Seattle Mariners Add To Family

The Seattle Mariners, like most big businesses, like to think of themselves as being one big family. And just like with any average family, the Mariners are constantly swapping out adults, and offering adults considerable salaries in an effort to persuade them to join the Mariners family instead of some other rival family. It's all very Shakespearean. As of today, the Mariners family has a new member, and I'm not referring to Michael Saunders' kid, because I don't see that kid anywhere on payroll, do you see that kid anywhere on payroll? That kid won't be able to do shit for years. I'm referring instead to Tom Allison.

Today, a press release went out announcing that the Mariners had hired Tom Allison to be their new Director of Professional Scouting. Allison is replacing nobody, and nobody had been replacing Carmen Fusco, the most recent employee with that job title. After Fusco was dismissed, his responsibilities were assumed by a handful of people, and there's the expression that two heads are better than one. Either that isn't true or the Mariners are making a grave mistake because now they're bringing in one head to do the job, and one head only.

In case you were wondering, yes, of course, Allison and Jack Zduriencik have a background relationship, as both of them worked for the Brewers last decade. Zduriencik also had a background relationship with Carmen Fusco so Allison might consider living out of a suitcase or two. I'm not saying that Zduriencik will turn on Allison but I'm not saying it's impossible. If you're always looking out for yourself you can never be caught by surprise, is all that I'm saying. Remember how the Fusco firing was so mysterious? Remember how nobody ever really bothered to explain it?

So if you're actually reading this, you're probably wondering whether Tom Allison is a good hire or a bad hire. I can tell you that I trust the Mariners' front office when it comes to hiring decisions like this. I trust them because the only alternative is to not trust them and it's not like I'm in a position to conduct my own independent research. How the hell should I know who would and wouldn't make for a good Director of Professional Scouting? Let's put it this way: when I saw the email about the Mariners hiring Tom Allison, I thought that the Mariners had hired Jeff Allison. Jeff Allison is a former first-round pick and a one-time top pitching prospect for the Marlins. Tom Allison is a completely different person from Jeff Allison, and yet as far as I'm concerned the identity doesn't make any difference. As good as I assumed Jeff Allison would be, I have to assume that Tom Allison will be equivalently good, because I have absolutely zero information about his capabilities.

Here's the entirety of what I know about Tom Allison as a Director of Professional Scouting:

• the Mariners hired him to be the Director of Professional Scouting

That's good enough for me. Allison was recently a Director of Scouting for the Diamondbacks, so there's that. Depending on how the Mariners do going forward Allison is sure to get credit or blame by association. That's the way this works. See you at the next USSM/LL blog event, Tom Allison, probably. Yeah you might want to ask somebody what's up with that. We're kind of a big deal.