In the movie Wag the Dog, a presidential media advisor suggested a military action to distract the attention of the electorate away from domestic problems. In the short film, Seattle Mariners 2010, GM Jack Zduriencik elected to fire the team's batting coach, Alan Cockrell, because the team is hitting .225. Here's the problem: all of my pre-season reading suggested that the Mariners' GM built his team around pitching and defense; he didn't pay much attention to offense.
Which means that Cockrell gets canned because instead of being a hitting coach, he's expected to be a magician. Ouch!
So Cockrell takes the fall because of Zduriencik's bad planning. That doesn't make a lot of sense, except in professional sports. You can add the best hitting coach to the Mariners' coaching staff, and I doubt he'd make that much of a difference. If the next hitting coach falters, and, perhaps, the one after that, Mariners' fans will have to wonder whether they just don't have enough hitters on their team. Heck, they're wondering about that now, and they just might be wondering about the savvy and intellectual honesty of their general managers. It says here that you could give the heart of the Mariners' order oars and the best hitting coach, and it wouldn't make much of a difference.
I hope that the next hitting coach rents his home in Seattle.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment