Another ex-Chicago manager gets new job
SEATTLE -- John McLaren is the latest member of the Mariners to get cut loose. He probably won't be the last.
On the day McLaren was fired as manager, Seattle executives said they agree with franchise cornerstone Ichiro Suzuki that players should also be jettisoned from the team with the worst record in the majors.
After beginning the year with playoff expectations, the Mariners are now in the midst of what appears to be a lost season. They fired general manager Bill Bavasi on Monday and followed by dismissing McLaren on Thursday.
Bench coach Jim Riggleman was promoted to run the team, starting tonight in Atlanta. He became Seattle's fifth manager in six seasons.
"We hadn't shown any improvement for the last couple of months. In fact we were probably regressing," interim GM Lee Pelekoudas said. "To give the players a chance to improve … we thought a different voice was needed."
The 55-year-old Riggleman is a former manager of the San Diego Padres and the Cubs whom McLaren added to his staff last winter.
"Jim's a serious man. He's not a guy looking to have fun," Pelekoudas said.
The Mariners are 25-47, 17½ games behind the first-place Los Angeles Angels in the AL West and "in quicksand," team president Chuck Armstrong said. The team seems likely to miss the playoffs for the seventh consecutive season and could become the first team with a $100 million player payroll to lose 100 games.
"Well, if you think about it, if nothing changes things will continue to be the way they are," Suzuki told The Associated Press through a translator late Wednesday night, 11 hours before Seattle fired the 56-year-old McLaren, Suzuki's friend for a decade.
Lee Elia, called back from part-time advising earlier this month at age 70 to replace fired Jeff Pentland as hitting coach, takes Riggleman's old job as bench coach. Jose Castro, who had been a roving minor-league instructor, is the new hitting coach.
The likable, folksy McLaren was an assistant for 21½ years in the majors before he took over as Seattle's manager last July when Mike Hargrove abruptly quit. McLaren went 68-88 in less than a full season on the job.
McLaren was the second manager in the majors to be fired this season -- the New York Mets dismissed Willie Randolph earlier this week.
Suzuki did not seem surprised to hear team CEO Howard Lincoln recently declare that no player was off-limits to a potential deal.
"To me, I think that's just the normal way things should be," Suzuki said.
This is the first time Lincoln has hinted Suzuki, too, could go. Any move would have to get past majority owner Hiroshi Yamaguchi in Japan, less than a year after he approved a $90 million contract extension for Suzuki.
Armstrong said Suzuki "has let me know of his feelings," concerning the need for shedding under-performing players.
"He's probably disappointed, like all of us," Armstrong said.
Yet Suzuki said he isn't disappointed, frustrated, surprised or even numb at how badly his heralded team with a revamped rotation and veteran lineup has flopped.
"I've surpassed those emotions," he said. "I don't even know if I'm to a point where I can tell if that's how I feel."
The perennial hit machine has been part of the problem. A career .331 hitter, he is batting .291, 11 points lower than he has been this late in the season since he arrived from Japan in 2001.
Yet a clearly downcast Suzuki refused to acknowledge this is the lowest he has been with Seattle.
"The last few years have been somewhat similar," he said flatly.