Before I start ‘a rantin’, let me preface the ensuing piece with the following thoughts:

1. I subscribe to the theory that a baseball manager has to believe in his own abilities, as well as everyone else’s around him. Players, coaches, scouts - and the GM.
2. I also believe that one of the pre-requisite talents of a manager is the ability to put the best players on the field as much as possible, while simultaneously putting said players in the best positions to succeed, both individually and as a group.
3. If a manager isn’t going to fight for what he believes in, even if that means heated disagreements with players, coaches and even the general manager, he isn’t worth a damn and I don’t want him anywhere near my baseball team.

There are two kinds of loyalty in the game of baseball when it comes to a manager and the way he runs his team. One is vastly different than the other.

The first kind is present when a skipper continues to go to the well with a proven veteran through all of the thick and thin of the tough times and sub par performances.

The second is when the manager’s love goes blind and his affinity for the veteran he knows so well gets in the way of the truth right in front of him. That truth is typically put forth in the form of a young, yet unproven talent that is more capable than the incumbent.

This is when that loyalty might be best defined by the words stubborn, mulish or just downright stupid.

Whichever the better term, John McLaren has no business at the helm of a Major League Baseball team. Not if he’s the manager we watched for the final three months of this season, and there’s no reason to believe he’d be any better simply because he began the season as the man in charge. He may very well be different, but probably not better.

McLaren has always had the reputation as a good baseball man; all the wiser, loved by all who have ever worked for and with him and a soul burning with the desire to win - a fire resembling that of ‘Ol Sweet Lou.

But all the evidence - yes Dave, I actually said evidence – shows that McLaren is missing at least one ingredient in what makes a field manager good at what he does.

For lack of a better word, we’ll call it crust. Mike Scoscia has it. Ozzie Guillen has it. Jim Leyland has it. Lou Piniella sure has it, and I don’t think he got his on ebay.

McLaren just doesn’t have it. He lacks the ability to look beyond what he KNOWS MIGHT BE, to consider what else is possible.

He’s seen Raul Ibanez hit the ball well. He’s watched Richie Sexson mash five homers in a week. He’s witnessed, time and time again, but certainly not without failure, the veteran player get the job done.

What he’s never seen, because nobody has ever seen it, is Adam Jones hit the ball consistently in the big leagues. And apparently, why nobody ever seen that matters none.

So instead of handing regular playing time to one of the four best players in the entire organization, McLaren chooses experience.

And while he’s doing so, every other good team in the game is choosing the best players. Contenders all over baseball, in both leagues, are using inexperienced players on a regular basis, and are better for it.

And not just clubs who have no choice.

The Arizona Diamondbacks are playing 19-year-old Justin Upton three days a week, sometimes four. Not because they are short on outfielders, they are anything but that.

The Yankees are relying on three rookie pitchers in Hughes, Chamberlain and Kennedy, and are a better team for it.

The Red Sox are leaning on Pedroia, Ellsbury and to a lesser extent, Buchholz, and are clearly a better team with those three than without.

While Cleveland’s payroll limits force them to take those chances, the Detroit Tigers have the money to go get the veterans to fill voids, yet have gone to the young players again and again since Leyland and Dombrowski signed up. They’ve done pretty well for themselves haven’t they?

Now, comparing Jones’ situation in Seattle to that of most other inexperienced talents out there is not fair. Jones has a veteran in front of him, so let’s look at what some other ballclubs did in similar scenarios.

The Diamondbacks let hometown hero Luis Gonzalez walk so they could use Carlos Quentin, Chris Young, and eventually Justin Upton in the outfield.

Gonzalez went to LA, where the Dodgers have curbed his playing time in order to get Matt Kemp regular play. Kemp entered 2007 with similar long-term expectations as Jones and with little more big-league experience.

The Yankees pulled Mike Mussina out of the rotation in August so they could give starts to Ian Kennedy, a 2006 draft pick.

The Angels canned Shea Hillenbrand because Casey Kotchman and Kendry Morales were better options.

Good organizations are giving their ML-ready talents a chance to play significant roles – in a pennant race. The Mariners have made Jones, one of the top 10 prospects in all of baseball according to just about everyone who has a clue, a fourth outfielder on a team desperate to break losing streaks, score more runs and prevent more runs from scoring as they play behind a mediocre pitching staff.

If Adam Jones was a New York Mets prospect, he’d be playing. Maybe not starting every day, but he’d be getting at least two starts a week, probably three or more.

Want proof? Lastings Milledge is the Mets’ version of Adam Jones, and he’s getting 22 plate appearances a week. Jones is averaging four and a half a week. Case closed.

