Seattle Mariners News and Opinion from around the web—in one place

seattlepi.com Mariners blog
Don Wakamatsu, who spent all of 18 games as a player in the major leagues, had a four-hour interview with Seattle general manager Jack Zduriencik, president Chuck Armstrong and associate GM Lee Pelekoudas Wednesday.

seattlepi.com Mariners blog
Joey Cora isn’t Ozzie Guillen with all of the Chicago manager’s fiery episodes and sharp words.

seattlepi.com Mariners blog
Former Mariner second baseman Joey Cora, now the bench coach with the Chicago White Sox, will interview for the Mariners’ vacant managerial job Tuesday morning.

seattlepi.com Mariners blog
The Seattle Mariners have announced the candidates they’ll be talking to in the first round as they look for a new manager, and the key word appears to be new.

seattlepi.com Mariners blog
Bennie Looper, who left the Seattle front office on Oct. 29 rather than accept a demotion into the scouting department, has a new job.

seattlepi.com Mariners blog
There may finally be some movement on the Josh Fields front after months of inaction.

Mariners Insider
Considering it’s mid-November and hasn’t stopped raining in weeks, it’s not a bad time to think about spring training in Arizona, where this morning it’s 82 degrees and dry.

The Seattle Mariners aren’t sure yet when they’ll open camp – probably around Valentine’s Day – or who will manage or coach the team when it [...]

Mariners Insider
You can’t say the Mariners aren’t moving this managerial search along - Oakland bench coach Don Wakamatsu’s interview this morning was the team’s fourth in three days.

And number five - Portland Beavers manager Randy Ready - will include dinner with general manager Jack Zduriencik tonight.
Wakamatsu asked and answered questions:

“This is club a lot of [...]

Mariners Insider
The Seattle Mariners haven’t changed their Major League roster, but new GM Jack Zduriencik’s front office team continues beating the bushes for talent – and they’ve come up with a first baseman.
Ian Michael Bladergroen, 25, is a long (6-foot-4) and lanky (195 pounds) left-handed hitter with power who played last year with the Independent [...]

Mariners Insider
Good evening, we’ve got a really big show for you tonight. Our special guest is Mariners managerial candidate Chip Hale.

Chip Hale in his managing days with the Tucson Sidewinders

The reason for the late-night affair is that Mr. Hale’s flight out of Tucson was stuck on the tarmac for awhile and then stuck on the [...]

Mariners Insider

So most of you know, Tim Lincecum has won the NL Cy Young today in what was basically his first full season in the big leagues. His numbers are ridiculous
34 games started, 18-5 record, 227 innings pitched, 265 strikeouts, just 84 walks, 2.62 ERA, 1.172 WHIP.
Here’s the story from Henry Schulman of the [...]

Mariners Insider
Ok, just got off the conference call with today’s interviewee Brad Mills and Mariners general manager Jack Zduriencik. Some quick notes which I’ll update with a transcript from it.
Let’s get to Zduriencik first …

Right now the seven finalists appear to be the only ones. Zduriencik did say that he could add to the list [...]

Mariners Insider
Even as general manager Jack Zduriencik begins interviewing managerial candidates, he’s found the time - and the men he wants - to continue retooling the Seattle Mariners front office.

On Monday, Zduriencik named Tom McNamara Director of Amateur Scouting and Carmen Fusco Director of Pro Scouting.
He also came up with a title for [...]

Mariners Insider
The Chicago Cubs are for sale – asking price, about $1 billion – and among those who have expressed interest is Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban.

One Chicago newspaper reported last week that, according to an anonymous source, other MLB owners had determined Cuban was n ot their kind of fellow and had “zero chance” [...]

Mariners Insider
Even in as disastrous a season as the Seattle Mariners just had, baseball found gold on a roster that lost 101 games – Gold Gloves, anyway.

To the surprise of few, Ichiro Suzuki won his eighth consecutive Gold Glove for excellence in outfield defense, and third baseman Adrian Beltre won for the second [...]

Mariners Blog
There’s now a “50-50 chance” that Mariners GM Jack Zduriencik will go to a second round of interviewing candidates for the team’s managerial position. Not only that, he’s now mulling over three possible names of people he might add to his initial list of candidates.
Zduriencik said he’s been approached by two former major [...]

Mariners Blog
Good morning to all of you. What’s good about it? Well, if you like cold and rain, it’s great! Good football weather, as my coaches in Canada used to say. And come November, if rain and cold was all you had, it was a good thing for us. Better than snowstorms (real ones, not [...]

Mariners Blog
Let’s get some housekeeping out of the way before moving on to today’s blog topic. I keep forgetting to post this because the Mariners release on it kept getting lost in yesterday’s shuffle. But Tom McNamara has been named Director of Amateur Scouting by the Mariners and Carmen Fusco is Director of Pro Scouting. [...]

Mariners Blog
Spoke to Mariners general manager Jack Zduriencik moments ago, via conference call, and he confirmed that Jim Riggleman was told he’s out of the running for the team’s vacant managerial post. Zduriencik also has not had any recent conversations with Willie Randolph or Ned Yost. He said he hopes the current list of seven [...]

Mariners Blog
I know how upset some of you get when you perceive me trying to influence a vote. So, I won’t try to do that here. All I will say is that Mariners blogger Dave Cameron, moderator of the USS Mariner website, is up for a $10,000 blogging scholarship while attending the University of North [...]

Mariners Blog
Caught up with Mariners starting pitcher Ryan Rowland-Smith yesterday, just before he embarked on a lengthy vacation this morning to both Hong Kong and his native Australia. Rowland-Smith has a sister who works in Hong Kong, so he planned to take her up on a longstanding invitation to visit with her and her new [...]

Mariners Blog
One of my favorite rituals of winter and GM meetings is the strategic arrival of super-agent Scott Boras in the lobby. He plants himself in the middle and waits for the influx of reporters to surround him — and it doesn’t take long.
We just had that magic moment — and considering that Boras [...]

Lookout Landing: Front Page Posts
With the offseason about to begin in earnest, I thought it’d be a good idea to take a quick look at the roster and see how it shapes up so that we can get a better idea of our needs. So with that in mind, presented below is my best guess [...]

Lookout Landing: Front Page Posts
ESPN.com link
The first round of managerial interviews are about to take place and contrary to previous reports include zero former big league managers. The first seven are:
-Joey Cora (White Sox 3rd base coach)-Brad Mills (Red Sox bench coach)-Chip Hale (Arizona 3rd base coach)-DeMarlo Hale (Red Sox 3rd base coach)-Jose Oquendo (Cardinals [...]

Lookout Landing: Front Page Posts
Per Hickey:

“The Mariner job is a job that would interest anybody,” Cora said. “Seattle is a beautiful city. It has great fans, good players and an ownership that will do whatever it takes to win.”

Even more annoying than the constant inspirational clubhouse speeches about how sometimes the guy you least expect [...]