Lookout Landing - Seattle Mariners fire GM Jack ZduriencikMariners baseball support group meets here, Tuesdays and all the other days too.https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/community_logos/50775/ll-fav.png2015-08-31T09:50:37-07:00http://www.lookoutlanding.com/rss/stream/89849362015-08-31T09:50:37-07:002015-08-31T09:50:37-07:00Make the Mariners great again
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<p>No but really. The Mariners' next general manager has an incredible opportunity and, even with the downsides, this gig should have immense appeal. </p> <p>When I was a kid, I wanted the Mariners to have less fans. Safeco Field had too many, and the annoyance wasn't a result of the issues you might expect in today's adult world—long beer lines, crowded concourses, maybe parking. It was simple: there weren't enough seats.</p>
<p>Of course, that's especially true when all seven O'Keefes rolled over to Safeco to watch those early-2000s M's. But a lot of the time, there were four of us—me, my dad and my two little brothers. We never bought tickets in advance. Hell, we rarely ever bought them together.</p>
<p>We'd walk off the ferry from Bainbridge and over Safeco's left field gate; then we split into pairs, one of my little twin brothers with me, being maybe 13 or 14 at the time, and the other with my dad. Two of us stayed there where Occidental met Royal Brougham, two of us walked up the north side of the stadium, to just short of the railroad tracks. Then, as thousands upon thousands of fans streamed in from both directions, we yelled "ANYBODY GOT ONE EXTRA TICKET?!" until, through sheer will and the power of youthful innocence, we had the requisite four to get in.</p>
<p>So we'd do our best to find a spot in the bleachers and then, no more than a couple innings later, the search for four better ones was on. And it was <i>never</i> easy. Well, spotting four empty ones was easy—because in a sea of shirts and jackets, even just a few open dark green seats stood out, but then having them staying that way never was.</p>
<p>So I'd go home, I'd watch Sportscenter, and I'd see teams with a lower bowl flush with seats for the taking and I'd wish, just a bit, that Safeco afforded the freedom to roam in those empty seats. If I'd only know what it'd be like, a little more than a decade later, for that to be almost all there was.</p>
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<p>This organization, it can be great again. Maybe my introduction to this team when it was among the best franchises in baseball—drawing three million fans and constantly winning 90-plus—has bound me with some level of permanent disillusionment, but I will argue that forever.</p>
<p>I argued it in the winter of 2004, when I took to AOL chatrooms titled "Baseball 1" and Baseball 2" to debate with anyone I could that the signings of Richie Sexson and Adrian Beltre, combined with the continued development of Gil Meche, would put the Mariners right back in the playoffs. And you can be certain I'm going to do that now.</p>
<p>Before I do, I feel like I should apologize. I was wrong about this team. Yes, part of it was me just being optimistic, and that's never going to change—at least I hope not—but an even bigger part, a reasonable part, had logic saying this was going to be a can't-miss decent team. And that 's putting it conservatively.</p>
<p>I was one of many who had the 2015 M's in the World Series. While it's easy to see the holes now, in March it was a roster that let your imagination run. So with this year's roster, as with many moves of the Zduriencik era, it all seemed so snakebitten. This team, the failed prospects, the busted trades—how could it all continue to be so worst-case scenario?</p>
<p>This is going to sound like a cop out, so I apologize—but we're not supposed to know the answer. Reporters aren't, bloggers aren't, fans aren't. That's the job of the man (or woman) in the big chair. While the constant search for this game's secrets will never reach its conclusion, it's the job of the GM to possess more secrets than we do—and more importantly, than his competitors do.</p>
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<p>You're supposed to know why things go wrong, why they go right, and you're supposed to know before either happen. And when you don't—whether that's through bad luck, lack of foresight or inattention to detail— the answer isn't to <a href="http://www.seattletimes.com/sports/mariners/jack-zdurienciks-ms-legacy-more-than-3-dozen-departed-managers-coaches-scouts-staffers/">fire off 1,400-word emails</a>. It's owning it. That's it, that's the job. And there should be plenty of people willing to take it on.</p>
