Like the clouds parting after a devastating Midwestern tornado, finally the Seattle Mariners baseball organization has blue skies in its sight.
Last week, the one-man wrecking crew Bill Bavasi was finally relieved of his duties as Mariners general manager, and unsurprisingly, manager John McLaren followed suit with his termination earlier today.
While it’s a relief that the tornado has run its course, its aftermath will be felt for years. The Seattle Mariners currently resemble a destroyed trailer park, brandishing the worst record in the majors in a year that they were set to contend for the AL West title.
In his four and a half years as the Mariners’ GM, Bavasi could do no wrong—at least when it came to not doing anything right. His win-now-so-I-don’t-get-canned approach that brought in aging sluggers for young prospects has all but depleted the farm system and assured that the rebuilding process will be as long and painful as possible.
Yes, there are so many missteps that have led the Mariners from averaging over 100 wins from 2001 to 2003 to less than 70 in Bavasi’s four abysmal seasons, but there is so little time in the day to discuss them all.
Seeing Richie Sexson get paid $15 million a year to strike out three times a game is beyond laughable, so let’s focus on the straw that broke the camel’s back: the Erik Bedard experiment.
Erik Bedard finished last season with a 9-1 record and a 2.62 ERA in his last 14 starts with the Baltimore Orioles. Widely slated as the best left-handed starter in the American League, he appeared to be the perfect compliment to Felix Hernandez in a rotation short of one more power arm needed to propel the team deep into a playoff run.
The Mariners won 88 games last season on the back of an outstanding bullpen and a solid year by Ichiro, Raul Ibanez, and first half all-star Jose Lopez. They finished six games behind the Angels in a second-half collapse strongly attributed to poor outings from the bottom of the rotation by the likes of Jeff Weaver and Jarrod Washburn (both Bavasi guys).
Enter Adam Jones—the most widely touted young Mariner prospect since A-Rod—and George Sherrill, the left-handed setup ace that put J.J. Putz in the ninth inning driver’s seat just about every night.
It had been discussed for years how Adam Jones would breathe new life into the franchise with his bonafide twenty-homer and twenty-swipe talents playing alongside Ichiro in the outfield for years to come.
Naturally, the nearsighted Bavasi went blind to the magnitude of Jones’ prospect by staring directly into the shiny veneer of the peaking and available all-star over in Baltimore.
The idea was to trade a great player of the future for a great player of today. The reality is they got swindled out of two great players of today for a mediocre player that was great yesterday.
Erik Bedard has yet to even come close to expectations. Even with a 4-4 record and an ERA above four, his home outings have still been mostly commendable; his road outings, however, have been nothing short of horrid.
Featuring such gems as six earned through two innings pitched in Texas, and nine earned in four and a third at Yankee Stadium, Bedard has given nothing for the Mariners' dormant batting lineup to work with.
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