It shouldn’t be long now. Maybe Memorial Day weekend. Maybe sooner.
All the signs are there. Underachieving team. Underachieving players. Two major team meetings a quarter of the way into the season. Individual meetings followed by grim faces and silence.
We’ll soon receive reports that the Mariners have made a move. At a press conference, they’ll say they decided to “move in a different direction.” They’ll say they appreciated the effort, but the appreciated effort wasn’t reflected on the field.
And they’ll say they wish the best for those involved.
We’ve seen the routine so many times. And if any organization has a blueprint for the above scenario, it’s the Seattle Mariners.
Maybe it’ll be manager Mike Hargrove. Maybe general manager Bill Bavasi. Maybe both. Maybe it’ll be a prominent player. Maybe more than one. Maybe all of the above.
Maybe it will be the dreaded housecleaning. Indeed, do any in the Mariners organization feel any job security?
It’s not working. It hasn’t for some time. And once an organization establishes a pattern of mediocrity, heads roll.
This hardly is news. We see it occasionally in the highest levels of sports here in the Northwest, but not often. So when it happens, it’s big news, regardless of whether it was expected.
Only because of a bumbling NCAA investigation did the courts rule otherwise, then-Washington athletic director Barbara Hedges had little choice but to jettison Rick Neuheisel after repeated transgressions and embarrassments.
Bob Weiss is a sweetheart of a guy, but his record never indicated that he was a great candidate to coach the Sonics this past season, and the results bore that out.
A few years ago, I wrote that Bob Bender should have one more season to coach UW men’s basketball. Instead, Hedges showed him the door, hired Lorenzo Romar and look at what’s happened since.
The Huskies are a national power in men’s basketball, Romar could successfully run for governor and Bender landed on his feet in the NBA, currently as an assistant with the Atlanta Hawks.
In that case, everybody won.
It’s often said that you can’t fire the players, although it’s often tempting.
* Whose fault is it that Adrian Beltre and Richie Sexson are barely hitting .200? Is it Hargrove’s fault that Beltre has done little since the M’s signed him before last season?
* Is Bavasi or pitching coach Rafael Chaves to blame because relievers Julio Mateo, Bobby Livingston, Jake Woods, Jeff Harris and Eddie Guardado all have earned run averages above 5.00?
* Is it hitting coach Jeff Pentland’s responsibility that Jeremy Reed hits in the low .200s and too often simply looks overmatched at the plate?
* Should Chaves be fired because 20-year-old phenom Felix Hernandez is throwing like a 20-year-old?
* Is it the coaching staff’s fault that the team, once again, is near the bottom of the majors in homers, RBI, runs scored, on-base percentage and slugging percentage?
At some point, a player has to be responsible for his own job performance. Hargrove isn’t the one missing signs, failing to get bunts down or overthrowing the cutoff man.
In the past few days, Bavasi has been mentioned as the possible fall guy.
It’s up to higher management to decide whether Hargrove and his staff aren’t getting the players to listen, whether Bavasi’s talent judgment is faulty or if the problem stems from both.
Ultimately, the players have to look at themselves in the mirror.
In all probability, however, it’s too late to save the jobs of many in the organization.
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