Latin to English Translation: Where are we going?

I've been a Mariner fan since 1991 - the year I attended my first big league game at the Kingdome. I've seen good years, aweful years, and everything in between. When you devote 20 years of your life to loving something almost as much as you love anything else in your life, you never want to say goodbye. But I have to ask...Quo Vatimus?

The tableau that perfectly expresses the reason for my newfound hopelessness when it comes to the Mariners is that of Jack Zduriencik announcing the firing of Wakamatsu. All accounts indicate that the man with the confident, prepared, demonstrative stare in previous executive press conferences was nervous, uncomfortable and, in the aftermath, short with reporters. Meanwhile, Chuck Armstrong and Howard Lincoln sat confidently with their arms crossed like a parent watching his son apologize to the neighbor for breaking their window. We don't anything with absolute certainty, but here's what I gbelieve happened:

1) Zduriencik was given free reign to select his manager when he arrived, but his list of acceptible candidates had to be approved by the committee. He chose the man he believed was most likely to implement his vision...that vision being a stars and scrubs rapid roster rotation plan. It worked for the Brewers - his former employer - and it worked for the As - Wakamatsu's former employer.

2) Wakamatsu proceeded to SUCK. He completely failed to show enough flexibility and quick thinking to rotate ineffective players into and out of roster spots until better stopgaps played their way into the job. In fact, the sunny, happy, 2009 clubhouse was still run by entitled veterans and guys were still given tremendously long leashes. Look at the bench at bats on that 2009 team. Only INJURY allowed for young (or AAAA) players to get any real PT.

3) Zduriencik sat furiously watching his plans go up in smoke due to ineffective managing, but intended to wait on firing Wak until the offseason, when better candidates could be found. He wanted to keep Daren Brown where the club needed him long term (AAA)...with Brown promoted, he knew he was probably going to lose him to another big league organization (generally, once they get a shot at the bigs, guys don't accept demotions).

4) Armstrong and Lincoln...believing their previous opinion that rookie managers were too risky for their business had been vindicated by the disaster that was 2010, called a meeting and told Zduriencik that Wak and his coaches were fired...there was no cooperation in that decision...he was simply told. When he arrived, he was promised autonomy...he's no longer getting it.

5) The next manager will be a committee hire and Z will have only an advisory roll in the decision.

Given the level of deep intelligence, preparation, business acumen, people skills, and commitment to winning that Zduriencik has shown, I refuse to accept the notion that the team failed in 2010 because Z was an ineffective GM. The problem goes much further. This team is run by men who know not one darned thing about baseball, but think because they have a good understanding of business, that they can master baseball. They treat their baseball people like a Japanese floor manager treats assembly line workers...with a totalitarian iron fist. They force baseball decisions that have slowly ruined this franchise and refuse to take responsibility for or learn from their mistakes. Just since 2004, let's name some of the bad trades and free agent decisions that can be blamed squarely on the front office:

January, 2004: Carlos Guillen's nightclub lifestyle and subsequent TB angers the Mariners. They want model citizens, not drunken carousers who get infectious diseases in Latin America. They order newly appointed puppet-GM Bill Bavasi to get rid of Guillen, confident that they can sign Miguel Tejada to play short. They were employing a strategy that worked for Pat Gillick (Aaron Sele and Bret Boone, for example)...lowball the big free agent intentionally...when he declines, laugh in his face and tell him to come back when he can't get a better offer. When the Os spent "stupid money" (as Lincoln called it) to get Tejada, the Mariners' one-dimensional plan went up in smoke and Bavasi traded Guillen for no good reason...for no good return under orders from the bosses...he had to take Rich Aurilia in a desperate last second grab to plug the hole at short.

June, 2004: The Mariners, tired of Freddy Garcia's bad behavior and inconsistency, order Bavasi to trade the Chief as sono as possible. Bavasi gets what he can, but all three of the pieces he acquires utterly bust in Seattle and better research and planning would probably have prevented this.

January 2005: The bigwigs tell Bavasi that he can't rebuild...he has to show some sign that the team wants to get right back to competing. He signs Richie Sexson and Adrian Beltre...the two biggest names he can lure in a very weak free agent class. Both players are deepluy flawed choices for this particular team but he has little choice.

December 2005: After Rafael Soriano is caught cheating on his wife (and some stories hint that there may have been multiple marriages involved), the club enacts its' zero tolerance policy once again and orders Bavasi to get rid of the team's best reliever. All of MLB knows Bill has to turf the kid with the golden arm and he gets lowballed at the winter meetings. Reluctantly, he takes the only offer that might net him a piece he can use...Horacio Ramirez. A deal we all knew was horrible when it was made.

July 2006: Bavasi makes a pair of deals in a desperate attempt to save his job and get the Mariners to the post-season...moving Shin Soo Choo because his manager (appointed by the committee) refused to play him after one single error and Asdrubal Cabrera to the Indians for veterans having lucky-good seasons as part time players.

June 2007: Mike Hargrove - admittedly not my favorite manager - resigns under a cloud of suspicion that Ichiro campaigned with the front office to have him removed (the two never really got along) in favor of John LcLaren. McLaren proves to be WAAAAYYY too emotional and irrational for the job and the Mariners' one shot at the playoffs in '07 goes up in flames (officer...I believe we've found the source of the fire...it originated in the bullpen). Ordinarily, even ichiro's complaints would fall on deaf ears in most franchises...but the Mariners were also trying to get him to sign a contract extension and desperately wanted him as the face of the franchise.

2007/2008: Mariner brass go on record saying that Bavasi is on the "hot seat"...he scrambles to save his job by picking up as many entitled veterans as he can as fast as possible in a desperate big to avoid any chance of the team having a lousy season...he at least wants them to put up a fight. The aging behemoth collapses and loses 100 games. THUD.

2009/2010: Ken Griffey Jr. rejoins the Mariners...both of his contracts were mandated from the front office and both were bad baseball business...a real DH might have saved this club.

EVERY YEAR: The Mariners set a budget (a good thing in a business) that is unreasonably low given their revenue and future growth potential. Their budget is, in fact, so inflexible that they miss countless opportunities to get free agents in weaker market seasons and while trying to maintain a profit...manage to clobber the team's hopes of growing. We could have had Miguel Tejada, Vlad Guerrero, Alfonso Soriano, and many many others we tried to acquire...2010 could have been so much better if Z weren't forced to accept guys like Kotchman rather than make aggressive bids for better options like Adam Dunn.

In the end...I see no sign that the Mariners are learning at all...no sign that they even care to learn how to build a winning team. In the end...I am left wondering if this franchise will ever take its' commitment to the fans seriously. Where are we going? To me...after all these years..it seems like we're circling the parking lot of Disney World and calling that our vacation while the Red Sox and Angels and Twins and Cardinals and Yankees and Braves and Padres and Dodgers and Rangers and White Sox and Phillies and Rays get to go inside and ride the Matterhorn and Space Mountain.

Why do I invest my hope every year in a team that doesn't give a flying bag of dung what I think of their product as long as soccer moms keep showing up and spending 150 bucks so their kids can get a pic with the Mariner Moose and they can talk on their cell phones for three hours? I'm left with only one idea...

The Mariner fan community keeps me here. Well I can get that without getting passionately involved with the Mariners. I'll still follow the team from a distance, but they are wasting my time and raising my blood pressure and I get NOTHING out of fruitlessly hoping that they'll ever field a winner. I will always live in hope that the team will one day have better owners or at least that the owners will realize their model doesn't work. In the meantime...I am going to try to find a team to root for that has a direction.