Lookout Landing

The Seattle Mariner GMs That Weren't

2012-05-26T19:00:07Z

Yesterday I brought back memories of the Mariners hiring Don Wakamatsu. Well, maybe not. Do you have any memories of that? I don't. Maybe nobody did; it was a pretty bland announcement since it was not a surprise and Wakamatsu was mostly an unknown. Do you remember the Mariners signing Matt Fox this past winter? Maybe none of this stuff actually happened. If nobody is around to remember it, did it still happen?

Yes, because the internet is now always around. Stupid internet and its memory. One other thing the internet remembers is that the Mariners also had several choices for who to be the General Manager after Bill Bavasi and interim Lee Pelekoudas.

Tony Bernazard (Mets VP of Player Development)
Jerry DiPoto (Diamondbacks Director of Player Personnel)
Bob Engle (Mariners VP of International Operations)
Tony LaCava (Blue Jays Assistant General Manager)
Kim Ng (Dodgers Assistant General Manager)
Lee Pelekoudas (Mariners Interim General Manager)
Peter Woodfork (Diamondbacks Assistant General Manager)
Jack Zduriencik (Brewers Assistant General Manager)

Tony Bernazard you might remember from the meltdown that was the Mets 2009 season and several reports that he had challenged multiple other employees to fights. Or from offending Carlos Delgado back in 2004. Or for being implicated in getting Willie Randolph unceremoniously fired in 2008. How he ended up a GM candidate for the Mariners is confusing to me, but good thing he was eliminated from consideration quickly.

Jerry DiPoto became the interim GM for Arizona after they unexpectedly fired Josh Byrnes but like Pelekoudas he didn't survive the interview process for the promotion and Kevin Towers was brought in. DiPoto stayed with Arizona for another year, but last fall moved to Anaheim to take over the GM job there from Tony "Stealth Ninja" Reagins.

I doubt Bob Engle ever had much of a chance at the Mariners' job. I'm glad for that because he is so very good at the job that he does now and that job is also essential to the Mariners' future success. I hope Engle stays right where he is, but continues to get amply rewarded for his talents.

Running down those same eight, here are their current positions.

Tony Bernazard (unknown)
Jerry DiPoto (Angels General Manager)
Bob Engle (Mariners VP of International Operations)
Tony LaCava (Blue Jays Assistant General Manager)
Kim Ng (MLB Senior VP Baseball Operations)
Lee Pelekoudas (unknown)
Peter Woodfork (MLB Senior VP Baseball Operations)
Jack Zduriencik (Mariners General Manager)

With about 3.5 years of hindsight now to reflect on, I don't find myself wishing the Mariners had chosen any of the other seven candidates. Only with DiPoto do we have evidence of how he or she would actually perform as a GM and that's very little evidence. While DiPoto's moves to date have seemed well received (haha, Albert Pujols), is it worth messing with the current timeline for that switch? I suppose that ultimately comes down to how you feel about the past three seasons and the ones to come.

21-27, Pitching Numbers and Notes

2012-05-26T06:32:52Z

BLAKE BEAVAN

#P	BF	Str%	nBB	Sw(ms)	K(sw)	GB/FB/LD/IF	1B/2B/3B/HR
101	27	68.3	2	50 (9)	1 (1)	11 / 9 / 3 / 1	4 / 0 / 0 / 1

Only one strikeout for Blake Beavan tonight, but aside from the 0-2 home run given up to Albert Pujols, it was a solid outing for Blake. I intentionally used the passive tense there because Blake's 0-2 pitch wasn't terrible. It was a fastball, elevated above the belt and outside. It obviously wasn't an unhittable pitch, but it wasn't a meatball by any means and Albert Pujols pulverized it. Albert Pujols' struggles have been hilarious, but he's still crazy good. That's why celebrating his struggles now is important. You may not get another chance for awhile. Live in the now.

Beavan generated ten swing and misses in his last start against the Rockies, a career high. Tonight he nearly matched that with nine. The fastball continues to be a bafflingly effective weapon for him.

Pitch	#	Sp	Zone%	Ball	Called	SwStr	Foul	GB	FB	LD	IF
FA	73	91.5	39.7	20	14	7	14	9	9
SL	18	81.2	44.4	7	4	1	2	2		1	1
CU	7	75.8	42.9	3	1	1	1			1
CH	3	81.5		2						1

TOM WILHELMSEN

#P	BF	Str%	nBB	Sw(ms)	K(sw)	GB/FB/LD/IF	1B/2B/3B/HR
17	4	58.8	1	7 (2)	1 (1)	1 / 1 / 0 / 0	0 / 0 / 0 / 0

Not much to say about Tom Wilhelmsen tonight. A walk and a strikeout, but a quiet inning overall.

