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Lookout Landing

Bill Bavasi Fired as GM

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I figured changes were going to have to come after getting swept by the Nationals, but never did I think it would be Bavasi this soon. Is this good news for us? A lot depends on who the new hire eventually is, the search will "take place immediately" but we'll see if they're able to get much accomplished in-season if they want to bring in outside candidates.

It remains to be seen if Bavasi is just the latest and greatest (so far) scapegoat to this season or if there was actual fear that he might further jeopardize the future of the ballclub in order to try and save his job by dint of damaging trades come July. Bavasi did a decent job of trading when he was ditching veterans for prospects, but who knows.

One thing this does worry me is that firing a GM mid-season instead of waiting until after the season likely means the true heads of affiars, Lincoln and Armstrong, seem unlikely to go anywhere since they're likely the ones doing the hiring for the new GM and while it's rare enough for a team to fire it's General Manager mid-season, it is rarer still for a change to take place in team presidency mid-season.

Wait and see I suppose.

0 recs  |  343 comments

Comments

I know it can get worse

But let us have one more dream, Matt.

Jesus.

What if my dream is that it does get worse?
Do we have to change threads now?
Naw, I like the one we have already
I remember running into Bavasi at Green Lake

and striking up a conversation with him. Really nice guy. He didn’t even mind my joke about dropping by an adult softball game to scout for new talent. It’s strange to see this finally happen, but it really needed to.

Bavasi is one of those people who it's extremely easy for him to be successful

regardless of his current job performance. At some point though, exceptionally poor job performance has to override being a good guy, and unfortunately, Bill reached that point about two years ago.

*Extremely easy to ROOT for him to be successful

wow that one missing word changed the whole complexion of that statement.

Well

He deserved it. I am shocked the guy who gave Wash/Silva/Batista/Speizio and so on big contracts with some of the trades he has made has lasted this long.

Waaaaait a minute!

I agree with the fact that the Silva, Washburn, and Spezio deals were god awful, but we have to give Bavasi some credit for getting Batista. Obviously he’s sucking horribly this season, and he wasn’t exactly great last season, but I honestly think that Batista has had a great effect on Felix’s development. Cheesy as it sounds, thats WHY WE GOT BATISTA. So, he won 16 games (although that’s a total fluke) and has been a great influence on Felix. Pure luck on Bavasi’s part, but we shouldnt give him crap about that move. That’s what Vidro/Sexson are here for.

Felix has regressed as a pitcher.

If getting Batista was aimed toward making Felix better than that’s also a massive failure on Bavasi.

Are you referring to the fact that Felix throws too many fastballs?

I don’t follow.

Lost movement on his two seamer

Groundball rates down. Walk rate up. Strikeout rate lower. Slider abandoned.

That's odd.

Batista loves his slider.

Maybe he stole it from Felix.
Yeah, but that would make him better.
Give a really good gun to a shitty marksman.
Not to reference ERA, but.... (I am a bad person)

Why the decline in ERA then? I’ve read Dave’s article about evaluation pitcher talent, so I understand ERA is a bad measure of that. Has his LOB% gone up? That’s a good skill to have.

Luck?
Eh, good point.

Just trying to give Bavasi and Miguel some credit…..where they evidently don’t deserve any…

How this comment would read on USSM (and here if admins could edit comments)

Not to reference ERA, but [referencing ERA is stupid].

Thanks......

That’s why I am posting here, and not at USS mariner. Stupidity is punished less here.

It's punished much more actually.
LATE

...and LL shares mods with USSM fwiw

Eh.... I think he's saying it's punished less here because the admins have less power

and can’t punish it

We can, however, delete comments.
I get it, I get it.

Never again will I reference ERA.
Or WHIP for that matter.
Lesson learned.

No, it's OK to reference it, because they're not entirely worthless

just don’t try to judge a pitcher on them =)

Oh good.

