The Northwest Regional Chapter of SABR (NWSABR) met on Saturday, January 30, 2010, from 12:00pm until approximately 3:30pm in a suite-level conference room at Safeco Field, Seattle.  2010 Mariners FanFest was taking place at Safeco, and NWSABR staffed a booth at this event.

NWSABR wishes to thank Kevin Martinez (Vice-president of Marketing) and the Seattle Mariners for providing an excellent facility for the meeting, as well as an incredible lineup of speakers. 

Speakers were:  Special Assistant to the GM and SABR member Tony Blengino (12-1), Mariners pitching coach Rick Adair (1-1:30), Assistant GM Jeff Kingston (1:30-2), Director of Pro Scouting Carmen Fusco, Director of Player Development Pedro Grifol, and Director of Amateur Scouting Tom McNamara (2-approx 3:30).   Approximately 25-30 NWSABR members, and guests, attended.

NWSABR Chapter President Tim Herlich began the meeting by making brief comments thanking members for staffing of the FanFest booth,  reminding us of the upcoming (2/13/10) Portland-area meeting and encouraging carpool from the Seattle area, and reminding members of the NWSABR website located at: http://chapters.sabr.org/nwsabr/.   Tim passed around stats from the website (139 unique visitors, including one from Japan).  Jim O’Donnell (one of the founding members of the chapter) noted that 2010 is the 30^th year of NW SABR existence.  Jim, along with other founding members Jim Price and Doug Simpson met in Seattle sometime in 1980 with the first probable actual meeting held in Portland in early 1981.  Interestingly enough, Rick Wise (who will be a featured speaker at the Portland area meeting on 2/13/10) was the first speaker back in 1981.  This will be Rick’s 3^rd return to speak to NWSABR.

Tony Blengino, Special Assistant to GM speaking at 1/30/10 NWSABR Meeting

Up first was Tony Blengino, longtime SABR member and new member of the NW SABR chapter (Tony also retains his membership in the Milwaukee-area SABR chapter).  Tony was a return speaker to NWSABR, having addressed the chapter at the 5/16/09 meeting also held at Safeco.   He regaled us with tales of a particularly memorable Rick Wise pitching performance (he saw as an 8 year old, sharing the experience with his mom) as well as when and where he received his first invitation to join SABR.  Tony had been a presenter at past SABR conventions, focusing on statistical performance of minor league pitchers, and continues his interest in the topic.  NWSABR members were filled with questions for Tony.  Some highlights:  his predictions for the Ms performance this year (he expects .OBP to improve by around 15 points given improvements at 3-4 positions) and optimism that we’ve built a very competitive team.  Also noted was that the coaching staff, clubhouse and front office have gained quite the positive reputation around the league; agents were actually calling the Mariners this offseason in hopes that their players would be made an offer to come and be a part of this organization.  Tony gave rave reviews to Ken Griffey Jr., referring to him as the ‘funniest man he’d ever met’, as well as manager Don Wakamatsu 'Wak' who takes the time to get to know each of his players and support them; this really helps the player reach full potential. 

Tony of course acknowledges that stats are important, but that the human element to the game is also critical; we all know talented folks at our own workplaces who may have fatal flaws that just don’t work within a particular organization.  To that end, Tony noted that the Ms do a Myers-Briggs analysis on their players and get to know them, but also that they’re so confident in the quality of their staff and clubhouse at present that they’re willing to take chances on guys that may not have quite fit elsewhere.  When asked how many players in the minor league systems from other teams that the Ms might be keeping an eye on, Tony responded with an eye-popping ‘around 1000’ and noted the importance of the amateur scouts in the organization; he was pleased that recently, when the amateur scouts had their yearly gathering at Safeco they were treated to back-to-back press conferences announcing the signing of Cliff Lee and Felix Hernandez respectively.  This front office wants all who work for it to know they are an important part of the larger Mariners team.  Tony noted that while Safeco is known as a pitcher’s park, it’s pretty friendly to LH batters as well, and spoke glowingly of the many young arms that at AA this year.