Pitch	#	Sp	Zone%	Ball	Called	SwStr	Foul	GB	FB
FA	10	95.8	40	4	2	2	1		1
CU	5	78.6	20	3	1		1
CH	2	89.2	50				1	1

BRANDON LEAGUE

#P	BF	Str%	nBB	Sw(ms)	K(sw)	GB/FB/LD/IF	1B/2B/3B/HR
16	6	68.8	1	8 (0)	0 (0)	3 / 1 / 1 / 0	2 / 0 / 0 / 0

The first part that sticks out about Brandon League's outing is the zero missed bats. All eight swings made contact, with five of them putting the ball in play. Now, those balls in play weren't especially damaging when three were on the ground, but those getting through and hurting is the price that can be paid when a pitcher walks one and intentionally puts another on base.

Looking at just the cold numbers here, League's outing appears better than it looked on television. On some other night I might take the opportunity to caution against overreacting to a blown save here, but screw it. It's Friday and ~~the Mariners~~ Brandon League just blew the game in a way that's about the most irritating way possible. I'm just going to walk away. Oh hey, the replay on ROOT is about to start. Screw you, Mariners.

On the mitigating side, you can check out Brandon Morrow's start tonight.

Pitch	#	Sp	Zone%	Ball	Called	Foul	GB	FB	LD
FA	13	94.8	38.5	5	3	1	2	1	1
CH	3	85.3				1	1
IBB	4

21-27, Hitting Numbers and Notes

2012-05-26T06:03:27Z

Batter	#P	PA	RB	1B/2B/3B/HR	nBB	SO (sw)	Sw (cnt)	GB/FB/LD/IF
M Saunders	15	5	2	1 / 0 / 0 / 0	1	1 (1)	7 (6)	3 / 0 / 0 / 0
A Liddi	15	4	1	0 / 0 / 0 / 0	1	2 (1)	7 (2)	1 / 0 / 0 / 0
I Suzuki	16	4	1	0 / 1 / 0 / 0		0 (0)	9 (9)	2 / 0 / 1 / 1
K Seager	20	4	3	0 / 1 / 0 / 0	2	0 (0)	7 (6)	0 / 1 / 1 / 0
J Smoak	8	4	2	1 / 0 / 0 / 1		0 (0)	5 (5)	1 / 1 / 2 / 0
J Jaso	19	4	2	0 / 0 / 0 / 0	2	0 (0)	5 (4)	1 / 0 / 0 / 1
J Montero	16	4		0 / 0 / 0 / 0		0 (0)	9 (7)	4 / 0 / 0 / 0
M Carp	21	4	1	0 / 0 / 0 / 0	1	2 (1)	11 (9)	1 / 0 / 0 / 0
C Figgins				0 / 0 / 0 / 0		0 (0)	0 (0)	0 / 0 / 0 / 0
M Kawasaki	9	3		0 / 0 / 0 / 0		0 (0)	6 (5)	2 / 1 / 0 / 0
B Ryan	1	1		0 / 0 / 0 / 0		0 (0)	1 (1)	0 / 1 / 0 / 0

#P = number of pitches seen, RB = reached base, nBB = unintentional walks and hit by pitches, sw = swinging strikeouts, cnt =contact

The Mariners aside from Alex Liddi swung and missed eight times. Alex Liddi swung seven times and missed five of those seven times. Which makes his pair of strikeouts completely unsurprising.

Jesus Montero put four balls in play, but all four were on the ground. That's not the path to success for someone with foot speed slower than the internet's embrace of tolerance for all viewpoints.

Justin Smoak had a great game tonight. It will likely be overlooked with yet another Brandon League meltdown. What I didn't notice when watching bits and pieces of game was that Smoak pounced on hitable pitches. Over four chances at the plate, Smoak saw just eight pitches and swung at five, connecting on all five swings.

21-27, Win Expectancy Chart

2012-05-26T05:21:17Z

(What is this chart?)

As mentioned, Jeff is out of town this week. I'm not going to duplicate his content. I'm not Jeff. I don't have his talent or his opportunity. You will have to do with what I can provide. Part of that will be less word content, especially over this holiday weekend, but I will try to make up for some of that with what I tend to specialize in, which is numbers. Hooray, comparative advantage! That's my way of saying there will be more recap coming later; though for this game, why are you sticking around for that?

Mariners v Angels Open Game Thread

2012-05-26T01:30:04Z

Dustin Ackley gets the night off from starting and the Angels pencil in four switch-hitters in tonight's battle for not last place.

