Thank You for Your Servais
Thank You for Your Servais
A few quick thoughts... and the latest WWLF schedule!
Off today to take Katie back to Wake Forest for her sophomore year. Let me leave you with a few weekend thoughts:
— If you had asked me, “How long has Scott Servais been manager of the Seattle Mariners,” there is absolutely no way in the world I would have thought, “Oh, he’s in his ninth season.” He was the second-longest tenured manager in baseball, behind only Tampa Bay’s Kevin Cash (another guess I would never have made) until Thursday, when Seattle finally let him go.
I couldn’t tell you if Servais did a good job or not… it’s so hard to tell these days, as managers do fewer and fewer noticeable things. There is no doubt in my mind that being a big-league manager is as hard now—and as important now—as it has ever been, but unlike the days of Earl Weaver and Sparky Anderson and Tommy Lasorda and the like, I don’t think a manager can define a team the same way. Billy Martin could just say, “OK, fine, I’m going to have my starters complete every game this year,” or Whitey Herzog could say, “I just want a bunch of speedy little guys who play great defense and steal a bunch of bases.” No manager could do that today.
But keeping a clubhouse together through a long season, riding the highs and lows, being the public voice of the team, working with management to keep everything balanced, all of these things are perhaps more challenging than ever. It’s just not as easy to see.
Scott Servais was fired with a winning record, but the Mariners made the postseason only once under him. This year’s team came into the year with expectations, but they haven’t hit at all, and I’m not sure how much he could have fixed that. In other words, I couldn’t tell you if Servais deserved this ending. But one thing that doesn’t change, no matter what generation, is this: Sooner or later, you gotta win something.
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— Aaron Judge homered again on Thursday—that’s four home runs in three games—and he has 48 homers on the season. Right now—RIGHT NOW—he’s hitting .334/.465/.726 with 48 homers, 118 RBIs and 100 runs scored. That’s through 126 games. It’s like he has solved baseball. I don’t say this lightly: He’s one of the few players in baseball history who has, in my mind, punched his Hall of Fame ticket before he has played the 10 years necessary to be eligible.
And here’s the craziest part of all: He has officially played nine seasons, but he played only 27 games his first year, played just 28 games in the COVID year, and has missed significant time in three other seasons. He’s hit 300 home runs and posted more than 50 WAR in fewer than 1,000 games. Wild.
— Jacob deGrom made his first professional appearance in 16 months on Tuesday, when he pitched for Class AA Frisco. And OF COURSE he threw 100 mph. That’s just Jake. You know his first live pitch he threw in BP was also 100 mph. I mean, I get it, that’s just how hard the guy throws, but I’d sure feel a lot better about things if he would more slowly work his way back. Why in the world does he need to throw 100 mph in his first rehab start in Class AA?
— We’re 25 days out from the publication of WHY WE LOVE FOOTBALL, and heck, yeah, I’m excited. I’ve started to do some interviews. I’m hearing some great stuff from a few early readers. The football season is getting close. I’m so ready to get this going.
You can preorder the book pretty much everywhere books are sold—so, obviously Amazon, Barnes & Noble (signed copies still available), Target, etc.—but this week I’m going to highlight my good friends at Rainy Day books.
Also, here’s the most up-to-date book tour:
Sept. 17, Clifton, N.J., Barnes & Noble. Moderator: Comedian and pal Alexis Gay.
Sept. 18, Smithsonian, Washington, D.C. Panelists: Former NFL commissioner Paul Tagliabue; Hall of Famer Darrell Green; Football Hall of Fame sportswriter Len Shapiro; Longtime Washington P.A. announcer Phil Hochberg.
Sept.19, Parnassus, Nashville. Moderator: Author Andrew Maraniss.
Sept. 20, Rainy Day Books, Kansas City. Moderator: Chiefs announcer Mitch Holthus.
Sept. 23, The Stellar Hog, St. Louis. No moderator for this one, this is a super-special meet-and-greet where we’ll all just be hanging out, munching on barbecue and talking football.
Sept. 24, BookShop West Portal, San Francisco. I’m so excited that my friend, the incredible journalist and author Ann Killion—fresh from covering the Olympics in Paris—has agreed to moderate.
Sept. 25, The Book Stall, Winnetka, Ill. Moderator: Oh, I don’t know, only Chicago legend Jeff Garlin.
Sept. 26, Riverstone Books, Pittsburgh. Moderator: Fantastic writer Jonathan Mayo.
Sept. 27-28. Bookmarks Festival, Winston-Salem, N.C. As of right now, I’m scheduled to do what I believe will be a solo appearance at the event on Saturday morning… but I’ve been told that I will also be doing an event on Friday. I will tell you my friend Wright Thompson will be there, too, so this should be a great event to attend. And it just so happens to be parents weekend at Wake Forest, too.
Oct. 1, Park Road Books, Charlotte. Moderator: NYT bestselling author and all-around great guy Gavin Edwards. I don’t believe this one is up on the Park Road website just yet, but it’s happening at 6:30 p.m.
Oct. 9, Quail Ridge Books, Raleigh. Here’s the latest stop on the tour. I will probably do this one solo, though, I don’t know, if I can think up a cool moderator, I might do it that way.
Scott Servais was not a "scapegoat" and he deserved to be fired. Whatever the role of a manager is, the role of a GM and an owner is to put a different person in to manage the club day to day after it blows a ten-game lead quicker than any team in modern memory. This isn't a team that all grew old at once, like the 2004 Mariners who got Bob Melvin (who has landed numerous jobs since, and gotten to the postseason several times) fired. This was a team that has a superb starting pitching staff and what were supposed to be stars at several positions as well as several good players who have hit well for other teams, and the hitting has collapsed like a black hole. They fired one hitting coach and absolutely nothing changed. It's hard to see how you could keep a manager in that situation. Dan Wilson may totally stink at this, but he's a different voice. Edgar Martinez has been brought in as the hitting coach and a lot of Mariners fans applauded the move, except when he was the hitting coach previously, he didn't exactly succeed. The team regressed to ninth in OBP his last season; if you hire Edgar Martinez as your hitting coach, you'd expect your walks to improve year after year. Maybe he will fit this club better than the club with established stars like Cano and Cruz.
But my bottom line is that when stuff like this happens, it's not a matter of "blame the manager", it's a matter of "replace the manager." Because if the manager can't fix it, he's not the right guy.
It is an interesting point that managers have so little to do with the way a team is constructed right now when once they made teams in their image. It is actually I guess, pretty obvious when you think about it, although I hadn't really thought about it before Joe mentioned it.
Today's managers are really just people managers for the most part. There are even rumors that in some places they take instruction for on field moves and who starts from the front office. (Hello St. Louis!) But if you hit a bad stretch, they are the easy blame for the front office that put the team together. Don't look at the man behind the curtain. It was this other guy's fault.