Sporcle Friday: Bill Bavasi’s Best Acquisitions

Bill Bavasi and I have two things in common.

1. We both went to the University of San Diego.
2. Neither of us have had any success as general manager of the Seattle Mariners.

As yucky as Bavasi’s tenure was, at least he can say he successfully courted a future Hall of Famer, even if that player’s time in Seattle was a bit underwhelming. His most famous failure was a trade that also netted someone on this list. He had some success with international players too, both in the free agent market and in the draft, where he nabbed a North American outfielder in the 11th round.

The bWAR totals shown here are for the player’s entire Mariner career, not necessarily just the years where Bavasi was in charge. You will, however, notice an asterisk next to the bWAR total for the second player on this list. That’s because his entire Mariner career includes being drafted and signed by multiple GMs. For the purpose of this list, we’re only going with the bWAR he accumulated between being signed by Bavasi in 2003 and then leaving in free agency after the 2008 season, not the years he had before Bavasi got him or the year after he came back via a contract from Jack Z.

Bavasi, to his credit, also drafted a skyscraping pitcher that his successor gave up on a little too quickly. While the Bavasi era has no playoff berths to celebrate, the gilded period from November 2003 to June 2008 does have the acquisitions of 13 players who were worth at least 2.0 bWAR, which is almost the same thing.

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