Posts tagged BillBavasi at FanHouse

If you're a baseball fan who likes surprises, then the 2008 season has been a special treat. The Rays are the most notable team that has exceeded expectations, but the Twins, White Sox and Marlins are also surprise contenders.

Of course, those pleasant surprises have come at the expense of several clubs expected to be much better this season. Whether because of a big free-agent signing last winter, a deep October run last season or the (hint, hint) crushing burden of a massive payroll, the baseball landscape is littered with flops as August comes to a close.

The following is a countdown of the seven most disappointing teams this season.

7. Padres: Mired in last place in the abysmal NL West, it's easy to forget that this team won 89 games last year and was a (phantom?) Matt Holliday slide away from a playoff spot. Even when they were winning division titles, the Padres operated on a thin margin. Injuries and underperformance are at the root of their struggles.

Adrian Gonzalez, Kevin Kouzmanoff and Brian Giles are the only offensive regulars who have played more than 100 games. Ace Jake Peavy spent a month on the disabled list, while No. 2 starter Chris Young has made only 13 starts. Veteran closer Trevor Hoffman has also been extremely shaky.

Seeing as how the Mariners really suck this season, I've kind of stopped paying attention to them. Of course, because of that, I forgot just how bad the team really is. Thankfully the three games I just saw them play against the White Sox in Chicago this week reaffirmed everything I previously knew.

One of the reasons the Mariners are so horrible this season can be attributed to the Erik Bedard trade. The Mariners sent Adam Jones, George Sherrill, the Space Needle, and majority ownership in Starbucks to Baltimore for the southpaw. While a lot of people thought the addition of Bedard would help the Mariners win the AL West (I only had them as the wild card, so I guess that makes me slightly less stupid), thanks to his injuries and ineffectiveness, they're fighting just to avoid 100 losses this season.

Bedard cost the Mariners their season, and the jobs of John McLaren and Bill Bavasi. Fortunately for all involved, the odds of Erik returning this season to claim the livelihoods of others are slim at best.

Pitching coach Mel Stottlemyre and [Jim] Riggleman both say that Bedard did not come out of his last throwing session feeling well, as he had in previous outings.

One would think that a recently fired baseball executive credited with helming what is generally established to be one of the worst run operations in baseball would be unemployed for a while after getting the ax from said operation. Unfortunately if you're a Reds fan, you would be wrong about that. Less than two months after getting the ax from the Mariners, a franchise he destroyed on almost a comical level, Bill Bavasi has been hired by the Reds. From their press release:

Bavasi, 50, will advise and assist [Reds' GM Walt] Jocketty in matters related to the front office, Major League field and support personnel and scouting.

"We're excited Bill has joined our organization," Jocketty said. "Over his career of more than 30 years, he has worked in almost every facet of baseball operations. We will benefit from his experience and insights."

Maybe Bavasi's one of those guys who works better in an assistant capacity than he does running the whole operation. I don't know. But I do know that when you cite 30 years of experience, you should probably check to make sure that the last three haven't resulted in the debacle that's taking place in Seattle right now.

We're only halfway through the 2008 season, and already the Seattle Mariners have undergone quite a few changes. First and foremost this year, they went from being a team that was supposed to contend for a divisional title or playoff appearance to being the worst team in baseball.

As is often the case when your horrible, people start to lose their jobs, and that's exactly what happened to general manager Bill Bavasi and manager John McLaren. Still, there's another change on the horizon in Seattle, as controlling owner Hiroshi Yamauchi (the former president of Nintendo) is rumored to be trying to sell off his stake in the team.

It's being said that minority owner Chris Larson is interested in buying Yamauchi's share in the team, and he'll be bringing in a familiar face as one of his partners.

One fascinating rumor making the industry rounds has an investment group led by Microsoft executive and current Mariners minority owner Chris Larson and former Seattle GM Pat Gillick taking control of the Mariners sometime in the near future, with Gillick running the baseball operation and naming the new GM.

Gillick is currently the general manager in Philadelphia, but he's gone on record as saying that he plans to retire at the end of the season, so it would seem the timing is right. It should also be noted that Gillick (who is Canadian) has sold his home in Toronto, and that his wife has sold the Toronto art gallery that she owned.

So if you've got a mansion in the Seattle area you'd like to part ways with, maybe you should give Mr. Gillick a call.

Change has been the theme in Major League Baseball this week. Bill Bavasi is out in Seattle and Wille Randolph is through in New York. As we near the halfway point of the season, expect more change on the horizon as teams begin to realize what they are, or, more accurately, what they aren't.

Did the Mariners and Mets make the right moves? What can these two teams expect from the rest of their seasons?

Join me today at 3PM ET to talk about the fate of these two clubs and everything else that's going on in the baseball world.

