Management by Baseball

In Parts I, II and III, I laid out how the Mariners, if they intended to advance their record over their 2009 campaign, had to do something very different from the blend that had gotten them (to everyone's surprise) over .500 last year.

And I explained that the front office had taken the exhilarating but risky course of a Bold Experiment, and attempted to do what no team in the last 90 seasons -- maybe longer -- had tried: Build a team around team defense so far above the norm that it would allow them to transcend the gravitational field that is the Pythagorean winning projection. I described the Bold Experiment and how it failed, quite miserably because the offense, already well below adequate, was undermined by business side of the team, a part of the organization that was priapic for the promotional opportunities of re-signing an already-below average DH instead of acquiring any of the relatively-available talent of left-handed batters who can pull the ball but can't field. I described just how it failed by falling below the event horizon, a universal function that happens in all endeavors mechanical and human and in the making of movie sequels (see Mission Impossible XXVIII: Highjinks in the Retirement Home Complex)

But I asserted the architect of the baseball side of the equation, G.M. Jack Zdurienck, had shown genius in spite of the total failure of the Bold Experiment, and I said I was going to explain why he was, in this respect, a manager to emulate in your own endeavor. That genius was not just the willingness to implement a Bold Experiment (mandatory but usually avoided) but building in a contingency plan to buffer the consequences of that unprecedented experiment's failure. So here we go.

CONTINGENCY PLANNING In the off-season, as part of rolling out the Bold Experiment, Zdurienck traded for the guy who has been the best starting pitcher in the majors, Cliff "The Benton Bandido" Lee to compliment his existing top guy, Félix Hernández, one of the top 10 starters in the majors. It's tough to acquire talent like that, but Lee's contract is to expire at the end of the 2010 campaign, so while his immediate value is high, the long-term dollar value of the guy is less certain because of the uncertainty both of how much he would cost to re-sign and his actual value in the final years of his -- inevitably long because part of the cost of buying Six Sigma brilliance is not just high per year salary but paying for years when the player has matured to an age that it's unlikely the performance will still be dominating -- contract. And as a premier starting pitcher, his cost would be either very high, or higher than that, something the on-field investment sensitive Mariners' ownership strongly prefers avoiding.

For many front offices, the normal thing to do would be to sign Lee (eliminating part of the uncertainty -- the uncertainty of price-tag) and make him part of the team. And then if the signing didn't work out for any reason (didn't like the city, team faltered making the value of a two-ace strategy less valuable) one could trade him and more likely than not recover the full investment (sometimes called "sign and trade").

But the Z-Man understood that since the experiment was far from normal, the normal context of sign and trade wasn't an optimal process to insert into it...too risky, since failure was more likely. So he didn't pursue the (normal) courtship of the new, one-year-left-on-contract star, and in fact, politely but bluntly declined to talk contract between the trade & the beginning of the season. Lee and his agent were a little surprised, maybe even disappointed.

For the Ms front office, though, it made some sense. Publicly admitting the lack of courtship signaled potential trading partners Lee might be available, and that was almost certain to stimulate acquisition lust among contenders and wanna-bes and mediocre-but-ambitious teams (offer not good in Pittsburgh, Kansas City and other cities where teams make as much $$ losing as winning). And more interested parties lead to more possible bidders lead to better returns on a trade.

Keeping Lee through a melt-down of a season was, of course, an option...not a good one. Beyond Baseball, companies, militaries and non-profits routinely stick to their decisions even when it's become crystal-clear the decision was a fatal stinker. In Baseball, it happens occasionally, but Baseball is not as forgiving of incompetence as the Fortune 500 is of failed CEOs or the Pentagon or Kremlin are of failed commanders.

Because the Bold Experiment was so unprecedented, Zdurienck didn't plan just on winning; he understood and shaped the processes to account for stumble or failure as well.

¿What chances did he take that might have backfired on the benefit/cost ratio he hoped for? Not an injury to Lee that would erase his trade value if the experiment failed -- because if they inked an about-to-be-injured Lee to a long-term deal, they might be stuck with damaged goods. That the experiment would succeed beyond their wildest dreams and earn them a trip to the World Series? Not really a bad risk, since the good feeling from that would be a counterweight (in part or entirely) to the possibly-perceived personal tort of not courting Lee early.

So when the Bold Experiment imploded in the dark matter-infested regions below the Mariners' offensive Event Horizon, Z-Man traded Lee to one of several contending teams seeking his services. And since the Ms had so many holes in their everyday line-up, Z-Man could choose from amongst the contenders the several that had a prospect or young developing potential star that filled, specifically, one of his several on-field black holes. And the curse of the total meltdown of the Bold Experiment had within it the relative blessing of giving Z-Man more latitude, because this was a team that wasn't on the verge of contending, so the talent he acquired didn't have to be shovel-ready to appear in the 2011 line-up as star-quality already; he could trade for a player or players who were more than a year away.

So looked at from a good management perspective, the magnitude of the meltdown actually afforded Z-Man more possibilities to improve, more ways to succeed. Cognitively, it's a hard place to go Beyond Baseball, but on July 9, the Ms traded Lee and a longer-term but lower ceiling guy, Mark Lowe with a dab of cash to the Texas Rangers for Blake Beavan, Josh Lueke, Matthew Lawson and Justin Smoak. Smoak is a 1b prospect, Lueke is a reliever whose pitching is lights-out at AAA and whose personal behavior has been mirror-image dark matter, the kind of employee that, if he wasn't producing brilliantly, you'd have no qualms about jettisoning.

While fans tended to cry loudly that Lee had been lost, there was close to zero margin in keeping him. His value was certainly high...the Ms had gone 9-4 in the games he had started (and should have been 11-2, by Game Score Won-Lost, a stat that more accurately reflects a starting pitcher's contribution to team wins than the actual W-L record that appear on stat sheets), they were 25-48 in the games Lee hadn't started. That means even cloning Lee and replacing their worst starter with his clone wouldn't have made the team a .500 one. There was no point in paying him big money to excel for a team doomed to last place with or without him.

apparent willingness to acquire for a team that prides itself more on its off-field warm-fuzzies than its on-field accomplishments an apparently awesome relief talent who's got a massive character failure. Will the genius of Z-Man's contingency planning be cancelled out by the potentially Lueke-warm or catastrophic social revulsion of the secondary prospect's violations? Still to early to tell. But since this is not a Mariner blog, I'm not, at this point, going to jump on that news hook to rush something to print about it.

Jack Zdurienck is a management beacon to follow for both understanding the absolute need to execute a Bold Experiment even when the organizations feels like its in a comfort zone, when anything less than bold is close to assured failure. And he's equally a beacon to follow for contingency planning.

Are you comfortable? Are you planning for what's changing? Are you planning for how to deal gracefully with what the most likely turns might be that would foil your plans for what's changing? Zdurienck is. You should, too.