With All Deliberate Speed - Part 2. Don't Bucky the Odds - Resistance is Futile

Despite the collapsing offense and abysmal performance so far in 2004, the Mariners have not promoted players from Tacoma to boost the team offense and to get them some exposure to big league pitching and competition. The Mariners failure to promote these players is almost totally baffling to outside observers. Players such as Justin Leone, Bucky Jacobsen, and A.J. Zapp are in their late 20's, they're putting up good numbers in AAA-ball, and they can fill roster spots on the big league club that are positions of weakness. Totally baffling to outside observers – that's a cue for "Mariner deliberateness" in action once again.

I can rationalize the Mariners' decisions and non-decisions regarding call-ups from Tacoma if I assume the Mariners have a plan describing the use and development of minor league talent. The plan dictates when they call someone up and whom they call up. Consistent with their deliberate approach, the Mariners do not allow circumstances of the big league club to greatly influence their plans of when and how to use the minor league talent. If there is a need on the big league club, and they have a minor leaguer slotted into the role but the plan doesn't say he's ready for a callup, he doesn't get called up. The team will go outside the organization and trade (e.g., Cabrera) before they will call up a Leone, for example, because the plan presumes that Leone has not yet demonstrated MLB readiness. And they will bring up a Santiago when Ibañez goes on the DL because the plans says that players such as Leone are "not ready".

Now let's consider the 40-man roster, the Mariners plans, and the implications for players such as Bucky Jacobsen and A.J. Zapp. Because neither Jacobsen nor Zapp is on the 40-man roster, promoting either of them involves exposing someone on the 40-man roster to waivers. The Mariners go through agonies every time they have to make a move on the 40-man roster, so presumably every player who is on the 40-man roster is there because he fita in with the Mariners future plans. Thus, promoting Jacobsen or Zapp means potentially losing someone who is in the Mariners future plans. If Jacobsen or Zapp were promoted, Ugueto and Santiago are the most likely candidates to be removed from the 40-man roster. But part of the Mariners current plan is to get "younger and more athletic", and both Ugueto and Santiago are "younger and more athletic". So, in the Mariners analysis bringing up Jacobsen or Zapp becomes a knee-jerk reaction to an immediate situation that detracts from the larger plan, i.e., it is precisely the type of action that adherence to a plan is supposed to prevent.

Right now it appears that the only chance for any Tacoma players to see significant time in the Big Leagues is if the Mariners decide this year is a bust, and the team decides to not even pretend that contending is a possibility. That causes the “contend in 2004” part of the program to be dropped, allowing new strategies to be developed. Even then, however, I think the Mariners will resist promoting Tacoma players who are deemed “not ready” for fear of irreparably damaging their self-confidence.

As nearly I can tell Jacobsen and Zapp have only a minimal chance of reaching the big leagues with the Mariners; they're just AAA roster filler. Their only hope is to perform so well as to force themselves into the Mariners plans, and even then they will have to wait until the Mariners complete other transactions (i.e., trading players off of the 40-man roster) to create room for them.

I also figure that shortly after I post the Mariners will bring up some Tacoma players and I will look like a fool. But if I don't post this nothing will happen. So I'll take one here for the team and for all the players in Tacoma who deserve a chance.

In my next post I'll discuss how other areas of team operations show the Mariners deliberate management approach.

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Links to all four With All Deliberate Speed posts:

• Part 1. Talk, Talk
  
• Part 2. Don't Bucky the Odds - Resistance is Futile
  
• Part 3. Getting Deeply Insinuated
  
• Part 4. Whither Bavasi?