<p>I know there will be any number of individuals saying otherwise, but this sentiment here is entirely expected:</p>
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<p lang="en" dir="ltr">i cant say who the mariners will hire as gm, but i can this: everyone & his brother wants that job.cant blame 'em.</p>
— Jon Heyman (@JonHeymanCBS) <a href="https://twitter.com/JonHeymanCBS/status/637357973862510594">August 28, 2015</a>
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<p>This is a great gig. It goes beyond the fact that being a general manager of <i>any</i> major league team is a dream job—though that is a very important one. Though, a point should be made on the biggest reason many say people will stay away, and that's that this ownership group isn't easy to work with.</p>
<p>I'm not going to go out of my way to defend this ownership team, not with the track record it possesses. But while we'll never know the extent to which this group does it, owners meddle <i>everywhere</i>. It's the reason the biggest agent in the game, Scott Boras, prefers to work directly with the owners. And the biggest difference between a "meddlesome owner" and "a passionate owner who will do anything to win" is found almost entirely through results-based analysis.</p>
<p>So general managers expect, to some degree, that part of the job is keeping the man who writes the checks happy. In Seattle, that may or may not be more difficult than other places, but there's plenty of good to outweigh that bad.</p>
<p>First, this is a club ready to contend—and that will be the expectation. It's difficult to foresee them quickly morphing into the elite American League club we envisioned them being, but with Felix Hernandez, Robinson Canó, Nelson Cruz, Kyle Seager and a developing Taijuan Walker, the hard work is done.</p>
<p>The most pressing job of the next general manager is to excel where Zduriencik faltered, in building a complete major league roster replete with depth and, to put it plainly—way more average dudes. Pulling a couple four-win outfielders out of nowhere would be nice, but of even more importance is avoiding the black holes that plagued Zduriencik's teams.</p>
<p>A GM who revels in the finer points of roster construction should see this as an enormous opportunity. Sure, there are some load-bearing walls you likely can't knock out as part of the remodel, but this a decent condo with all the furnishings—and none of the furniture.</p>
<p>Also, if a bottom-up rebuild is more your style, guess what, the Mariners need that too. There are a multitude of young, talented players from which a player dev guru might be able to extract production, but this system needs a lot more—and the next GM will have the opportunity, nay obligation and freedom, to completely rework how the Mariners' player development system operates and, in doing so, add significantly to what now is a barren foundation of young talent.</p>
<p>And if this individual succeeds, he or she will be rewarded. They'll get <i>all</i> the credit.</p>
<p>I've written it so many times before, in a number of different contexts, but Seattle one of the most-up-and-coming cities in America—with clear parallels to the early-2000s dotcom era that accompanied this franchise's most successful period. This city loves its sports and, as with most, it'll show when the teams win.</p>
<p>And it's this overflowing support, if it happens, that can spur future success. Seattle is not only a burgeoning city, in general, but an expanding media market—one, with the existing cable deal, that could (<i>should</i>) continue to push payroll towards $150 million and beyond.</p>
<p>Of course, this is all taking place in a ballpark that is one of baseball's jewels—and a jewel that, thanks to that ever-flowing cable revenue, continues to be polished.</p>
<p>Now, it's time to fill it again.</p>
<p>That individual has the opportunity to take this organization to places its never been, and accomplish things it's never done. If they do, they'll be a demigod.</p>
<p>The bar is set high here, as it should be. That's what this city, in recent years, has come to expect. If that bar is cleared, the praise will be endless, and the individual who manages to push the organization to do so will be celebrated in this town will be celebrated like very few have.</p>
<p>Now, the Mariners just have to find him—or her.</p>
https://www.lookoutlanding.com/2015/8/31/9224069/make-the-mariners-great-againColin O'Keefe2015-08-28T12:45:15-07:002015-08-28T12:45:15-07:00Kevin Mather, exhaustion and everything
