MVN - Most Valuable Network

Is This April Fools?

OK, let me see if I understand this correctly… The Mariners, having possibly their worst season ever, have to start a reliever, Ryan Rowland-Smith, because they don’t even have a AAA starter who can step in when Felix Hernandez gets hurt. Predictably, he pitches three good innings and falls apart.

The M’s, a team that has been listless and had a tendency to fall apart early, claw back.

Richie Sexson, he of the .220 batting average and no extra base hits in recent memory, hits a game tying home run.

And the game winning double is delivered by that offensive powerhouse Willie Bloomquist…

OK, I’m going to bed. Back to reality tomorrow?

Why is Ryan Rowland-Smith Starting?

Plain and simply… He’s the best available.

With Felix Hernandez and Miguel Bautista both hurt and the M’s needing to think youth movement, it would make great sense to look down to Tacoma, maybe to Ryan Feierabend… Oops…He’s on the DL. So is every other halfway decent starter they’ve got. The Tacoma roster is getting hammered right now.

Anyway, good game today–R.A. Dickey did better than can be expected, and the bullpen should get one heck of a workout tomorrow. But it’s a lost season so the main thing is to let Rowland-Smith pitch about five innings of “don’t get hurt” ball, hand it over to a couple mop-up men, and see what happens. And if he happens to throw a gem, wonderful.

Now Batting Cleanup…Jose Vidro

I was kind of hoping it would be more than three days before I start bashing Jim Riggleman. But this lineup is absolutely quixotic. Bloomquist hitting second, Reed fifth, Betancourt sixth. True, you won’t probably take Tim Hudson out of the park, but still… This lineup is…interesting. Well, we’ll see what happens.

A Pattern to Look At…

With the latest Mariner ownership, there is no question about spending money. Payrolls are near the top of the league every year and multi-year contracts are being handed out like Halloween candy. But…

(1) The good Mariner teams faltered in the second half consistently.

(2) Trading deadlines tended to be few and disappointing, leading to the problem above.

(3) Both Lou Piniella and Mike Hargrove walked away from their jobs mid-contract, a rarity among managers.

(4) An unusual number of the long-term contracts have had disappointing results.

(5) There are serious concerns about chemistry within the team.

This looks like something that the team needs to look at deeply–not something that gets fixed by dumping a manager or GM, especially not by bringing in another organization man. This is something that goes far deeper–organization philosophy deep–maybe Howard Lincoln deep, even Hiroushi Yamauchi deep.

A famous business owner once said “The best way to make a small fortune is to start with a large one.”

The Mariners appear to be following that advice and reaping the appropriate results. The way to build a winning team is not to spend money, then sit back and wait and see what happens–the current philosophy. It is to do painstaking research, make appropriate intelligent investments, constantly evaluate them, and make continual adjustments as needed.

This research would have shown that one-year wonders well past that year like Rich Aurilia and marginal players playing out of position like Scott Spiezio are not good investments. Neither is a long-term contract to a mid-level finesse pitcher a couple years past a good year (Washburn) or one who walks nobody, strikes out nobody, gives up a ton of hits and is neither left handed nor over 30 (Silva. Lefties over 30 with that style–Tommy John is an example–often are good risks, but nobody else is). The Beltre contract may have been a good risk–a budding star on a breakthrough season–could go either way. But what research would have allowed for a long-term high dollar contract to a unidimensional slugger coming off a major injury (Sexson)? A smart move with him is a 1-year incentive-laden contract, maybe with an automatic vesting option, and if he refuses it, let someone else take the risk.

Finally, a good team is built from within. A typical player peaks at 27-28 years old, just before he is moving into the free agent market. His salary is still in the single digit millions. He’s at the top of his defensive game and his speed is an asset. What he lacks in experience he makes up for in instinct and raw ability. The team has brought him up the ladder, schooled him on their team philosophies, evaluated him from so many different angles that they know him better than he knows himself. He’s grateful to be with the big club, knows he’s a few mistakes away from overnight bus rides and second-class hotels, and is willing to do anything and put up with anything to earn and keep his starting job, to boost his reputation in the league, and to maximize his selling power at arbitration and free agency time.

By the time the Mariners sign him, he is 33 years old, has lost some speed and and has a slower bat, and though his superb defensive positioning covers up his lost range, there is no way he’s going to hold that gapper to a single or snare that flare off the end of the bat. His batting average will drop thirty points, his slugging about sixty, though he will take some more walks, probably because he has finally learned he can no longer catch up with that outside pitch so he will let it go by and hope he gets the call. He’s got the superstar’s attitude, the hotel suite on the road, and the increasing lack of respect for managers and coaches, and especially rookies. At $12 million per for four years, he’s a good deal at 33, an OK one at 34, a bad one at 35, and Richie Sexson or Jose Vidro at 36.

Lou Piniella and Mike Hargrove are good baseball men, particularly good at developing young hitters. They had every reason to be frustrated with an upper management who may have been less than responsive to their needs and requests. Bob Melvin and Bryan Price seem to be doing rather well in Arizona with an ownership that is allowing them to develop their team, rather than sending every struggling rookie to purgatory or trading him away for nobody and signing an over-the-hill veteran to a long-term handcuff in his place.

Howard Lincoln–before you make any more major decisions, please get your management team together, look around the league at the teams that are doing well without breaking the bank, and see what they’re doing that you’re not. Arizona’s a good place to start. Maybe drop Bob and Bryan a dime and pick their brains a bit.