PEORIA, Ariz. — Pedro Grifol has an office on the executive level of the Seattle Mariners’ spring training complex, but his workplace — and his heart — remains on the field.
His version of a three-piece suit is a jersey, baseball pants and ballcap. His way of working effectively as director of the Mariners’ minor league operations is to get down with the players, where he can relate to them and they can relate to him.
“When I took this job, never once did it cross my mind that I was getting off the field,” Grifol said. “I know that a lot of farm directors haven’t been on the field. But I never thought about it twice. That’s part of what I do. That’s my passion. I don’t think I can ever get off the field, at least for right now.”
Grifol, 39, has spent the past 18 years in pro baseball, including three seasons as manager of the Everett AquaSox from 2003-2005. General manager Jack Zduriencik named him the Mariners’ minor league director in November, promoting him after a three-year run as their coordinator of instruction.
Zduriencik’s manadate: Turn these kids into major leaguers.
How?
The Mariners will emphasize to no end that their pitchers must establish the fastball and command the strike zone, and that hitters must put together quality, patient at-bats.
Throwing strikes and hitting strikes is pretty much the goal at every level of baseball and it’s hardly a new concept around the Mariners. What’s different is how they plan to deliver that message.
Grifol will lean heavily on the Mariners’ top minor league instructors — Tim Tolman, the coordinator of instruction; Dave Wallace, who oversees pitching; Roger Hansen, catching; Jose Castro, hitting; Darrin Garner, infield.
And, of course, Grifol will be on the field himself.
“There are a lot of different way to get the message across,” he said. “The advantage I have is that I was on the field with these players. I was in the releases, I was in the promotions and the demotions, I managed a lot of them for three years, about 60 of them. I scouted some of them. I signed some of them. With me they may be a little more open.”
Zduriencik says Grifol may need to wean himself from spending so much time on the field, but it’s something that can be an advantage.
“So many times when you make decisions on players, it has more to do than what you observe from behind the fence,” Zduriencik said. “Sometimes it’s the makeup of the player, knowing what makes the player tick. These are decisions that affect players’ careers. The fact that he can be down there beside them and they trust him and there’s a relationship built there, it’s a great thing for him and a benefit for all of us.”
Grifol was a catcher in the Mets’ minor league system in the 1990s when Zduriencik, the organization’s farm director then, got to know him.
“I always enjoyed Pedro as a player and I was in his corner a lot,” Zduriencik said. “There were times when he’d go back to Double A and he was heartbroken because he didn’t make the Triple A club, but he always did what you asked him to do. I remember saying to him back then, ‘Pedro, stay in this game because you’re going to do things.’ He was very knowledgeable, a bright guy. He had a very nice career and he should have had a chance to be a big-leaguer. I always felt really bad that he didn’t get that September callup to get to the big leagues.”
Now Grifol is the man helping plot players’ futures.
It’s a minor league system that lost many of its major league-ready prospects in trades by former GM Bill Bavasi. But it’s not bereft of prospects, especially younger players like shortstop Carlos Truinfel, outfielders Greg Halman and Michael Saunders and pitcher Phillippe Aumont.
“We have good players. They’re just young players,” Grifol said. “We moved players up fast throughout the organization and they were put into positions where they got really challenged. Now they’ve got the experience of one more year. I’m expecting a lot of improvements, not only because of maturity and experience, but I’m confident in the program we have in place.”
And yes, the organization wants to create an overall philosophy — a “Mariners Way” — to define its minor league system.
“To start off, we’re looking for professionals on and off the field, guys who know how to handle themselves,” Grifol said. “And we need guys who know how to play the game and play it right. We have a beautiful field (Safeco Field), but it’s a big field and we need to play baseball, not sit back and let baseball play us. We’ve got to bunt. We’ve got to hit and run. We’ve got to be in the right place on cutoffs and relays. We’ve got to run the fundamentals correctly. We’ve got to pitch with fastball command. We’ve got to do all these things.
“We want to develop a system that becomes a winning system, a system where people see that we’re developing players year in and year out. Eventually, it becomes a part of the organization that this is how we’re going to do it, this is what is expected of us and this is the outcome — we’re going to play in the big leagues.”
Read Kirby Arnold’s blog from spring training at www.heraldnet.com
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