So I can still like Jorge Campillo and his 2.17 ERA?

Its sooo low!

No

You can’t like them because of their ERA, or their ERA+, or their WHIP.

You can like them for their GB/FB%, K%, BB% and the like though

We're not threatening you you know
The motherbrain!
Best. Nickname. Ever.
Houseobamatron.
NO POLITICS
It's the nickname.
I know that!
Only if we refresh the pages
I never close my browser windows until comments are turned off.
What's worse, a comment deletion or being mocked unceasingly?
Negative recs is worse than either
But only you have that talent.
I would say the latter.

Hey guize lookit this guy’s stats! He has a ZERO ERA in 2 INNINGS!

Graham doesn't fuck around

You’re shitty comments will be disposed of so quickly it will be as if they never existed…Unless you are being a total douche.

YOUR DAMMIT

carry on

LFOJL bait confirmed.
Has that worked yet?
Personally I don't think ERA is retarded to reference.

Obviously it’s not the best reference, but we can infer that if one pitcher on the Mariners has a 2.5 ERA average (without much variation) for 3 years, and one has a 4.5 for the last 3 years, the 2.5 is much better without question.
Now if you’re basing it from different teams (defense, park, league), it gets fudgy, but I’d still have to say a 2.5 era guy is better than a 4.5 era guy (unless it’s like Florida (can’t think of a pitching nl park with great defense right now) 2.5 era and Texas 4.5, the 4.5 guy could be better, but I’ll still argue that in general, it’s a ok guideline/reference point.

You're wrong so hey
UNCEASING MOCKERY
Yes, that's what Graham is here for.
One of these days he'll slip up and say something stupid

And we’ll all pounce

Someone told me he drunk posted once.
He was still smarter than everyone except maybe Matthew by a long shot.

http://www.lookoutlanding.com/2008/5/6/481415/hahah-facuk-captain-tripos

Dear god that's amazing

I respect Graham a whole lot more now.

No wonder he did not mock my post.
Anyone got drunk Matthew bookmarked?
This really is an LL requirement, isn't it?
We weren't kidding on that whiskey night..
Considering I got crap for posting I thought maybe you were.
Thats cause the regulars were drunk and away from computers at the time
I sure hope so.

I’ve never seen it.

http://www.lookoutlanding.com/2006/4/8/132249/5017

Thank you.

This has to be one of the funniest things I’ve ever seen.

http://www.lookoutlanding.com/2008/4/20/427863/your-sanitized-ll-hof-ball

Updateeeeeee

and NOLAmarinergirl, read “Thread from another universe.”

Best thread in LL history

That one I was there for.

I watched it go by with my mouth hanging open.

I don't think I can start on this.

I have to keep the office door open and people might wonder if I collapse into hysterics.

I love how one of his comments has 11 recs
I love how that comment contains the word ahadfhjkh.

Or perhaps that’s a phrase.

I broke it out during the DRaysBay invasion.
We strike back tonight.

Although the numbers won’t be on our side.

Maybe you should invade while your troops are still awake.
Most of them aren't ready for battle.

Only a handful.

Telling us when you're going to attack seems like a poor idea

...or does it?

Gives us time to drink more in preparation.
It's a ploy by our Rays overlords to strike fear into our hearts before attacking

so they can win despite underwhelming numbers

We shall ride furries into battle.
So by ride you mean...
Giggle while they gnaw on Coach's legs.
We've got an army of ponies.

Or perhaps poines.
We might unleash the NSFW ones.

Summoning LFoJL!
I swear I didn't make this

Hot dude on dude action

Yes!

I now regret having said anything
Only BrianL is terrified of furries

the rest of us shall destroy you in the aftermath of the glorious Bavasi firing!

We will also use the Fiddle Cat as a celebratory tool.
Fiddler Cat made it's debut on DRB
We traded the "Percy in , Game Over!" jpeg

to DRaysBay for Fiddle Cat and we have never looked back.

