safeco while thousands of Seahawks fans leave proved much less severe than I’d thought. So come down; you may have an entire section to yourself, but if you’ve ever wanted to feel like some insane tycoon who orders professional sporting events played for his/her personal benefit, tonight’s the night.
–Update–
RAINIERS WIN! The Rainiers take the series 3-2, with a 4-1 win in game 5. After trailing for the middle innings, the M’s tied it in the 6th, then took the lead on a truly bizarre play: 1 out, runner on first. Jose Yepez hits a grounder to short who goes to 2nd to try and get Mike Wilson, but Wilson beats the relay. The 2B fires to first in time to get Yepez, and 1B Tommy Everidge, thinking there were 3 outs, throws the ball into the crowd. That’s a 2-base error, and that allows Wilson to score, about 5 minutes after the play ended.
A Matt Mangini two-run HR gave them some breathing room, and Josh Lueke closed it out in the 9th. Ryan Feierabend’s the player of the game, after an 8IP, 1R, 2H, 0BB performance.
As usual, pictures below.
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Game 143, Mariners at Angels
Vargas vs Haren, 12:35 pm.
Yeah, they’re still playing. If Tacoma loses today, the rest of the year will get more interesting, with guys like Justin Smoak and Dan Cortes getting called up. If the Rainiers win, well, then we’ll continue to have games like this.
Ichiro, RF
Figgins, 2B
Branyan, DH
Gutierrez, CF
Kotchman, 1B
Lopez, 3B
Langerhans, LF
Bard, C
Josh Wilson, SS
Game 142, Mariners at Angels
Hernandez vs Santana, 9:05 pm.
Happy Felix Day.
Yesterday, I ran a poll on FanGraphs asking our readers who they thought should win the Cy Young. In just over 24 hours, we’ve gotten over 4,000 ballots, and 62.1% of the votes have gone to Felix. Francisco Liriano is in second place with 10.8%, while CC Sabathia is in third place with 9.2%. It has been nothing less than a rout. He is the consensus pick for the Cy Young Award among the more statistically minded public.
While this isn’t a representative sample of the BBWAA, or baseball fans in general, I do think its a good sign for Felix’s chances. If he can capture all of the voters who give credence to the newer statistics, then only a few of the more traditional voters have to switch sides and ignore Sabathia’s edge in wins. Given how people like Jayson Stark have come out in favor of Felix, that doesn’t seem like such a tall order. Right now, I’d put Felix as a slight favorite over Sabathia to actually win the award. He obviously needs to finish strong, and it wouldn’t hurt him to pick up a few wins on the way, but even if they just maintain their current numbers, I think Felix takes the award.
Rainiers PCL Playoffs Game 4
Well at least this doesn’t directly conflict with an M’s game today. If you’re in Seattle, come down to Safeco. Gametime is 12 noon, and if yesterday was any indication, great seats are still available.
Tacoma again goes for the series win, sending Yusmeiro Petit for his first start of the series. Petit is coming off his best outing of the season, going 7 innings of shutout baseball on Sept. 5th with 8Ks and no walks. More importantly, the RiverCats have re-activated Brett Tomko to make the start for Sacramento. This means the Rainiers can satisfy the Sullivan Postulate, which held that after beating Travis Blackley in game 1 and John Halama in game 2, the Rainiers could only win by beating Tomko. That looked tough, as he’d been placed on the inactive list. But he’s back, and I’m betting he can still hear Lou Piniella’s screams echoing around Safeco field.
Recaps/commentary on last night’s RiverCats win from Mike Curto here and Larry Stone here.
Today’s Rainiers line-up:
1: Ackley
2: Halman
3: Mangini
4: Winfree
5: Carp
6: Smoak
7: Nelson
8: Alfonzo
9: Hulett
Lots of photos, not as much commentary below. Just a reminder that gameday is here and you should listen to Mike Curto here or on 850AM. Aaand that’s the ballgame, final score 5-1 Sacramento. Just like last night, none of the Rainiers’ pitchers had good command. Petit struggled a bit, but nobody struggled more than Dan Cortes who gave up 3 in the 9th. The 5th and deciding game is tomorrow night at Safeco Field – it’d be great to get a bigger crowd out tomorrow, but the logistics are going to be tough – the Seahawks game will be letting out and the I-5 roadwork will make getting back to Tacoma a nightmare. I’m not selling this. PLAYOFFS! WINNER TAKE ALL!
Pictures of Ackley, Halman, Mangini, Petit, Cortes, Patterson, Tomko and more after the jump.
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Rainiers PCL Playoff Series Game 3 Gamethread
Traffic prevented me from getting here early, so I’ll make this quick:
The Rainiers send Mauricio Robles to the mound today versus Vin Mazzaro of Sacramento.
The line-up is Ackley, Halman, Mangini, Winfree, Carp, Smoak, Nelson, Alfonzo, Hulett.
Chris Carter’s starting at DH for the RiverCats, and Michael Taylor is in CF.
Summary: The Rainiers lost game 3 of their best of 5 series tonight 6-2 because Mauricio Robles wasn’t sharp and because the RiverCats hit 2 HRs. Robles velocity was down and he couldn’t command his FB. A great change-up helped him rack up strike-outs, but he couldn’t find the zone consistently enough to give hitters, particularly righties, something else to look for. I’m pleased he was able to pitch as well as he did (for as long as he did) when he clearly didn’t have it tonight.
The R’s will try and close things out tomorrow at noon here at Safeco. Should they win, it’s on to Memphis for the championship series. But as Cheney’s been bulldozed and because the Red Sox are visiting the Mariners, the Rainiers would play every game on the road.
Halman K’d twice, but had two of the better swings against RiverCats starter Vin Mazzaro. Dustin Ackley had a forgettable game. If you’d like the gory details and a few pictures, they’re below. Read more
Rainiers at Safeco
Playoff baseball returns to Safeco Field tonight, as the Tacoma Rainiers host the Sacramento Rivercats in game three of their PCL playoff series. The Rainiers lead 2-0 and can win the series with a victory tonight, or tomorrow, or even Sunday. They’re in a pretty good position, obviously.
Tonight’s game is at 7:00, and you can buy your $20 ticket here. You’ll get a great seat in the lower bowl, and get a first hand look at the guys who will probably make up the next good Mariners team. Dustin Ackley launched a grand slam last night, and Justin Smoak has made just one out in 11 plate appearances so far in the series. Toss in some hilarious Greg Halman at-bats (he might hit one out of Safeco, or he might not hit a ball all night) and a chance to see a celebration if the Rainiers win, and it should make for a fun evening.
Go to Safeco. Cheer like crazy.