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<p>An era ends, or does it simply change cast members?</p> <p>I am tired. The <a class="sbn-auto-link" href="https://www.lookoutlanding.com/">Mariners</a> introduced Kevin Mather on January 23rd, 2014. His 18 months on the job have seen one near miss of a season and the current catastrophe we've been living through since April. <a target="_blank" href="http://www.seattletimes.com/sports/mariners/mariners-name-kevin-mather-new-president/">In his introductory interview with the Seattle Times</a> Mather spoke of the importance of winning:</p>
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<p><span>"Obviously we need to win more games," he said. "You take care of your fans, take care of the community, be a good community asset. But win more games and everything else happens a lot sooner."</span></p>
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<p>"Win games and everything else happens a lot sooner." It's an interesting quote and one that comes from the mind of someone with a background in business and finance more than baseball. If spun in the sort of cynical way that comes second nature to Mariner fans these days one can easily point to this as another example that for the Mariners winning is an essential ingredient to success, but not the definition of success itself.</p>
<p>"Everything else happens..." For us, the fans, what else is there to happen? Winning is the everything.</p>
<p>In the end Mather's mindset in this quote is one of a successful and careful business man, and at the end of the day we all know that this is a business, run by powerful and wealthy businessmen. Most honest thinking fans will admit that the act of rooting for a professional sports team as passionately as we do has not a small amount of absurdity and hypocrisy in it. What we want is the team to help us ignore it.</p>
<p>The Mariners fired Jack Zduriencik today, after 7+ seasons of general failure, a two word description that aptly sums up the majority of the Seattle Mariners' history. We've seen the briefest and brightest flashes of glory from this team, only to always, eternally slump back down into mediocrity and defeat.</p>
<p>Look, I am tired. We are all tired. This season has been miserable. It has been miserable and entirely too easy to lump in with 2004, 2005, 2006, 2008, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, hell 1977-1992. This organization has spent its existence gnawing through generations of goodwill and passion for the game of baseball. I, we, see it everyday. I see it in game threads that start out in April with 1500 comments and dwindle down to 200 in August on a Felix Day.I see it on Twitter, when even the slightest attempt to spin something positively leads to a tidal wave of negativity.I see it, lord have mercy, on Facebook. Where the Mariners "du not have there head in teh game and are onl concurnd with $$$".</p>
<p>How can we, how can I, counter any of that? Jack Zduriencik is gone, as he needs to be. Jack Zduriencik did not trade <span>Adam Jones</span> for <span>Erik Bedard</span>, he did not non-tender <span>Mike Cameron</span>, or nix a <span>Jarrod Washburn</span> trade, or ruin the team's relationship with <span>Randy Johnson</span>, or low-ball Phil Bradley, and on and on. Firing Jack had to happen, it was a necessity born of failure. Because of it dozens of people, many of whom work long hours for little pay, will be uprooting their families, changing schools, selling houses, going through massive life changes. This isn't a celebration, it's a required sacrifice to the altar of sports.</p>
<p>I am tired. I have had more fun at Safeco Field this year than any time in my life. That's because I'm very fortunate to be here, on Lookout Landing, a part of this fabulous community, writing with wonderful people who have become friends. In the 10+ games I have attended this year I have, save Hisashi Iwakuma's no-hitter, watched maybe 12 innings total at the park. I and we have just retreated into that "everything else" that Mather speaks about. The baseball has been elsewhere, as far from my thought as it is close to my body. I am tired of that.</p>
<p>The Mariners have, through assembling a top notch marketing department and the careful building and cultivation of Safceo Field, built a glittering cathedral to the gods of "and everything". But everything is nothing without the one thing, and it's the thing that got us there in the first place. It's baseball, it's excitement, it's winning, dammit. It's winning, excellence and the pursuit of those things as the first and foremost goal of everything the organization should be, <i>must be</i> about.</p>
<p>The more fun my friends and I have at Safeco Field, drinking, walking around the stadium, hanging out at Lookout Landing, the more we realize we don't need any of it. We can drink and hangout for 1/10th the cost at a bar, 1/20th at someone's house. Without baseball there is no everything, there is just nothing.</p>
