Watching the Mariners this season has been utterly brutal. I'm surprised fans still show up at SafeCo Field to watch "baseball". The team this season is pathetic and now to add insult to injury, the team announced yesterday that manager Don Wakamatsu has been let go. Great move, I'm sure its the manager's fault when teams fall way short of the playoffs. It always is right? Give me a break.
The idea that the manager or coach in any sport should be the scapegoat every time a team fails is ludicrous. It is such a cliche'. General managers and ownership have to be honest with themselves when decisions like firing Wakamatsu are made. Why aren't the players blamed? Ever? The sad answer is money, lots and lots of undeserved money.
It is easy to blame the figurehead of a team who earns roughly the same money that a professional benchwarmer makes. I think if you can justify paying these athletes millions of dollars to play a game they've been playing since they were 5 years old, they deserve equal blame.
I've never felt that players in any sport receive enough blame for anything that goes wrong during the season. Yes, the coach is in charge but he doesn't play the game. Each sport requires varying levels of control by the coach. Football head coaches are the most directly involved in their teams success. They call every play and each play is very complicated. They also have to earn the respect of 50, over-sized freak athletes that could crush 90% of the people in the world if given the chance. Being an NFL head coach doesn't sound easy, at all. A great one deserves high respect.
An NBA head coach is very involved in the execution of the team's offense and defensive sets. They manage a roster of 12 players and are constantly shouting plays or adjustments on the fly throughout games. Also, when the game is on the line with seconds left to play, the coach must come up with the perfect play to free up an open shooter for the win. Again, not an easy task.
In baseball, the leader of the team is technically a manager, not a coach. I find that interesting and very telling as well. A coach is in control and is in charge of all aspects of what happens on the field or court. A great MLB manager to me is someone who can keep a baseball team of 25 guys focused for a grueling 162 game season. Sure, there is definitely more to their job than keeping focus but I think that is priority number one. In baseball the success of a team comes down to individual players executing. It's ironic but true. Baseball is a game of individual performances that hopefully combine for a win.
Wakamatsu was a soft-spoken manager. That approach works better on a well-oiled machine full of veteran player that know how to win. The Mariners are a mashup of first-year players and burnout veterans; a squad best suited for a fiery manager that knows how to inspire greatness and come down hard on players not living up to expectations. Wakamatsu deserves some blame for losing so often this year but the players on the field are the real problem.
The issue with the roster is a combination of under-performing hitters and management's failure to add a guy who scares opposing pitchers. For those with weak stomachs skip ahead to the next paragraph.....Some of you still here? The Mariners are last in batting average (.236), homeruns (67) and have scored the least amount of runs in baseball by far. The Pittsburgh Pirates have a better offense. Yuck.
This isn't how anyone predicted the season to turn out. The important thing to remember when you have a big problem in life is to not compound the issues with other mistakes. Hence, don't keep firing the manager when its obvious the players are horrible!
Ever since Lou Pinella left the M's haven't sniffed the playoffs. Of course Pinella had a lot to do with their success but he also had plenty of talent. The 116 win team of 2001 had 7 All-Stars! They had better won a hundred games with Sweet Lou at the helm. The point is that you have to have talent and solid managing to make the playoffs. You can't dominate a 162 game season on a fluke.
General Manager Jack Zduriencik needs to be real with himself and allow the players to bloom under consistent leadership. The Mariners have had 7 managers since Pinella. How many veteran managers do you have to run through before you realize that the product on the field isn't actually that talented?
They say "a carpenter doesn't blame his tools". That carpenter never had to work with tools like the 2010 Seattle Mariners.
I think it's important to note that Jack Zduriencik hasn't been the one shuffling through managers. I definitely agree that more consistant leadership is needed. That being said, I don't think the type of leadership that is needed was ever going to come from Don Wakamatsu.
ReplyDeleteDon Wakamatsu made bizarre baseball decisions. Everything from bad lineups to bad in-game strategy and his general emotionless demeanor was ultimately his downfall.
Do the players deserve the blame? Absolutely. Ichiro is having one of his worst seasons and has made several baserunning blunders. Chone Figgins severely underperformed. Milton Bradley looks like he's lost a step and has been a head case, as per usual. Ken Griffey, Jr. didn't have anything left in the tank. Casey Kotchman has been a disaster offensively. Jose Lopez is hitting under .250 and hasn't come close to 10 home runs. The catching has provided nothing more than frustration. I could go on and on...
I think the Mariners are going to come out of this in good shape. Don Wakamatsu wasn't the guy. The minors are being restocked with talent. Jack Z. said before the season started that he felt the M's were the 3rd best team in the division and I agreed with him. If all the players had played to their potential, the M's would be in second or third place.
2011 and 2012 will continue to be building years. My hope is by 2013 the M's will once again be a contending team! Go M's.