Beneath the swap of managers in the last three weeks and the roster twisting that will occur throughout the offseason, the underpinnings of the Seattle Mariners are changing as well.
One respected front-office executive, two longtime coaches and a scout who had a major impact on this year’s Mariners have left the organization, all without the security of having another job to go to.
“It’s kind of sad to see a lot of good people leaving this organization,” said John Moses, a former Mariners player who later was their first base coach and, the past year, a roving minor league instructor.
The Mariners cut out that job for 2005 and Moses, deciding not to accept what he considered a lesser coaching role that was offered, said he is leaving the organization.
There have been other significant departures.
* Longtime scouting director Roger Jongewaard, whose input in personnel matters was diminished in the past few years, “retired” early this month and moved to San Diego. However, Jongewaard already says he wants to get back into baseball with a club that values his opinion.
* Veteran pitching coach Jim Slaton, with the organization the past eight years, is leaving after the Mariners abolished his roving position and offered a lesser job that he decided not to accept. Like Moses, Slaton quit with no other job lined up.
* Charlie Kerfeld, a scout whose knowledge of the independent leagues uncovered such Mariners prospects as George Sherrill, Randy Williams, Greg Jacobs and Rick Guttormson, also has left without knowing where he will work next.
Those moves are in addition to the departure of former general manager Woody Woodward, who the Mariners retained on an advisory basis after he lost his GM job to Pat Gillick following the 1999 season.
“When you bring in a new regime and a new philosophy, things change,” Moses said.
This will be general manager Bill Bavasi’s first full offseason to put his stamp on the Mariners. He was hired last November after some personnel decisions already had been made.
While those who are leaving lament the fact that the club is losing people who helped build the Mariners into a winning franchise, others say change is necessary after the team became stagnant and lost 99 games this season.
In the past year, Bavasi brought in two men he’d worked with previously: baseball veteran Bob Fontaine as his scouting director and former Dodgers GM Dan Evans as a special assistant.
The notion that Bavasi is turning the club into the “Angels North” – hiring people he’d worked with during the 1990s when he was GM of the Anaheim Angels – took a hit last week when he hired Mike Hargrove, who he’d never met, as the Mariners’ new manager.
Still, the old regime is slowly drifting away.
Jongewaard’s supervision of the scouting and player development departments helped bring such No. 1 draft picks as Ken Griffey Jr. and Alex Rodriguez to the Mariners. He also played key roles in the trade that brought Randy Johnson to the Mariners in exchange for Mark Langston, and then the deal with Houston that sent Johnson to the Astros for Freddy Garcia, Carlos Guillen and John Halama.
The minor league system also became stronger under Jongewaard, and the Mariners were named the Organization of the Year in 2000 by the Topps company.
“We made it a better organization with more quality, more depth, a better program,” Jongewaard said. “The Mariners right now are one of the better organizations in the minor leagues in all of baseball. At one time we led of all of baseball in international scouting, and I think that’s something we should be proud of.”
This year, his 19th with the Mariners, Jongewaard’s job changed. He was a special assistant to the general manager and felt less involved than before in decision-making.
“Bill (Bavasi) wants his own people, and you can’t blame him for that,” Jongewaard said.
Despite his retirement from the Mariners, Jongewaard feels strongly that he will return to baseball in the near future.
“I feel good, and even thought I’m older, in scouting it’s knowledge and experience that are important,” Jongewaard said. “I feel like I can help somebody, but I won’t help if I can’t be involved. I like to be involved in the decisions.”
Moses, who played seven of his 11 major league seasons with the Mariners, understands that change occurs more in baseball than other businesses, especially when a new general manager takes over.
He wasn’t happy to hear, however, that the roving instructor positions that he and Slaton filled last year were being eliminated.
“They indicated to me that they’re making cutbacks, which I don’t understand,” Moses said. “I loved working with the kids and I saw a lot of improvement in a lot of players. I explained to the front office that we’re doing the kids an injustice by teaching them the way we’ve taught them the past year, and all of a sudden eliminating the job so there’s nobody there to teach them any longer.”
The jobs held by Moses and Slaton were created for them a year ago and, although the team is doing away with those positions, Bavasi said there are other roving jobs that will remain.
“We had a job for John that he did not want to accept,” Bavasi said. “And we had a different job for Jim that he didn’t want.”
The Mariners asked Moses to coach during extended spring training at their training complex in Peoria, Ariz., then work on the Everett AquaSox coaching staff when their season starts in June. He turned it down.
“I had no qualms about going to Everett, but not the 21/2 extra months in extended spring,” said Moses, who lives in Issaquah and has enjoyed spending more time near home in recent years. He said he may look for a job in baseball or get his real estate license.
“Sometimes you think, does it have to be this way?” Moses said. “Spending 21 years in this organization and being offered what they did offer, I kind of felt I was heading backwards instead of forwards.”
Kerfeld chose not to speak in detail about his reason for leaving his job as a senior scout with the Mariners.
Benny Looper, the Mariners’ vice president for scouting and player development, said Kerfeld was offered a different job but chose not to take it.
“I just decided that I wanted to go out and do something else,” Kerfeld said. “There are a few things to look at, but I’ll probably stay in scouting.”
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