The Jack Zduriencik saga continues. Last offseason, Eric Wedge became the second manager in four years to leave the organization, noting on the way out that he “wouldn’t have stayed if they’d offered a 5-year deal.” Now, Wedge doesn’t seem to have been a great manager; his teams underperformed in Seattle, and they dramatically underperformed in Cleveland, and he engaged in several ill-informed rants about “sabermetrics” that demonstrated a complete lack of understanding of the term. However, Wedge is only the latest of the staff to make a stampede for the door; in addition to manager #1 under Zduriencik (Don Wakamatsu), front office staff who have left the organization include scouting director Carmen Fusco (scapegoated when Zduriencik traded for a possible rapist), Assistant GM Tony Blengino (marginalized for being too “statistical” even though his background was largely in scouting and drafting), Latin American Scouting Director Bob Engel (pushed out when Zduriencik decided to change his international approach; Engle had been the scout who signed King Felix, Shin-Soo Choo, and Michael Pineda), Patrick Guerrero (Engle’s top assistant), and a number of other unhappy scouts and executives who’ve grown weary of working for Jack. A scathing expose published by the Seattle Times last December revealed that the reasons for the flight ranged from Zduriencik’s dislike for dissent (“Zduriencik ..berated people for no particular reason. He set out to eliminate any type of disagreement, accumulating yes-men who meekly go along with his program,”), to lack of communication (“He began operating much like the Wizard of Oz, wielding his power from behind a curtain,”) to frustration over lack of understanding of statistical tools (“Jack never has understood one iota about statistical analysis…to this day, he evaluates hitters by homers, RBI and batting average and pitchers by wins and ERA”), to bizarre directives from owners (“[owners] Lincoln and Armstrong wanted Felix Hernandez and other pitchers to throw live batting practice between starts so position players could work on bunting and situational hitting.”)