<p>I am tired. In the week preceding Jack's firing and the moments after it the two names heard most were Kevin Towers and Dan O'Dowd; two old-school, failed executives who have proven precious little that they know how to take this team from where they are to where we want them to be.</p>
<p>It has fallen to Kevin Mather to lead this franchise at its greatest crossroads. An entire generation has been born, gone to school, grown to adulthood and is about to start having families that have no memory of the Mariners making the playoffs. There is no more naivety to feast on, and the insane pool of talented writers and bloggers that helped lead this fanbase through the Bavasi era are so burned out they look at the team only when absolutely necessary. There is no Voice, there is no time, there is only the demand that it get better, and that it happen starting today.</p>
<p>We are tired, Kevin. Win. Or there is nothing.</p>
https://www.lookoutlanding.com/2015/8/28/9221463/kevin-mathers-legacy-begins-todayNathan Bishop2015-08-28T11:08:48-07:002015-08-28T11:08:48-07:00Jack and the Giant Dream Factory
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<p>We are now entering uncharted seas. But we are Mariners, after all.</p> <p>It was the months preceding the 2008 season when I first started reading the <a href="https://www.lookoutlanding.com/" class="sbn-auto-link">Seattle Mariners</a>' blogs. Back then, it was by recommendation of a teacher that I jump on over and check out what was happening at USSM. So I did, and the talk then was all about the removal of Bill Bavasi. In all honesty, I had no knowledge of who he really was or why he mattered. I just remember talking the <span>Adam Jones</span> trade with one of my coaches during some early morning batting cage work. That was the first moment I remember really thinking about who pulled the strings that composed the M's teams I would blindly follow as a kid.</p>
<p>Jack Zduriencik came in like the hero we all needed. We all remember that. We got <span>Franklin Gutierrez</span> through some sort of wizard magic and put him on a team with <span>Adrian Beltre</span>, Ken Griffey Junior, Russel Branyan, <span>Jose Lopez</span>, <span>Doug Fister</span>, Felix, Ichiro, and more. Yes, 2009 was a shot in the arm. It produced one of the greatest Mariner moments of a decade desolate with them. The Kid and Ichiro being carried off the field in the final game of the season to a standing ovation. <span>Carlos Silva</span> had a smile as wide as the Puget Sound. Baseball was back in Seattle.</p>
<p>And we have to acknowledge how much that mattered. That first, introductory season with Jack was like a beautiful summer zephyr had swept in to the stagnant air that had surrounded Safeco Field for so many seasons. We were alive again.</p>
<p>And then 2010 happened. <span>Chone Figgins</span> and <span>Cliff Lee</span>. The ESPN Magazine cover. I was living in Minnesota, going to school, and I will never forget the moment that ESPN Baseball preview came to my inbox. It was the first time I was excited for a season to start. I was away from home, and Jack Z had connected me back to the first team I loved across the country. The excitement in the article was palpable. Ichiro was eating popcorn on the cover of a nationally circulated cover. That was one of the worst offenses in the history of the game. That season was, by all accounts and numbers, a disaster.</p>
<p>But in 2011, home for the summer from college, I scalped tickets for a weekend series game against the <a href="https://www.thegoodphight.com/" class="sbn-auto-link">Phillies</a>. The Seattle Mariners had just called up <span>Dustin Ackley</span>, who had torn apart the minor leagues to earn ascension. Our number one prospect was debuting at second base for a team that was in the thick of a competing season. I watched that game from high up in the 300s down the right field line. The sun set over the Sound, there were 30,000 plus people at the game, and damn, it was fun to be at Safeco Field.</p>
<p>And then we hit the doldrums. Prospects came, highly touted, some drafted, some homegrown, all essentially failing to meet the expectations. Those seasons between now and then saw a growing commitment to what felt like one (marginal) tool players, that never panned out. If Russel Branyan was a flash in the pan, then Raul Ibanez's half-season of dingers was indistinguishable to the human eye. Yet, Jack still held on to that talent. Raul and Endy served as totems for a growing disdain for defense after the offensive failure that the "defense-first" team of 2010 proved to be. The major league talent was thin, but there was always hope in the minors.</p>