MARINERS	ANGELS
Michael Saunders* CF	Mike Trout CF
Alex Liddi 3B	Maicer Izturis^ 2B
Ichiro Suzuki* RF	Albert Pujols 1B
Kyle Seager* 2B	Kendrys Morales^ DH
Justin Smoak^ 1B	Mark Trumbo RF
John Jaso* DH	Alberto Callaspo^ 3B
Jesus Montero C	Erick Aybar^ SS
Mike Carp* LF	Kole Calhoun* LF
Munenori Kawasaki* SS	John Hester C
Blake Beavan P	Ervin Santana P

Tonight's Keys to the Game

1. Gesture the dingle
2. Electrocute jiggers?
3. Capsizing Next Oops

The Mariners' Next Quote Shortstops Unquote

2012-05-25T22:30:14Z

Right now the Mariners have a capable short stop in Brendan Ryan. Nobody (except other teams and their fans) is thrilled that Ryan is currently hitting just .180, but that's not the start and end of Ryan's value. There are walks; Ryan has elevated his walk rate this season from a steady 7% in prior years to 13% in 2012. There is the defense, where Ryan is a consensus world-class fielder. And there is evidence that Ryan's batting average is being held down in part by the bad luck that accompanies everything associated with the Mariners since we fans all did very bad things in past and current lives.

As a total package, Ryan can be an average to above average Major League player. For just $1.75 million in salary, he's a terrific value. He'll surely get a raise next season in his final year of arbitration eligibility, though how much is debatable if his offense doesn't recover. While I am totally satisfied with Ryan's performance and personality on the Mariners, he will be a free agent after next season and in case he and/or the team moves on, it's a welcome sight to gaze down into the minors and see the starting short stops doing well.

Player	Age	Level	wOBA*	wOBA+	K/BB	AVG/OBP/SLG	BABIP
B Miller	22.6	A+	.414	121	1.34	.321/.417/.565	.379
N Franklin	21.2	AA	.386	120	1.36	.328/.396/.500	.374
C Triunfel	22.2	AAA	.369	106	2.33	.273/.330/.449	.316

Brad Miller hit well in college and he has not missed a single beat since moving to the pros. The usual High Desert caveats apply (.500 wOBA at home, .343 on the road), but even adjusting for the park, Miller's tearing up the league. With his advanced level, coming from college, and ease in handling the High-A level, Miller ought to be moved up to Double-A.

Except that would be difficult because sitting (not literally*) in Jackson is Nick Franklin. Franklin hasn't demonstrated that his surprising power in Clinton during 2009 — he hit 23 home runs and 52 extra-base hits — has returned but the rest of his hitting skills are showing no signs of slacking against the tougher competition in Double-A. Instead, he's flashing increasing control of the strike zone this season with just 19 strike outs against 15 walks.

*probably. I don't know what Nick Franklin is doing right this moment. I assume it's not sitting in Jackson since the Generals are playing the Biscuits in Montgomery.

Just down the road (from me) in Tacoma, Carlos Triunfel has been on our collective radar for years now and that can make it difficult to remember that he barely just turned 22 years old. Triunfel began in a similar fashion as Franklin, blowing away expectations in Low-A Wisconsin except that Triunfel didn't hit for power and that he was amazingly only 17 at the time.

That young age fueled hopes for Carlos that he would fill in the power department as he aged, but it never seemed to come. His career high in home runs is just eight, over nearly a full year at High Desert. His .401 slugging percentage that season stands as the highest he's finished a year with.

That lack of development downgraded Carlos from exciting prospect to dismissed bust in many's eyes. But Triunfel might finally be taking that step of turning youth and projection into reality. He has five home runs already in the tough Cheney park and his slugging is at .449 with a career high .176 isolated slugging. Further encouraging is that he's kept his strikeouts in check (18%) and isn't just a hacker (6% walk rate).

Now those are just hitting numbers. They don't cover defense, which is a concern at least with both Miller (17 errors this season in 45 games) and Triunfel (12 errors in 44 games) and possibly Franklin as well (7 errors in 25 games). It's possible, some might even say likely, that none of them play much time at short in the Major Leagues. We've been hearing for years that Triunfel wouldn't stick at short.

However, I don't put a lot of stock in minor league defensive numbers and scouting reports. We have recent first-hand experience with Dustin Ackley (at second base), Kyle Seager (at a couple positions) and Alex Liddi (at third base) all having been regarded poorly by reports from the minors only to look adequate in the Majors. So for now, I'll shrug those concerns off. For as long as the above continue playing short stop, I'll consider them short stops.