I'd like to think

You dealt the furry .gifs and stoned Raymond for the cat.

While this may be factually true

I get sole credit, if it’s “Percy In, Game Over!”

True

Jeff providing stoned Raymond only hurts your campaign.

I also told you we have few men.

No smart general does that.

Unless you're lying and have men waiting to ambush
We alrerdy know this.
You should bring the guy who thinks Griffey is awweseom

so we can rip him to ribbons.

If this were anyone but JI, I'd think it was a drunk post...
Or he might be referring to his DRB counterpart
Lazy troops?

We can let you borrow Coach to whip them into shape.

We have our own verison of Coach

Who thinks it’s possible for hitters to save power.

Like a battery?

here

underrated comment:

This is the stupidest thing I have ever read.

by JI on Jun 9, 2008 8:07 PM PDT to parent up reply reply actions actions 0 recs

We stole your Coach .gifs

For later in that thread.

His reading comprehension explanation is priceless.
Everything he posts is epic.
Now it's overrated because I just gave you a rec
Halogen bats would be pretty interesting
Have you seen the price of power these days?

I heard they’re working on hybrid players

Admittedly the price of power is much higher

in Seattle than in most other markets this season

Coach is in hiding till tomorrow
Oh?
He's like the kid that runs away from home

Goes 5 blocks, sits on the corner for 30 minutes and heads home like nothing happened.

At least Coach has never asked Beltre to hit shorter home runs
While listening to Linkin Park on his iPod
We really need to get this right side of the screen thing fixed

Half of our subthreads are unreadable

Make shorter posts.
Speaking of fugitive LLers

Edgar for Mayor is now posting on USSM. And….. AK1984 is posting on Geoff’s blog!

Wait, did Edgar for Mayor actually get banned?
Yeah he did

Graham laid the banhammer down hard.

I thought I was pretty reasonable about the whole thing

Oh well

GREY HAM IS A NAZI
Graham is Max Moseley?
I thought you were

It wasn’t the first time he’d been a prick about being moderated a little bit.

It's not like he didn't have it coming.
Yes
I'm in support.
Did he show up at softball?
Find Skoorbo and F'nA's and then I'll be happy
I s
God damn it

SBN coding ate my title. I merely professed my love for those two morons/trolls.

Underrated comment
imnot even sitting in a chair
right now.

wqhwre the hell is myp izza?

Yes, I liked that one too.

I wondered why not sitting in a chair was such a huge issue for him.

This one is good:

if you had to
put bloomquist at SS
the Mariners team plane better have crashed into the tacoma rainiers bus. Otherwise there exists no reason t put bomm boom our there.

by Matthew on Apr 8, 2006 7:22 PM PDT actions actions 1 recs

What I enjoy is that the posts are from two years ago.

Yet the same comments are still being made.
“Bavasi is not that bad”
“He has been horrible”

And so on, and so on.

Drunk Graham for GM
sure, i was expecting that

but give me an example where there are two pitchers on the same team… and one has a better era by 1.00 every year (for 3 years), but is actually pitching worse

It's not completely stupid

but there are much better ways… so why be willfully ignorant?

that was supposed to be followed by a

“and I’ll give you 10 examples where it is true”

Don't deny the man his free will.
Dontrelle Willis and every other Marlin pitcher ever
I thought Pat Rapp was for real.
Josh Beckett
Annibal Sanchez

Josh Johnson

Carl Pavano
Mark Redman

Ryan Dempster

Chuck Smith
I feel sorry for the people who drafted Josh Johnson high last year.
Nobody cares about their fantasy teams
Livan Hernandez over the past several years
His Marlins ERAs were somewhat legit.
He could have been a Mariner.

Would that have been a train wreck? Bless the Twins.

Livan Hernandez was by some distance the worst pitcher in baseball last year
At least you can count of him to suck.
Silva or Livan?
If you could choose one.
Livan
Damn.