<p>And then they signed Cano after a truly bizarre end to the Eric Wedge saga. And then they competed in 2014 from wire to wire. And they came three innings short of playing for the playoffs. There was the Night Court, a game that until it's final moment, was proof to me that baseball was alive and back. The trade for <span>Austin Jackson</span> had filled an obvious hole and felt like a return to the Trader Jack we had come to love. <span>Logan Morrison</span> found a late season hot-streak and saved us multiple nights. There was so much energy around baseball in Seattle. In a town hot off a <a href="http://www.sbnation.com/super-bowl" class="sbn-auto-link">Superbowl</a> win, everyone was talking Mariners.</p>
<p>Fast forward through almost eight years of Jack to now. Here we are in 2015. A roster that has by all estimations somehow found its floor and maybe even dug down to build a basement below it. It has to be said that Jack set us up for a good ride this year. And that isn't to say it hasn't been fun. This season has also been a struggle. Highs and lows. Think of the moments from this year. The Kuma no-no, Guti being Guti, <span>Nelson Cruz</span> being a stroke of genius, the Marte Partay, an ace-like Tai, and the singular plays from relevant games.</p>
<p>This is all to say that I do not know how you will remember Jack Zduriencik's time at the helm of the Mariner ship, but I know how I will remember it. I won't remember him for the lack of competitive teams. Two winning seasons in seven is not what we were promised. I won't remember him for the failure to develop Ackley, Smoak, Montero, Hultzen, Zunino, and more. I won't remember him for all the horrible that was Lueke. I won't remember him for how Griffey left or how Wak was fired or how Wedge blew us all off. I won't remember him for the bad. For Buck being sent off on his birthday. I choose not to.</p>
<p>Baseball is relevant in this town again. Gone are those Thursday night games where 12,000 cold and sad fans showed up just to have some garlic fries and leave in the 7th. This town has craved baseball, has craved entertainment, and it has been gradually given back to us. We were given the Kings Court, the High Court, the Supreme Court, the Night Court. We were given the Boomstick, the Robbie CanoShow, and reason to hope that from this point forward, this is a relevant baseball franchise.</p>
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<p>Sometimes I walk through the club level of Safeco and along the right field side, there is a sort of mural depicting the Big Moments from Mariners' history. Walk by that mural sometime and look for anything between 2001 and Jack's arrival. There is nothing. They are forgotten years of this franchise and we all made it to now, despite the madness. There are new Big Moments now on that mural. Jack Z moments.</p>
<p>The GM is dead. Long live his memory. Long live the GM.</p>
https://www.lookoutlanding.com/2015/8/28/9220719/jack-and-the-giant-dream-machineDavid Skiba2015-08-28T10:28:59-07:002015-08-28T10:28:59-07:00Mike Zunino sent down, John Hicks called up
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<p>Finally today has some breaking news.</p> <p>It's a bad day for Z's:</p>
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<p dir="ltr" lang="en"><a class="sbn-auto-link" href="https://www.lookoutlanding.com/">Mariners</a> have send Zunino down and called up Hicks.</p>
— Shannon Drayer (@shannondrayer) <a href="https://twitter.com/shannondrayer/status/637312319156981761">August 28, 2015</a>
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<p>To be frank I don't understand the timing of this move at all. The time to send Mike Zunino to Triple A was May, not late August. The Rainiers' season ends on September 7th and Zunino will most likely be back before then, with rosters expanding on September 1st.</p>
<p>I'm trying very, very hard to not read too much into stuff today but this coming within hours of Zduriencik's demotion comes across like a thinly veneered attempt to dump dirt on Jack's freshly buried body. No doubt the failure of <span>Mike Zunino's</span> development lies primarily with Zduriencik's front office but from the second he was let go everything became about how to improve for tomorrow. With <span>John Hicks</span> running a wRC+ of 68 in Tacoma and the aforementioned scheduling quirk I don't see how this does much other than provide some PR cover for ownership at the expense of further embarrassing poor Mike Zunino, who's been left to drown for a season and a half now.</p>
<p>There is always more to this kind of stuff than we see from our perspective so I can't and won't completely can the move. But, like so many of Jack Zduriencik's decisions this one appears to dove tail out of an illogical and reactive mindset. I hope I'm wrong.</p>
