Q.  OK, when do 3 starts mean more than 32?

A.  Whenever you're asking 25 large men, packed into a small room together, to --- > take off their dresses, to stop being wussies, and start being winners.

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Q.  Zduriencik is asking the Mariners to win in 2011?  Doesn't he read the blogs?  He's supposed to write off 2011 and rebuild right.

A.  Very easy for you to blow off 2011, pokey.  ;- )   You ain't taking in $250 million in gross revenues for the 162 games between April 2011 and September 2011.

Geoff Baker asked John Hart this question just a week or two ago:  would you bury Ackley and Pineda?

Hart's reply:  service time don't enter into it as much as fans think, dude.  

There are 30 GM's who value service time much less than you think they do.  The reason is that there is a ton of pressure, right here right now.

One of the first things you would notice, if you sat down in one of those luxury boxes to watch a baseball game as an employee of an ML team, is --- > how much those games matter!  That night.  Whether you were in the race or not.

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It's easy for a civilian, himself seated in safety and comfort, to tell a 3-man M-1 tank crew that they shouldn't care whether their crew is co-ed.  It's a different thing for those three men, who literally have not showered in 35 days, to not care whether the crew is co-ed.

It's very easy for mathematicians, themselves facing ZERO consequences for Friday's loss, to tell the GM he shouldn't care who wins or loses a ballgame.

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Q.  You talk about the 30,000-foot view a lot...

A.  One of the things my man James does best, is the historical perspective, the 150-year sweep.

His observation:  any franchise, in order to win, has to buy in to the idea that its front office is in the fight with them.  That's any league, any decade.

"To win, a team needs a 'we're all in this together' feeling."  Quote unquote.

By bringing Michael Pineda up to start April 2011, Jack Zduriencik instantly answers that question.  It is a thunderous message and it will resonate.  This regime is about winning.

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Hey, man.  The M's mighta lost 101 games last year.  But Jack Zduriencik is a winner, end of story.  He insists on winning and if you give him a little time, that's what he will wind up doing.

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