Rick Adair, Pitching Coach

Next up was Mariners pitching coach Rick Adair.  Some of the areas covered during Rick’s time with us were his belief in the importance of innings pitched (IP) as a primary measure of value, some insights into some of the returning (Ryan Rowland-Smith, Ian Snell) and new pitchers on the Ms staff (and how/if Cliff Lee could be convinced to stay) and some general coaching approaches.  Early in his coaching career, Rick focused more on mechanics and thought he “had all the answers” and admitted he was less than successful.  Rick also stressed the human element of the game and the supportive clubhouse, coaching and front office atmosphere in this organization and how important this is to allow the true ability of a player to come out.  Rick reported that he works a great deal with the catchers, perhaps more so than the pitchers, and that he finds a lot of enjoyment in working with rookie pitchers or young kids.  He noted that as a coach, he tries not to overthink things and encourages his players to do the same, and that one of Wak’s favorite sayings is a take-off from ‘The mind is a terrible thing to waste’ – but Wak’s version is simply that ‘The mind is a terrible thing’.

(Sorry, no photo of Jeff Kingston; too blurry to post)

Assistant GM Jeff Kingston followed Rick.  Jeff spoke of his background with the San Diego Padres and the opportunity he had to be mentored by/work with/learn from guys like Theo Epstein, Paul DePodesta, etc.  Jeff comes to baseball from a more statistics-oriented background than a player background, but he noted that though guys like Theo are often thought of as only interested in the stats, they really are masters at putting together all types of information – from scouts, video, stats, etc. to make decisions based on the complete picture.  The Ms front office is an example of this kind of approach, with staff gathering info and making recommendations from a variety of approaches, and GM Jack Zdurenciek then making the final decisions after hearing from his staff.   Part of Jeff’s job is to deal with roster management, which means he has to understand all of the arcane rules around number of options, waiver wire, rule 5 draft, etc.   He noted that Kanekoa Texeira, a pitching acquisition the Mariners got from the New York Yankees in the Rule 5 draft is a right-hander with a great cutter who is expected to be pretty hard on lefties.  Before he left, Jeff noted that the San Diego Padres do not generally think of the Seattle Mariners as ‘hated rivals’.

Pedro Grifol, Director of Player Development

Last up, the trio of Pedro Grifol (Player development), Tom McNamara (amateur scouting), and Carmen Fusco (pro scouting) answered questions well beyond their original 1 hour time slot.  These guests noted the extremely strong Mariners international presence and ability of Bob Engle and his staff to come up with fabulous prospects from the Ms academies in the Dominican, Venezuela and elsewhere.  This kind of international scouting strength balances well with players acquired through the draft.  Pedro had just returned from Venezuela, and there was some discussion from the panel about baseball atmosphere in the Dominican, Venezuela and Australia (where Tom noted that the mothers of the players often keep detailed scouting notes at games).  The speakers all encouraged SABR members to catch a Winter League game sometime if they had the chance, or go watch baseball in the Dominican to experience the difference in atmosphere themselves. 

Pedro Grifol, Director of Player Development and Carmen Fusco, Director of Pro Scouting

Questions then turned to general approaches on scouting and drafting, as well as comments on specific players (Joe Dunigan, Dustin Ackley and others) in the organization.  Carmen noted that at the amateur scout level, generally the evaluation focuses on whether or not a player has the tools, makeup and a certain basic level of skill to continue.  Once in the system, the focus is on refining and improving the skills.  Every player in the system has to possess a great deal of self-confidence, as well as resilience (since baseball is a game of much failure).  As Director of Player Development, Pedro gets a chance to essentially watch boys turn into men as they develop these skills and resilience needed to cope with climbing the ladder thru the farm system.  Pedro indicated that the toughest jumps for prospects to make are from short-season A (6 clubs) to long-season A (2 clubs) and from A to AA (West Tenn).  Scouting at the pro level is largely an evaluation of minor variations in skill level (as once there, you’ve already surpassed many on the way) as well as resilience and other kinds of intangibles.  Asked whether there was a preference towards high school or college players in the draft, Tom McNamara replied that the preference is for the best player, and also quoted Bill Parcell that ‘good players are difficult people’ sometimes. When Carmen and Tom were asked about stories of their best/worst experiences (players they believed in that excelled, or that failed), Carmen noted among other things that he was the guy who brought Trevor Hoffman to San Diego and figured he could change from being a middle reliever to a closer (great call Carmen).  Tom is clearly very vested in the players he scouts, telling tales of getting misty-eyed when a father calls him to tell him one of his sign-ees has just been called up to the big leagues, or stories of kids he thought would make it but didn’t.  To a man, every speaker talked about what a great environment that they work in and how happy they are to work for GM Jack Zdurenciek as well as with the great team that Jack has assembled.

Tom McNamara, Director of Amateur Scouting