<p>When big, sweeping changes are made the moments afterwards are important for tone moving forward. I'd be lying if I said I found this one to be particularly reassuring. We'll see.</p>
https://www.lookoutlanding.com/2015/8/28/9221153/mike-zunino-sent-down-john-hicks-called-upNathan Bishop2015-08-28T10:00:28-07:002015-08-28T10:00:28-07:00Jack Z and sustaining his rookie success
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<p>The Mariners GM came up with a bang, and like a lot of players, left without so much as a whimper.</p> <p>Jack Zduriencik's career as a <a class="sbn-auto-link" href="https://www.lookoutlanding.com/">Mariners</a> is exactly the career you would expect to come from a Mariner. He was hyped. He came onto the scene with a big blast and got most everyone excited. Then he slowly, but surely, just like many Mariners before him and under his charge, withered away our hopes, dreams and tolerance.</p>
<p>On December 11, the Mariners, <a class="sbn-auto-link" href="https://www.letsgotribe.com/">Indians</a> and <a class="sbn-auto-link" href="https://www.amazinavenue.com/">Mets</a> traded 12 players amongst each other. The Mariners came away the clear winners in the trade, netting <span>Franklin Gutierrez</span> and Jason Vargas. This trade, more than anything, seemed to symbolize a shift from the Mariners of the mid-2000s to a new breed of Mariners.</p>
<p>Gutierrez was the highlight of an outfield that was designed to prevent runs from scoring to help offset an offense that wasn't going to wow too many people. In 2009, things started clicking for the first time in a long while. The Mariners finished a surprising 85-77, still only in third place, but also way above projections. It seemed like progress was being made in a forward thinking manner.</p>
<p>Vargas emerged as a completely unexciting, but perfectly dependable, middle of rotation guy. In 2010 his fWAR was 3.0 and in 2011 it was 2.3. Gutierrez had a career year in 2009, finishing with a fWAR of 6.0. He declined in 2010, but still netted a fWAR of 2.1. Considering that the Mariners didn't give up very much in the trade, this was one of those clear wins. It was the first one in a long while we've had as a franchise, and it felt good.</p>
<p>In that weird way, Zduriencik's rookie campaign with the Mariners was viewed through the lens like you viewed <span>Dustin Ackley's</span> rookie campaign. It was exciting. The Mariners were winning, and the question is whether or not that winning was sustainable. As we all know, it wasn't.</p>
<p>Baseball life returned to normal in 2010 rather quickly and the Mariners adopted the familiar position of moving backwards. The Eric Wedge years seemed just as floundering. Whatever rookie year magic Zduriencik had fooled us with was rapidly leaving. The disastrous signings of <span>Chone Figgins</span>, the return of the return of Ken Griffey Jr., and plenty of other head scratching moves littered the Seattle Mariners transaction landscape. At the same time, there were moves like <span>Brendan Ryan</span>, his amazing defense, and an apparent focus on the overall contributions a player makes. No general manager was better at looking like a forward thinking individual and a luddite at the exact same time as Jack Zduriencik. And because of that dichotomous existence we stood pat, and Jack Z persisted. 2014 was the saving grace. The Mariners were one game away from the playoffs, and the six-years of rebuilding were finally paying off. Things all fell apart this year, and at the end of the day, the man who had basically done just enough treading of water to keep his job finally had tired arms.</p>
<p>For me, in the same way that the 2009 acquisition of Gutierrez and Vargas symbolized an embraced of a more statistically driven mindset, the new breed of looking at baseball, Zduriencik fired back in an impressive fashion with the acquisition of Mark Trumbo. The Mariners were busy watching <span>Mike Zunino</span> drown at the plate without the common decency to throw any sort of life preserver his way. The outfield was littered with the decrepit legs of ancient human beings. The 2015 Mariners needed some help, but not the help Zduriencik gave them.</p>
<p>Instead, the Mariners traded away their catching help for another low OBP, big, lumbering bat sauntering around the outfield in Mark Trumbo. In one move, Zduriencik seemed to undo years of modern thinking and displayed as powerfully as he could that he doesn't truly understand the modern version of baseball. That was the final straw. We saw the magic in the rookie season, we thought that in that bald, Elmer Fudd looking head there was a brain that understood the concepts of baseball and what makes a good team. He had assembled a couple of them after all -- but maybe this was the big mirage that we just kept focusing on because we had nothing else to hold onto.</p>
