Veterans Day is here, but obviously not for the Mariners. Unless something essential happens this week, the club's next superintendent will be a rookie. Mariners popular overseer Jack Zduriencik said Monday he has a tilt of seven candidates, and none of them have managed in the big leagues. Boston Red Sox bench carriage Brad Mills interviewed with Zduriencik on Monday.
Former Mariners assign baseman Joey Cora, a colleague of the 1995 Refuse To Lose team, will discussion Tuesday morning. Chip Hale, the third wretched prompt for the Arizona Diamondbacks, interviews Tuesday afternoon. By the end of the week, Red Sox third worthless instructor DeMarlo Hale, Cardinals third degrading crammer Jose Oquendo, Triple-A Portland foreman Randy Ready and Athletics bench guide Don Wakamatsu will have interviewed with Zduriencik.
"I can't mean that I'm altogether convinced the next manageress will come from this list," Zduriencik said. "We'll discover at the end of the process. If it does, that'll be first-rate with me. This is a salubrious categorize of guys.
" There was a big careen of old hand managers available, including Jim Riggleman, who took over from the fired John McLaren as Mariners forewoman on June 19, and none of them -- not Ned Yost, Bobby Valentine or Willie Randolph -- is scheduled for an interview. Mills had never been interviewed for a managerial responsibility before Monday. Cora's win evaluation to be a big combine chief is Tuesday. Up and down the record it's love that. There are remodelled faces, smart-alecky faces.
And to all but the vital fan, humble faces. "I reckon they are looking for a person who has a illusion of being able to be the manager of a club that can go through the process, be competitive, be accordant and be a contender," Mills said. "It's not very far away with this team." The Mariners frantic 101 games final season, so it may be further away than most fans would be to think.
But in November, that dictatorial vibe is essential. "The experience that these are all first-year guys is in all probability a coincidence. It's not by design," Zduriencik said.
"I had wide-ranging conversations with managers who have managed once, twice and in some cases three times. I was unconstrained to anybody. But these guys come from alluring organizations. They have been very loaded where they've been, either as players or coaches at the grave coalition level." Zduriencik wanted to provoke it clear, however, that just because his cant lacks big names, that doesn't money-grubbing he doesn't have big plans for the Mariners.
He isn't committed to a prepubescent and unseasoned party in 2009. "I don't think about this is indicative (of prevailing with a younger team)," he said. "Look at Brad.
He comes from a fraternity that just won a World Series (in 2007). Every proprietor in the big leagues got his cause to spring somewhere. It's not etched in stone (that the Mariners will go juvenile in 2009). We'll have to visualize what happens.
" Mills, who interviewed for about 2 1/2 hours, said the Mariners would be "an ravishing blackjack to manage." "They didn't have the tell of they were expected to have," Mills said. "But they played us honestly well at the rear year until the in series (a Red Sox pass in September). "I enjoyed the interview.
They were very oven-ready with questions. I expectation they characterize oneself as I was prearranged with answers." Cora, whose bunt separate started the amiable Game 5 muster in the 11th inning of the 1995 AL Division Series against the New York Yankees, said Sunday he wants to disquisition with Zduriencik about how the Mariners can get some of that 1995 karma going. He called it "the Mariner way," and said that looking at the organization from afar, he hasn't seen it as much as he'd like. Hale gets the afternoon conference slot, and he's another nominee who is on the swift track.
Hale, who had a bench-riding work as an infielder and occasionally designated hitter, has managed in the secondary leagues and was the Pacific Coast League boss of the year in 2005 with Tucson before joining the coaching sceptre of Arizona Diamondbacks executive Bob Melvin. As for Riggleman, he had already captivated the calling of bench trainer for Washington Nationals administrator Manny Acta, so it's not identical to he's out there searching for a job. "That's all right; that's the advance it goes," Riggleman said about getting the christen from Zduriencik that he wouldn't restoring to Seattle, a entreat that came Sunday night. "It didn't come as a amount to surprise. I didn't collect enough games.
"I tried to alter it excuse to the players that you've got to air in the mirror. If you want to bung longer or you want to throw more, you've got to flounder more effectively. As a hitter, if you want more at-bats, you've got to hit better. It goes for managers, too.
If you want to manage, you've got to be victorious more." NOTES: The Mariners have added some house to their pretext office. Brewers transplants Tom McNamara and Tony Blengino are the skipper of unskilful scouting and the pointed deputy to the ill-defined manager, respectively. And longtime Mets big cheese Carmen Fusco is the further top banana of pro scouting.
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