We could have saved 40 million dollars and a few runs.

Livan won't save you runs

Sliva = bland, but ok. Needs good defense behind him.

Felix
Campillo
Campillo over Felix?
NOOOOOOOOOO
Forgive me baseball Gods, for ever having insinuated that!!!!
Campillo over HoRam
I'm better than HoRam
Not saying much, but yes he is.

The M’s seem to like to get rid of Campillo/Baek kind of guys.

They never turn into stars after they leave, but they always have at least some success with their new team.

ANTHONY REYES

over Felix. He’s soooo good.

his 4.93 era reflects that

as does his 200 innings worth of that suckiness.

No it doesn't

His ERA should have been closer to 6.5

didn't say it was exact

Just said it was good enough of a measure. 4.93, pretty sucky. 6.5, big time sucky.
2.5 era big time pitcher, really should be 3.3, pretty damn good pitcher still

So then

Was Weaver’s ERA accurate in 07, as to what it should have been?

No

Weaver was horrifically unlucky.

(Although he was still bad)
I was gonna say...

So he wasn’t historically the worst pitcher ever… he’s just in actuality a pitcher you’d never want on your team…

No

I wanted us to resign him

Really?

How would that benefit us? He’s not very cost-effective.

After sucking that bad, he'd have probably been pretty cheap
He'd have come on an absurdly cheap deal and been a fine #5
Dang, you're right.

I’‘d take him over the entire back end of our rotation

Would he have been that absurdly cheap

How come no one has signed him? Is it because his demands are too high?
I suppose 1 year at 4 million of Weaver is infinitely better than 4 years 48 million of silva.

He's playing for the Brewers in AAA
Oddly, I saw Jeff Weaver pitch twice.

Both times, he four-hit the opposition.

Not anymore, I don't think.
He was actually released a few days ago, I believe.

They had to either let him go or call him up, according to his contract.

Jeff Weaver: the Mariners' savior

that felt excruciatingly weird to type.

I'm not saying he's good or anything

But on like a 2/$4M contract I’d take him over Silva so fast your head would spin

but I notice he went to the allstar game

last year as well… THAT is hilarious

Holy jesus Livan pitches a bunch

I knew he had a buttload of innings, but… consecutively
234, 200, 240, 227. 216. 233. 255, 246.216. 204. Unless he missed an entire season , too lazy to look.

none of those guys

except Dontrelle was good for 3 seasons…
Burnett (not named)
was only good for half a season…
injuries don’t count as a reason of why someone is worse also…

Dontrelle was not good
Even though his ERA was lower than expected

He was a pretty good pitcher his first three years.

Too bad for the Tigers, eh?
probably just in general

that he’s worse now than he was before. LD% up, bb’s up or the same, k’s down. He also seems to be a bit of a whiner/problem child) to me… but that’s just me. (Triunfel too apparently)

Your last name isn't by chance Hermes is it?

I knew a Taylor Hermes, biggest pothead ever. Grew shrooms in his room, and hung out with a bunch of hippies. Really talented runner though.

Nope, it isn't.

sorry

Matthew's talking about the fact that he's worse this year than last year
I'm happy this happened

but I’ll hold off the real celebration until they hire Antonetti/DePodesta/someone of that ilk.

Well, happy birthday to me

Kim Ng Kim Ng Kim Ng Kim Ng

I am still deciding how to interpret this comment.
Read: It is my birthday and the firing of Bavasi is an awesome present.

Now we should go hire Kim Ng. Because there’s no way we go get Depodesta.

DePo might not want to be in Billy's division anyway.
If we get Paul DePodesta

I will buy you a birthday present. And I dont even know who you are.

If you haven't politely asked him to interview here

you’re doing it wrong.

