Zduriencik Quietly Shaping Roster

Rather clearly, Jack Zduriencik has finished evaluating the franchise and he is beginning to take action. None of his moves are big, but they could be setting the stage for more noticeable ones. Four players on the 40-man roster at the end of the season are on it no longer:

• Yung Chi Chen, 2B: Chen was placed on waivers and claimed by the A's, so he is completely gone. He made some noise last year after hitting well in the Arizona Fall League, but most never saw him as a big prospect. He showed some ability to hit for average, but had little power potential, and he was not exceptional defensively either. I'm a little surprised Zduriencik let him go, but he likely is not a terribly big loss.
• Joe Woerman, P: Woerman is yet to make the majors, but he had a tough year in AAA, and has mostly worked his way through the system by being solid at every level. There is a good chance he is back in Tacoma again. Woerman is exactly the kind of player that always drove me nuts with Bavasi. He is the kind of pitcher that at best is looking at being a fringe MLB player. There are plenty of pitchers like that out there, so why use a 40-man roster spot to protect him like he is a rare commoditiy?
• Jake Woods, P: To Bavasi's credit, Woods was pretty good for one year, and he was stolen on waivers from the Angels. However, he has been pretty bad in AAA the last couple seasons, and it was clear that he had no future in this organization. He is now a minor league free agent. Once again, this was a rather obvious move, but there were times when the previous leadership did not grasp the obvious incredibly well.
• Jared Wells, P: Wells pitched some for the Mariners last year, but he did not exactly light the world on fire in the majors, or in AAA. At best, he will bounce between the majors and minors, perhaps sticking for a few years in someone's bullpen. Like Woerman, Wells is the kind of guy that's rather easy to find in baseball, and Zduriencik understands the value of opening up roster space to potentially add guys that are not so easy to find.

These do not seem like major moves because they are not. However, these are the kind of moves that Bill Bavasi never made, and as a result we lost some guys that would help out the roster right now (Cha Seung Baek and Jorge Campillo come to mind). Bavasi's handling of the 40-man roster was atrocious, and already Zduriencik is showing better command of it. By my count, the Mariners right now have 3 open spots on their 40-man roster, which gives them plenty of flexibility. Those will likely be filled, because I am not counting the M's three free agents (Ibanez, Cairo, and Bloomquist) as part of the roster.

Flexibility is good, especially when you need to make changes. These little moves are the ones Bavasi never made. These are the ones that prevent a team from randomly cutting guys on their 25-man roster, as Bavasi had a penchant for doing. These moves show a sense of vision and thinking beyond just tomorrow. It is the kind of thinking that an effective GM does.

Front Office Takes Shape

Quietly, Jack Zduriencik has been busy at work. Amidst the big free agent and trade rumors, he has set the M's front office structure. Here are the key names and positions:

• Carmen Fusco, Director of Pro Scouting: Fusco has been a scout for over 30 years, and most recently was working in Milwaukee as a scouting consultant (whatever that means). On Zduriencik's staff, he will be in charge of the professional scouting department. Presumably, this includes scouting of major league and minor league players, as well as perhaps the advanced scouting of upcoming opponents. This is a good fit for Fusco, and given the relative youth in the front office in many areas, it is nice to have someone with Fusco's experience.
• Tom McNamara, Director of Amateur Scouting: McNamara is one of the two men Zduriencik was allowed to hire away from the Brewers, and this is a very logical fit for him. He has worked his way up the scouting ladder the traditional way, and this is the logical next step for him. Given McNamara's background, he will likely bring a very traditional approach to amateur scouting. That means looking at "tools" more than numbers. Even though I am a big fan of numbers, I also prefer scouting to focus on tools, because that is where a set of human eyes watching a player in person is helpful.
• Tony Blengino, Special Assistant to the GM, Baseball Operations: This is the most interesting title of these three. Blengino was the other guy plucked from the Brewers front office, and his strength is statistical analysis. Given that, and that his title indicates that he will be a part of all baseball operations (namely draft picks, free agent signings, and trades), it seems that Blengino will essentially head up the M's sabermetric department. I am reading between the lines quite a bit here, but I hope I am right. The Mariners have never emphasized sabermetrics like this before, and the way Zduriencik has organized the front office makes a ton of sense. He has said over and over he wants to collect as much talent as possible, and to do that he wants to collect as much information as possible. By naming Blengino his special assistant, he has consolidated statistical analysis in one place organizationally, instead of spreading it out over several departments, or emphasizing it in only a few. For instance, with this set-up Zduriencik will be given both the traditional tools information about players from his scouting department, but also the statistical profile of a player from Blengino's department. With this setup, the two voices do not really compete with each other - they will both be heard clearly.

