Jeff Sullivan, of Lookout Landing, does an excellent job breaking down the Seattle Mariners hiring of Eric Wedge.
It’s fitting that Wedge is the guy. Since the Zduriencik front office took over in Seattle, Indians fans have been telling us how many parallels there are between the two organizations. In a lot of ways, the Indians were the new Mariners before the new Mariners. They had a sharp front office that blended excellent scouting with advanced statistical analysis. They were said to be among the best-run organizations in baseball, a team in good hands that should be able to compete year after year for quite some time. And then they enjoyed only moderate success while cracks began to form and the team greatly underachieved. All along, everybody figured the Indians had the right process, but they struggled to get the results.
Sullivan believes Wedge is the right choice for the Mariners right now. He’s bland, but many managers are.
At the end of the day, Wedge, or any other manager for that matter, just aren’t as big a factor as we’d all like to believe. Sullivan says that Wedge, like any manager, will be second-guessed to death and fans will find some of his quirks annoying.
He ends by hoping Wedge sticks but admitting we won’t know whether he’s the right guy for quite some time. Give his post a read, it’s well worth the time.