On the flip side, if we get Steve Phillips

I will mail you a turd sandwich. And I don’t even know who you are

*exploding turd sandwhich
She's married, guy....
At least they'd have somehting to talk about.
It seems I could have phrased this better
I hope they post the job on the website somewhere

like Duke and Michigan did for their football head coaching jobs. I applied for the UMich one. Needless to say, I didn;t get it.

They're just racist

When’s the last time you’ve seen an Asian football coach?

At my alma mater where we just hired Norm Chow to run the offense =)

although I think you were going for head coach…

Hawaii

posted their Head Coach job online as well.

I have the wrong degree to be a college head coach. Despite all my years of play call training.

I bought an XBox360 and NCAA '08 out of anger after watching a Karl Dorrell-fest @ Arizona
Fuck UA

That is all.

C-bud came back. I'm stunned, frankly.
So...you think Fontaine knew this weekend was a kind of swan song?

I mean, he may not be officially gone, but he’s gotta be gone, right?

That would make an event like this weekend’s a bit odd, but I guess he could really speak his mind.

He never said anything bad about the org, and was defensive of Bavasi
I need to attend one of these gatherings. Circumstances have prevented me from doing so the past two years.
Bob Fontaine.....

Ugh.

Ugh?

Fontaine was awesome.

Still is.
Ineed.

I was just referring to his talk at the meetup.

I missed the meetup.

:( (I’m a sad panda)

Me too.

Spent the weekend in Vegas at a poker tournament. Good weekend to not pay attention to Mariner baseball, too.

This is like the 4th or 5th year in a row

where these things are scheduled on weekends I’m out of town.

I’m not one for paranoia, but I think I see a pattern emerging.

Graduation parties for my "step"son and my niece, + fathers day means no LL meeting for Thingray.
"step"son?

Am I to assume that you in fact use him as a step?

Couldn't quite figure out how to put it succinctly.

It’s my GF’s son, but her and I have been together for so long, even he says I’m “pretty much his stepdad”.

I figured it was something like that

I’m just really bored at work right now

I'm busy but don't feel like working, does that count?
Close enough

I don’t have anything to do organically, while you don’t have anything to do by force of will

The force is strong in me.
You could just say GF's son

or lie to us and say stepson. How would we ever find out?

GF's son didn't seem strong enough, and I don't like lying about stuff like that.

I figure after watching him grow up since he was five, he deserved some sort of title, even if I haven’t put a ring on his Mom’s finger yet.

I know what you mean though. I have a "cousin" who has basically been adopted into my family

I usually just refer to him as cousin though; I’m not one to explain things

He probably had no idea
I'm dreading the inevitable Steve Phillips hire...
He, that subthread disappeared...
*hay
Which one?
The one that's not there.
You made the mistake of refreshing
One which I have not

hence my curiosity.

presser is on fsn
Howard Lincoln looks like a pterodactyl.
Howard is open to anything?

oooooh kinky

No stone will be unturned

Our next GM will be the biggest crab we can find.

an apt comparison
Rays question?

I like.

Share please...
Basically:

Q: “Hey, the Rays are awesome and have no payroll! We’re terrible and have a giant payroll! WTF?”

A: “The Rays had to suck forever to become good. They’re dumb. Winning is contagious, etc.”

Someone should have mentioned an ownership change :>
Is that a devilish grin?
Go to USSM
This answer makes me want to murder them both.
Whoa, talking up the Rays huh?
It's 2008, cocksmoker.
The Seattle Mariners:

We don’t tell the truth.

This is a confusing graphic:

Yeah, because Bill Bavasi directly caused those things

Listing career numbers for those first three guys would be more telling.

I was thinking Putz was out of place because bavasi signed the other three.
FSN's lowlights reel is awesome
GO JUMP OFF THE AURORA BRIDIGE YOU LYING SACK OF FUCK!!!!!!
YOU ARE COMPLETE NONSENSE YOU SMUG DOUCHENOZZLE!!!
they feel bad for us.
We should dig up the corpse of Ty Cobb

And get mad at him for not playing up to his historical averages.

