Mariners Open Up to the Fans
On Saturday, the new Mariners’ regime had a sitdown conference with a few hundred fans; they not only spoke about their upcoming plans for the organization, but also opened the floor to questions. It apparently lasted three and a half hours, with no breaks.
It doesn’t sound like they revealed anything Earth-shattering. But I think it’s a good show-of-faith on their part, and a great way to get the fans involved. Unless you’re saying stuff like “We plan to have an eight man rotation,” or “Five infielders and two outfielders is the ideal defensive alignment,” or “Felix Hernandez sucks, we’re going to cut his ass,” this is the kind of thing that can’t go badly.
One interesting bit:
Orgs they respect: Twins came up w/r/t scouting and the continuity of philosophy. Atlanta and the continual reloading during contention.Once again, the Twins are specifically named as the model other organizations (claim) to aspire to. (Although I personally find it amusing that they said they respect the continuity of philosophy in the same offseason that they’re overhauling their entire front office and installing a new philosophy — are they just saying they want to keep their jobs for the next 20 years?)
Would it hurt the Twins to do something like this? I think the fanbase is hungry for more information from the team, and also for the sense of having more input. One of the many old-school philosophies of the Twins is the “We run the team, and you’re going to sit there and like it” attitude. It’s very Old Media.
Which is simultaneously the reason they won’t put on a similar conference and the reason they shouldn’t do it. As long as they have that attitude, a conference like that won’t work — what made it work for the Mariners was that the new regime has adopted a sense of transparency. They want the fans to trust them, and they’re doing that not by saying “Just trust us,” but rather by saying “Here’s what we plan to do, here’s why, and here’s how.”
While the Twins are a little bit open to the media (and thus, indirectly, the fans), and we pretty much already know their overarching philosophy and “plan,” I simply can’t see them opening up directly to the fans like this. Unless something fundamentally changes.
At the same time, though, should something change? Since the Twins are the model for every small and mid market team, all of whom are trying hard to replicate their success and their process, is it really in their interest to open up and reveal their blueprint, regardless of how interested their fans are?
There are times for transparency, and when half the league is desperately trying to figure out how you do what you do … well, then that’s not one of those times.
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Has anyone ever participated in the Twins Winter Caravan? Don’t they usually have question and answer sessions at that. I have never been since apparently it only takes place in towns of about 20,000 people. Since it is organized by the team, my guess is there isn’t too much transparency, but its better than nothing, I guess.
I’ve also never attended, but from the recaps I’ve heard it’s more of a “come out and support the team, we’re not going to give you anything in return” type of deal.
More like a political campaign fundraiser than a sports team.
The Mariners desperately needed some kind of action to keep fans interested after such a colossal failure last season and little hope for this year. This is a keep-the-faith rallying cry (or last hurrah before all the losses begin, maybe).
Since the Twins were mostly successful last year, they don’t need to make any desperate moves like this- and giving away the business model probably isn’t prudent, as you said.
I don’t see it as a desperate move.
If it’s a one-time thing, it’s probably more of a “come get to know the new guys” thing, rather than a desperate ploy.
And the Mariners do have hope for 2009 — they regressed badly in 2008, but they underperformed their expectation by as much as they overperformed in 2007. They could be a .500 team in 2009, and they don’t need to panic.
I suppose we’ll see if the Mariners do this again a year from now — I certainly hope they do, since that’s a trend I’d like to see popularized.
I don’t see how the Mariners can have a good season in ‘09. The Angels will be good, the A’s made a lot of moves to get better, and the Rangers might actually add some pitching. The Mariners won’t be cellar dwellers forever, but I think they will need a year or two to recover, and I would bet the Mariners FO used this conference to give the fans a reason to show up at the ballpark.
The Angels won’t be that great this year.
They greatly overperformed their Pythagorean record (by the most that any team has EVER overperformed, actually).
They don’t have a first baseman. Vlad is old as shit. Willits is the love child of Punto and Tyner. Gary Matthews Jr is, well, Gary Matthews Jr. Juan Rivera is slow, injury-prone, and useless.
What they have going for them is a good rotation (who should come back to earth a little this year), a good bullpen (which should come back to earth a little this year — AND no K-Rod), and a good manager.
I wouldn’t be shocked to see them finish third in the West.
While the back end of Seattle’s rotation is terrible, Felix and Bedard (assuming he is finally healthy) should win them some ball games. They got Gutierrez (I think that is his name) from Cleveland to solidify their outfield defense, they have a good young catcher. I think that entire division will be down, and the winner will probably have around 90 wins. Maybe even less. Every year Texas “adds some pitching” problem is the way that ball park is built, “adding some pitching” won’t help unless its Johan Santana. Remember a few years back when Kevin Millwood won the era title in Cleveland, and then was terrible the following year in Texas? I don’t ever see the rangers becoming a multi-dimensional team. Didn’t Seattle do a good job of beating us too? I guess it was technically Ibanez, but still. I remember us losing to them way too many times, for how terrible they were. I think having a bunch of new people in charge will help this team forget why they were so bad last year.
Santana would be TERRIBLE in Texas. You really don’t want homer-prone pitchers if your stadium is like that.
Actually … maybe I’m overreacting a bit. Everyone thinks the Dome is a pitcher’s park, except that it was always a hitter’s park until the Twins’ pitching got good.
Now there are 81 games played at the Dome, and in 100% of them there’s at least one team with good pitching and awful hitting. Does anyone else think those park-neutralization methods need some work to account for that?
But yes, Texas will always be a slugging team as long as their stadium works the way it does. No matter what Nolan Ryan says.
It would be nice if they were still bad for the first week, at least. A sweep of the M’s would be a good way for the Twins to open up 2009. And Ibanez is gone to Philly (I believe), so that should help.
Yeah, it’ll help that Ibanez is gone. He just murdered us.