While Monday was already a great day of change in Seattle with the deserved firing of general manager Bill Bavasi, it wasn't the only thing that changed with the Mariners yesterday. For the first time since August 19th, 2006, Ichiro Suzuki started a game in right field.

Right field was where Ichiro spent his first five years in Seattle, and after the team sent Wladimir Balentien back down to Tacoma in favor of Jeff Clement, there was an opening in right and John McLaren says he'd been thinking about making the move for a month or so. Still, this may not be the last move that Ichiro makes this season, as McLaren also said he's toying with the idea of dropping him out of the lead-off spot in the Mariners lineup.

McLaren said he's also spoken to Ichiro about a move out of the leadoff spot in hopes of jump-starting an offense that ranks last in the American League in runs scored and second-to-last in team batting average.

Such a move does not appear imminent, however, because McLaren said there is currently no other obvious candidate to hit leadoff.

"Ichiro is on board with anything we want to do to help the club, and I think most of these guys are from the same school in that clubhouse," McLaren said.

As Mr. Watson told you yesterday, the Seattle Mariners finally went ahead and did what we'd all been waiting for them to do for a few weeks now: they fired general manager Bill Bavasi. In other words, Monday was probably the best day that Seattle sports fans have had in a while, and a cause for celebration.

With the pending move of the Sonics, and the Mariners struggles this season, there hasn't been much to cheer about in the Emerald City lately. Still, while there's some debate in New York about the Mets firing Willie Randolph (was it deserved? did they go about it the right way? etc.), I don't think there's much debate amongst Mariners fans about how they feel for this move. If they're upset about anything, it's probably that Bavasi was the only one to go and that the team can't fire Richie Sexson.

As Watson mentioned in his post yesterday, Bavasi's tenure in Seattle is not one littered with success. He gave questionable contracts to Sexson, Carlos Silva, and Adrian Beltre (though I think Beltre has been a good addition to the club), actually gave Jeff Weaver $8 million to suck for a season, and made trades like sending Carlos Guillen to Detroit for Ramon Santiago. Those are some devastating moves, and yet, that's only part of what Bavasi did to help bring this organization down.

Mariners CEO Howard Lincoln announced that GM Bill Bavasi has been officially relieved of duties, naming Vice President/Associate GM Lee Pelekoudas as the team's interim GM. From the team's press release:

"Change is in order." Lincoln said. "We have determined new leadership is needed in the GM position. With a new leader will come a new plan and a new approach. A search will begin immediately for a permanent GM, and Lee will be a candidate for the position."

Bavasi served as the Mariners' general manager since 2003, during which time the team has posted two winning seasons while going through three managers. He's responsible for the monster contracts given to Richie Sexson, Adrian Beltre, and Carlos Silva, not to mention trading Carlos Guillen for Ramon Santiao, one of the most lopsided trades in recent memory. Adding insult to injury, he's also the last GM to sign Jeff Weaver to a big league contract.

In the last few weeks rumors have been swirling in Seattle that general manager Bill Bavasi and manager John McLaren weren't long for their jobs. Then team president Chuck Armstrong gave them the dreaded votes of confidence, and it appears he actually meant it, because they haven't been fired...yet.

So since the Mariners still suck, and Bavasi and McLaren don't look like they'll get fired during the season, somebody has to pay the price. That somebody is hitting coach Jeff Pentland.

The slumping Seattle Mariners fired hitting coach Jeff Pentland on Monday and replaced him with special assistant Lee Elia.

Mariners general manager Bill Bavasi said he hoped a "different voice" would help the team with the worst record in the majors. Elia, who turns 71 next month, was Seattle's batting coach from 1993-97 and is perhaps best known for a tirade he once unleashed as manager of the Chicago Cubs.

I have no idea if Elia is going to be able to get the Mariners bats turned around, but my first reaction to this was that it's still a great move by Seattle. With Lee around, at the very least he'll be able to help teach McLaren how to throw a real post game tantrum. Not one of those forced, transparent ones.

The Mariners will be finishing up a six-game road trip this afternoon at Yankee Stadium, and they'll be hoping to avoid going 0-6. Still, you have to wonder, despite the fact that they haven't won a game on this trip, do they really even want to go back home to Seattle? At least while they're in New York, the home fans can't kill them, so they're safer on the road.

There's probably also some fear in manager John McLaren and general manager Bill Bavasi that they may not hold those titles for much longer. The fans wouldn't exactly cry themselves to sleep at night knowing those two were gone, and they may be getting their wish soon as both have received the dreaded votes of confidence from team president Chuck Armstrong.

"Their positions are secure," Armstrong told MLB.com from his Bellevue, Wash., home. "They are not to be blamed for what's going on.

"In my 23 years, I have never ever seen anything like this. We saw it the other way in 2001. I mean, you have to ask yourself, 'How did the Mariners win 116 games that season with that roster, compared to this roster?' This is just as inexplicable the other way."