The Coaching Cycle

2012-05-25T15:00:10Z

It was 10 November 2008 and ESPN, by way of the Associated Press (they apparently didn't have better things to associate with), released details on the Mariners; managerial search, which was into its first round of interviews. We know how it ended up. About a week later, it was Don Wakamatsu and that was that.

However, I recently became curious about what'd happened to the other six named possibilities. As a refresher, here were "The Magnificent Seven" and their jobs at the time:

Joey Cora (White Sox 3^rd base coach)
Chip Hale (Diamondbacks 3^rd base coach)
DeMarlo Hale (Red Sox 3^rd base coach)
Brad Mills (Red Sox bench coach)
Jose Oquendo (Cardinals 3^rd base coach)
Randy Ready (Padres minor league manager)
Don Wakamatsu (Athletics bench coach)

There were so many third base coaches! I suppose that's a manager-in-training job in baseball. Does that mean Jeff Datz could be a manager someday in the future? Would that even be allowed? Anyways, that's who the seven were and where they were. Where have they gone since then?

Joey Cora went on to be interviewed the following year by Milwaukee, but the job went to Ron Roenicke. Cora stayed in Chicago where he had been employed since 2003 and as bench coach since 2006. Cora was fired along with Guillen at the end of 2011 and both now work for the Miami Marlins, as head (Ozzie) and bench (Joey) coach again.

Chip Hale ended up being hired as the third base coach with the Mets for the 2009 season and was a candidate for their manager position after Jerry Manuel was fired after 2010. Instead, Hale is now the bench coach with the Oakland Athletics.

The other Hale, DeMarlo, continued 2009 as the third base coach for the Red Sox and after that year was moved to the bench coach role. Hale was again a managerial candidate the following season, for Toronto. Hale stayed with Boston through 2011 and is now the third base coach for the Orioles, having successfully fled to a better organization (ha!). The Red Sox bench coach before Hale, Brad Mills was named the manager of the Astros after the 2009 season.

Jose Oquendo is still the Cardinals' third base coach. Besides Seattle, he was interviewed for a head coach job with the Padres, Mets and Cardinals. It's worth bringing up that Oquendo was specifically mentioned by Brendan Ryan in his Q&A with David Laurila at FanGraphs as someone who really helped him with his defensive approach.

Randy Ready, who was managing the Portland Beavers at the time, was named the hitting coach of the Padres at the trade deadline of 2009 and remained there through the 2011 season, after which he was fired. He lasted longer than Wakamatsu did though, who was fired by the Mariners on 9 August 2010. Wakamatsu spent 2011 and is currently the bench coach for the Blue Jays.

In conclusion, here's the same list of seven and their current jobs

Joey Cora (Marlins 3^rd base coach)
Chip Hale (Athletics bench coach)
DeMarlo Hale (Orioles 3^rd base coach)
Brad Mills (Astros head coach)
Jose Oquendo (Cardinals 3^rd base coach)
Randy Ready (unknown)
Don Wakamatsu (Blue Jays bench coach)

Sometimes baseball feels static and everlasting. Ichiro and Felix, the Mariners can't hit and we hate our manager. Change occurs of course, but it does not occur with uniformity or regularity. There were seven people leaked as candidates to be named the first manager of the Mariners under Jack Zduriencik. That was way back in the middle of November 2008. We are well into the fourth baseball season since that time and looking back I found it jarring how little life has changed for those seven people. Maybe it's just with baseball coaches, but sometimes I feel so damn stuck.

Site Note

2012-05-25T06:28:01Z

That game recap below is the last thing I'll be writing for a little while, as tomorrow morning we go away for a week. It's not the best time for a trip, but we didn't choose the timing of this trip, for reasons that aren't worth getting into. I've stepped away from blogging for a few days at a time to go camping, but this'll be the first extended break since late December 2006, so this is gonna be weird. In late December 2006, the Mariners almost signed Barry Zito, so hopefully nothing like that happens this time.

The site is being left in the very capable hands of Matthew. This is not Matthew's job, the way it's my job, so don't expect posts to drone on forever, but Matthew will be forcing content down your throats and you're gonna fuckin like it. Everything that needs to be covered will be covered. And more! Obviously there will still be game threads because we're not complete idiots.

I'll be back around next Friday, which I'm looking forward to and dreading. I'm dreading it because oh god, the catching up, the catching up is the worst. Don't send me too many emails. It'll be interesting to catch up on a week of Mariners action since that'll let me look at a slightly bigger picture than the day-to-day stuff. In closing, here is Munenori Kawasaki's head.*

* (not his real head)**

** (but a picture of his real head)