Well this is one of the better things to see coming back from class..Just a few question though

How long till we see player movemenet and more importantly why did we not do this earlier before we let Bavasi draft?

Fontaine made it sound like he and the scouting department make the drafting decisions
Bavasi and Fontaine are very liekly a package deal.
Yeah, from what I understand, Bavasi has little to do with the draft.
Then fire whoever picked a reliever in the first round while your at it
That Rays question was pretty awesome

Too bad he spun it away with that bullshit answer.

Great news but I hope we hurry up and find a competent GM before the trade deadline
We should wait till the offseason so we can interview people from other organizations.

I’m sure all Pelekoudas will be asked to do is dump salary regardless of the return so it won’t be too bad.

Any return is good return for Sexson, Wash, ect.
I'm afraid that we'll be trading low on a lot of players.

The players that we want to get rid of have zero trade value anyway.

Jesus Christ

I leave for a recording gig and by the time I get home, the FO has crucified Bavasi. Does this kind of thing happen to every team the Nationals sweep?

See, this is why you should never go to work and just hang out on LL all day
Or work the boring desk job like the rest of us, and just hang out on LL all day.
Hey just out of curiosity, does NOLA stand for New Orleans, Louisiana?

If so you get a ton of cool points from me.

Oh my my.

Behind on that one, eh?
Yep, it’s New Orleans.

I'm a coonass myself.

I thought I was the only Saints/Hornets fan who cheered for the M’s.

I love the Hornets, but football isn't my thing.

I’m also not a native Orleanian, just a displaced Oregonian with Washingtonian tendencies.

I am a born and raised Alaskan, but Louisiana is in my blood.
It's in my blood now, too.

My teeth chatter when I leave the state, and I look down my nose in disdain at all food served to me.

Did you move to New Orleans before or after God tried to kill it?
After God smote the baddies.
God didn't try to destroy New Orleans

A corrupt political structure of good old boys and plain old fashioned human failure however did.

They needed God to swing the hammer. They just weakened the shield.

Either way, it’s God doing the killing.

According to Jerry Faldwell anyway.

I ZOMG’d myself. No need.

football?... that's like having a fling once a week...

...baseball is a relationship.

A heartwrenchingly painful relationship that you can't extricate yourself from, yes.
A coonass?

Not really. At least, definitely not when we call ourselves or other cajuns a coonass anyway.
Typically I do work a desk job

but I took the day off to do another recording session that pays more.

Planned that day poorly.
I like money.

They paid me $400 for a 2 hour gig.

For a five hour gig, Richie Sexson makes $86,419.75
That's impressive math.
"to every team the Nationals sweep"

There’s only been one…..

Hey guys I just woke up.

Anything interesting happen today?

Bavasi can trade veterans?

“Bavasi did a decent job of trading when he was ditching veterans for prospects, but who knows.”

Two words. Carlos. Guillen.

Three words:

Not his idea.

Trading Guillen wasn't his idea

What he got in return, however, was…

Guillen wasn't Bavasi's fault.

That was in place long before he showed up.

Not entirely true

He was essentially told to move him for whatever, but the trade was his.

Fair enough.
But if everyone knew he had to move Guillen, Bavasi wouldn't have had any leverage.
Bavasi can leverage teams against each other to get a better return
As much as I hated it at the time

Vizquel would have been an acceptable return under the circumstances.

How the hell is Vizquel still a decent defensive shortstop?

It’s mind boggling.

Good instincts?
Guillen wasn't worth anything when he was traded

except to those who could tell he was developing as a hitter and could predict that he was going to stop getting injured all the time.

Or those with a reasonable grasp of park effects
Or on base percentage

or aging curves
or simple baseball economics

What a interesting thing to wake up to...
Anyone know where I can watch or listen to the press announcement?

I had to be at work all day.

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