The Ultimate Wak Off

So, today ends the era of "Believing Big." Already many people have speculated over the firing of Don Wakamatsu and many have come to his defense. After all, he was a popular enough guy and many felt that he wasn't given much of a chance as a second year manager. A lot of people felt he was thrown under the bus in the Griffey situation and that he was left to manage a team destined to fail.

I STRONGLY DISAGREE. I understand the arguments about his lack of veteran seasoning as a manager, but when I wrote that irritatingly long blog a week ago, something like this is kind of what I had in mind. This is the kind of move that I hope will separate the Mariners of the future from the unstable mess of a team for most of the post-Lou years. It's cold, it's calculated, and it's abrupt, but hey, it might just be what we need. After all, it kind of stinks of a Steinbrenner-esque move.

A lot of what Jack Z said during the press conference, I totally agree with. I lacked the confidence in this team's now former field management for creating a plan that sees us building towards anything positive. With all the accountability talk, I didn't see anything changing and if Wak had held this job, it seemed as if a lot of player issues would have remained swept under the rug to fester over time.

Now, I'm not defending players like Chone Figgins or Ken Griffey Jr. or Milton Bradley, but a manager has to deal better with these issues and from what I saw, Wak did his best to ignore them until they blew up and became public. Then, after all the fans already were aware of these issues, Wak still seemed content to remain non confrontational and offer no resolution. Sure, I didn't expect the guy to air all the dirty laundry and have a media war with members of his own team, but what I took away from it all is that Ken Griffey Jr. was benched and ignored until he gave up and Chone Figgins was allowed to fight in the dugout and be unrepentant to the media but still play the next day. In fact, a lot of players were allowed to play poorly day-to-day until they either managed to injure themselves.

I mean what were the plans here? From what I've seen, I expected that Ryan Rowland-Smith would have returned to the rotation to probably lose as many as 15 games with Wak's response saying something about us misreading the numbers and how much his delivery has improved from the last outing. I expected more guys to be picked off third and more loafing in the field. I expected to Lopez, Figgins, Kotchman, and Jack Wilson to all hit under .260, but keep their playing time. In a lot of ways, it just seemed like this team went on autopilot.

In a lot of ways, that is what happened last year. A great example is that we played Yuniesky Betancourt at shortstop until he was traded and then had Ronny Cedeno start there until Jack Z traded for Jack Wilson. Sure, Cedeno has improved offensively and defensively in Pittsburgh enough to be a starting a shortstop on one of the only teams worse than ours, but he was dreadful, positively dreadful here. It was easy enough to ignore, because we were winning, but had the Mariner's been a losing team, it definitely would have been talked about and should have been addressed. After all, who starts a position player on a regular basis that bats .167?

Then, there were the issues with Johjima. I will still stand by that he was overpaid, but his defense was many times better than either Rob Johnson and Adam Moore. Even his offense, while in decline, was better than theirs, but he became the backup. Sure, we were winning last year and Felix was pitching so great with Johnson it was easy to ignore, but we could have used him this year. Again, maybe there could have been intervention, maybe Wak could have worked to create better communication between Kenji and the pitchers, but in the end, Johjima felt slighted and moved on.

Now, I understand that maybe my view of a manager is a bit off. Maybe watching too many sports movies has put this vision in my head where these guys spend a lot of time keeping everyone on the same page and making difficult decisions, but managing to keep overall peace in the clubhouse, but shouldn't it be that way? Shouldn't everything be out in the open, (at least between the players and manager), and shouldn't there be solutions?

I mean, I have a hard time believing that Wakamatsu approached Griffey and said, "Hey man, you aren't producing as well as you used to, so I'm going to need you to be willing to accept a lesser role on this team. I know you are a true asset to this organization and to this team, but right now, I need you to be more of a leader on the bench." Maybe it did happen, but it seems doubtful, because of how Griffey left Seattle.

Also, Wak should have benched Figgins. A lot of people think that his hands were tied and that upper management forced Wak's hand, but my question would be, how can Wak bench Griffey without being able to bench someone of Figgins' stature?

Again, these are all small examples, but I believe they show a window into what we may have seen in the future. A manager willing to let problems remain unsolved. Sure, it never reached the heights of the 2008 season, but over the course of a few seasons, who knows what could have happened. We need a manager who can call guys out whenever they are out of line, but also mediate concerns among veteran players. Essentially, "Manage" the players.

Too bad, for the other guys, (Adair, Burkleo), but a house cleaning is necessary for this team to build a contender.