TERRY MOSHER
JERRY DIPOTO
New Seattle Mariners’ general manager Jerry Dipoto mentioned something at his first press conference as the new field boss that struck a chord with me. He pointed out the club strikes out a lot, and went to say that it was systematic throughout the organization’s system.
I have no proof of what he says, although I did research how the Mariners fare among all 330 MLB Clubs. The 2015 Mariners are 28th with 1,309 whiffs, which is 8.28 a game with four games left in the season
Interestingly, the Chicago Cubs rank last with the Houston Astros 29th. The Cubs have secured the second National League wild card berth with 92 wins and are 27 games above .400 while the Astros, after leading the American League West for most of the season, are a half-game out of the second AL wildcard and have 83 wins and are eight games above .500.
This tells me that strikeouts are not a major factor in how well a team does. But I get Dipoto’s point: that if this is an organizational thing it needs to change so that the ball is put in play more. I have a detractor here in West Sound who says putting the ball in play is worse than strikeouts because bad things can happen (groundouts, fly outs, double plays) by putting the ball in play.
I think that is hogwash. I would prefer a team and an organizational system that puts a premium on making contact because doing so puts pressure on the defense to make plays. Being a contact-hitting team also works to the advantage of the ball park the Mariners play in – Safeco Field. Their ballpark is spacious and is definitely a pitcher’s park and you want your hitters to spray the ball around to all fields and miss gloves if at all possible.
Of course, I’m bias because I can remember striking out just twice in my brief career playing baseball – once while playing semi-pro baseball and once against then Mariner president/ general manager Dan O’Brien in a pick-up game we used to play at the Kingdome involving Boston and Seattle media and the front office of the Mariners (I made up for that whiff in my next at-bat by running a triple into a double with a one-hopper off the right field wall that produced the winning run in a 2-1 victory over the front office).
The more important portion of Dipoto’s press conference for me is when club CEO Howard Lincoln said his new GM has the final say in all things baseball (except, I assume that which impacts in the negative way the budget). If that holds up under future scrutiny then that is a good thing. We media types have always thought that there was a certain amount of meddling from Lincoln and from now retired president Chuck Armstrong and that hindered the people who are paid to make those baseball decisions from doing their job to the full extent of their ability.
My philosophy on being a leader (which I’m not) is you hire the best people around you. They need to be smarter than you and no yes men (or women) need apply so that when a decision is to be made you have the best chance at having the best advice possible to do so. Too often because of ego leaders hire friends or family or people who are not smarter than they are and often they don’t listen to the advice, bad as it might be, because they think they know better. So I hope Dipoto has the ability to bring in people who are smarter than he is and that he really listens to them.
Finally, Dipoto has a huge haul in front of him. The previous GM ran the organization into the ground and made more bad deals than he did good ones. I don’t know how Jackie Zduriencik lasted seven years as club GM. I never bought into his charm and could see right through him that he was not as good as a lot of people thought.
If I’m Dipoto I bring in my own manager. Lloyd McClendon might be a good baseball man (I think he probably is), but I don’t believe his players player to the best of their ability for him. As tough as he presented himself, I don’t think he was tough enough when it was needed and his players took advantage of that. I know that some of the so-called stars on the team didn’t perform as I would have expected them to.
There is one thing still lacking among the Mariners, and then I will get off my soapbox. There is no true leader on the team. The guys making most of the money did not show me leadership that fired up their teammates. You need that one guy who refuses to lose, who hates losing more than anybody else and will do anything to prevent it, including jumping on teammates who need to be jumped on.
Back in my heyday as a beat writer covering the team, when the team was going good, the leaders were Jay Buhner and Edgar Martinez, although Edgar’s leadership was more by example and by production than vocal.
Buhner was the glue that held that team together and he let his teammates know when things weren’t right.
So there you have it, my two cents. Now we’ll see over the winter how Dipoto shapes this team and whether we all think he’s got it right. My guess is that there will be several trades before spring arrives. That may be a good thing.
Okay, I’m going to relax for the rest of this day.
Be well pal.
Be careful out there.
Have a great day.
You are loved.