<p>You can only ride that successful wave for so long. People will start to question whether or not you can put it together after all. So Zduriencik, like Dustin Ackley, <span>Justin Smoak</span>, hopefully never (but maybe) Mike Zunino lost the faith of the fans. Maybe GMs, just like some baseball players, need a change of scenery to realize their full potential. Or maybe GMs, just like some baseball players, never were good enough to cut it in the major leagues.</p>
https://www.lookoutlanding.com/2015/8/28/9220633/jack-zduriencik-fired-mariners-rookiePeter Woodburn2015-08-28T09:03:35-07:002015-08-28T09:03:35-07:00Mariners fire Jack Zduriencik
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<p>Assistant General Manager Jeff Kingston will serve as interim for the rest of the season.</p> <p>On July 17th <a href="http://www.lookoutlanding.com/2015/7/17/8983595/jack-zdurienciks-last-stand" target="_blank">we stated that Jack Zduriencik had 73 games left to save his job</a>. It turns out he only had 39.</p>
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<p lang="en" dir="ltr"><a class="sbn-auto-link" href="https://www.lookoutlanding.com/">Mariners</a> announce Jack Zduriencik has been relieved of his duties.</p>
— Shannon Drayer (@shannondrayer) <a href="https://twitter.com/shannondrayer/status/637286776357429248">August 28, 2015</a>
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<p>The Mariners' official statement from President Kevin Mather:</p>
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<p lang="en" dir="ltr">Here's a statement from Mariners president Kevin Mather <a href="http://t.co/4xIZ5M1Zki">pic.twitter.com/4xIZ5M1Zki</a></p>
— Ryan Divish (@RyanDivish) <a href="https://twitter.com/RyanDivish/status/637287269183963136">August 28, 2015</a>
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<p>In 2009 Jack Zduriencik, as one of his very first acts as Mariner General Manager, traded JJ Putz and jetsam for <span>Franklin Gutierrez</span> and Jason Vargas. It was a franchise altering move and thanks to Vargas' steady pitching and Gutierrez' transcendent defense the team surprised many to win 84 games. Ken Griffey Jr. was carried off the field after the final game.</p>
<p>It never really got better for Zduriencik. Through manager changes, front office re-shuffles, top draft picks busting, poor trades and bad luck the regime never again showed quite the same ability to think forward. Over time the Jack Zduriencik front office appeared to get less creative, showing a stubborn insistence on obsessing with particular players (<span>Kendrys Morales</span>) and skill sets (right-handed power).</p>
<p>There is no doubt, at least not here, that Jack Zduriencik has an excellent feel for judging talent and what makes a good baseball player. But over the course of seven years given the full scope of his regime's body of work he appeared at time over his head with the executive demands of the position. Rumors and whispers of his prickly personality and old school approach coupled with an unclear overall philosophy and ability to create, and cultivate an organization that worked in lock step towards a common goal appeared to be his downfall.</p>
<p>For myself I will never forget standing in that downtown auditorium the Winter of 2010. The Mariners, fresh off the most enjoyable and successful season in six years, had traded unsightly Bill Bavasi leftover <span>Carlos Silva</span> for promising on-base machine Milton Bradley. They had traded for Cliff mother-effing Lee! We stood to clap and cheer Jack, Tony Blengino and the whole front office symbolically. Finally, the days of being left in baseball's hinterlands were over, and a new, progressive front office was here to re-establish the momentum of the previous decade.</p>
<p>There are a lot of lessons to be learned about everything that happened over the 6 years since that transpired. Baseball has changed, the landscape of baseball writing and thought on the internet has changed. The people who write about the Mariners, for better or worse, have changed dramatically. The Jack Zduriencik Years have taken a large toll, and the organization finds itself seemingly only marginally more healthy than it was at the beginning of his tenure.</p>
<p>Eyes drift upward now, to Howard Lincoln, Kevin Mather, and the group of businessman who operate the Mariners from a distance. What do they want? How do they want to do it? What has been learned? And, importantly, what are they willing to pay to do it?</p>
<p>We'll have more soon.</p>
https://www.lookoutlanding.com/2015/8/28/9220421/mariners-fire-jack-zduriencikNathan Bishop