While McLaren isn’t the only one to blame for his handling of Jones, and other younger more capable talents being wasted away on the bench or in the minors while overpaid veterans mire away in mediocrity, he is the one most responsible. He fills out the lineup card.

If McLaren wanted to start Jeff Clement in center field and Yuniesky Betancourt behind the plate, that’s what would happen, or so you’d hope. He’s the skipper, you want him doing what he wants, when he wants. He’s your leader, right?

Not McLaren. He’s not a leader in that manner. He’s just everybody’s best friend.

I was told that by someone who knows John fairly well and has been in the game, and in the same organization as McLaren, for decades. I didn’t buy it at first, because others were telling me how into the youth of the farm system McLaren has always been.

But it couldn’t be more clear after McLaren’s first half-season as a Major League manager. And apparently, McLaren is only into the kids when his own job is not on the line. Sounds like Lou Piniella in that regard.

But Lou is very different than McLaren in many ways. Piniella would tell his GM off if questioned about why he made a particular decision. He’d handle his team the way he wanted to handle them, or he wouldn’t manage that team at all.

I understand McLaren was thrust into the role at mid-season and didn’t have a chance to establish his own ways of doing things, but that doesn’t excuse his inability to simply put the best players on the field every day.

The decision-makers in the Seattle Mariners organization have a big choice to make about the manager’s position beyond 2007.

And if they plan on building upon a decent showing this season, the right decision is to look elsewhere for a field general.

Because John McLaren is a bench coach.

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GM Bill Bavasi probably doesn’t deserve to remain at the helm of the Seattle Mariners, just as McLaren should be sent packing as the club’s skipper, but it still might be in the Mariners’ best interest to bring him back.

Sure, the ballclub was better this year, maybe as much as 10 wins better, but in four seasons now, Bavasi’s mistakes far outweigh the good moves he’s made and in the end it’s costing the organization more than $110 million to field a team that isn’t good enough to make the postseason in any given year.

If this was year two, fine. But it’s year four, going into year five, and this roster still has almost as many holes as the Texas Rangers.

Bavasi has his positives and negatives, like every GM.

The Good

3. The Farm System
While there are several who disagree with how aggressive the club has been with their top prospects, Bavasi is big on growing your own and in this day and age, teams must produce their own talent or they are destined to become the Baltimore Orioles.

2. Risk Taking
Bavasi is certainly willing to take risks, and in many ways that is a great attribute to have as the GM of a baseball team. With the free agent market so out of whack, teams often are forced to trade away young players in order to get better. His predecessor wasn’t willing to do so, but Bavasi certainly is.

3. Trust
Bavasi does one thing that is critically important for general managers in their attempts to make deals to improve their rosters – listen to and trust their scouts. If A scout swears up and down about a player and Bavasi and the rest of the execs are iffy on him, Bill is likely to give his scout the benefit of the doubt and go get that player based on the scout’s evaluation.

Not all GMs are like that and it does come back to bite them as it’s tough to make decisions when only one opinion counts for anything.

The Bad

1. Surroundings
Bavasi hasn’t exactly surrounded himself with the best consultants and assistants. Lee Pelekoudas serves a valuable purpose, but scouting isn’t one of his strong suits, and while Bob Fontaine is fantastic, Dan Evans and John Boles do not have the track record of two guys that should be leaned upon – and they are, over and over. See: Rafael Soriano for Horacio Ramirez.

2. Too Aggressive?
At times it seems as if Bavasi succumbs to the pressure of trying to keep his job and is overly aggressive in getting a deal done. Bringing in Ramirez in exchange for Soriano sure seemed like a rush job in order to make sure he didn’t come up empty last winter. The club desperately needed a starting pitcher, but making a deal just to make one isn’t the way to go about things in Major League Baseball. Bavasi has done this on more than one occasion – see: Jarrod Washburn, Chris Reitsma and Asdrubal Cabrera/Shin-soo Choo for Ben Broussard/Eduardo Perez.

3. He’s Still Doing It…
Bavasi is still on a one-year prove-your-worth contract in which he’s apt to make moves based on winning in 2008, no matter the cost. This scares me, and should scare fans of not only Wladimir Balentien, but Jeff Clement, Chris Tillman and even Adam Jones.

It’s not the right time to overpay for mediocre pitching, and it’s never a good time to do so with young promising talent.

Bavasi hasn’t necessarily earned the right at another year, but, as we have just established, it’s not good business to make a change simply to make a change. If there is a clear cut upgrade available that the Mariners feel they have a great chance to hire, they should do so.

Otherwise, it’s probably a good idea to bring Bill back for another year.

Or, it might just be a better idea to have a worse GM, but one who won’t be making moves to save his job.

But in my opinion, I don’t think Bavasi is heading into this offseason with the same pressure he had a year ago.

Something to think about.


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