I am a fan of the way Zduriencik re-organized the front office. It is noticably different from Bavasi's set-up, and I like the changes. The structure is efficient, but also thorough. Personally are in areas where they should excel. Zduriencik did not re-invent the front office's structure, but he certainly made a system that the Mariners have never used. I much prefer this to Bavasi's structure, which seemed to me more about somehow jamming all his old baseball friends in some sort of role.

Front Office Shaking Up

Jack Zduriencik is not completely cleaning house, but he is definitely giving it a thorough scrubbing. After his initial interview, I was not sure how long it would take him to assess the state of the franchise and begin making changes. As it turns out, it is taking almost no time at all.

Word officially broke Tuesday that scouting director Bob Fontaine would not be back, and from the sounds of it he did not have much of a chance to stick around. It is unfortunate. Fontaine seems like one of the real nice guys in baseball, and he was good at his job. The M's drafts under him were significantly better than typical M's drafts the last 15 years or so. In particular, Fontaine had a keen eye for pitching. Just in 2006 the M's added Brandon Morrow, Chris Tillman, Tony Butler, and Kam Mickolio to the organization. Of course, thanks to Bill Bavasi, only Morrow remains, but that's not Fontaine's fault. It's not all that fair that Fontaine is getting cut loose, but this is how baseball works. Any organization would be wise to pick him up, and I hope he lands on his feet and succeeds somewhere.

While I am sad and disappointed to see Fontaine go, I am also inclined to trust Zduriencik when it comes to scouting and player development. His track record speaks for itself. Plus, after announcing that Fontaine was leaving, the Mariners also made some more announcements. First, Zduriencik is going to keep Bob Engle and Lee Pelekoudas around. Both are great decisions. Engle is the biggest reason the M's supplement their farm system with so much international talent, and I am very excited that it looks like Zduriencik is not all that interested in messing with the success the M's have had in that department. Meanwhile, Pelekoudas has served in a number of roles for the Mariners over the past 28 years, and his longevity has value. He knows baseball, and he knows where this organization has been, which makes figuring out where the organization is going quite a bit easier.

On top of that, two additions to the front office were announced on Tuesday. The Brewers agreed to let Zduriencik take two people from his Milwaukee staff, and he picked Tony Blengino and Tom McNamara. Blengino was Zduriencik's top assistant in Milwaukee, and is a member of SABR. In many respects, he is the kind of guy that Bavasi never seemed to strongly consider for a job in the organization. McNamara has an extensive background in scouting that even includes a stint with the Mariners front office from 1994-2000. They obviously both worked well with Zduriencik in Milwaukee, and so they should also fit well here.

Lastly, this morning it was announced that long-time Mariner Benny Looper would leave the team. He was offered a position as a scout, but it would have been a major demotion. So, he has left. One one hand it is tough to see long-time Mariners like Benny Looper leave, but on the other it is exciting to see that Jack Zduriencik is taking charge and putting his stamp on this front office, making tough decisions when he deems it necessary.

Publicly, Zduriencik says that he is not very close to finalizing the structure of the front office, but it is certainly coming into focus. Bavasi's model seemed bloated with a bunch of special assistants to the GM, which was a glorified way of hiring his baseball buddies. On top of that, there was no real room for sabermetrics (Bavasi claimed over and over the he valued statistics, but the structure of his front office certainly did not support that).

Under Jack, I expect to see a bit more streamlined front office and more emphasis put on statistical analysis. Looking at the staff right now, my best guess is that Lee Pelekoudas will be the assistant GM, Blengino the director of scouting, McNamara the assistant director of scouting, and Engle remains the head of international scouting. Pelekoudas has the experience with free agency, contract negotiations, and trade negotiations that Zduriencik does not have a ton of yet. Also, in this model, both Blengino and McNamara would receive promotions, and they have the potential to be a devastating combo. Blengino comes from a mostly business-orientated, statistical background (he last played baseball in high school), while McNamara played in the minors and has worked his way up the scouting chain the good, old-fashioned way. The two of them could potentially offer different perspectives that give abnormally complete profiles of prospects. Lastly, Engle stays where he has been awesome for many years.

At this point, the front office is more shaken up than settled, but what's coming together looks pretty good.