I always thought Chuck Daley was an exceptional coach when he was with the Pistons. One of the best I've ever seen. Nearly Phil Jackson level. Well, almost nearly. He was terrific at getting players to buy into his system AND getting them to understand and flourish within it.
When Isiah Thomas got hot, everybody else's ego disappeared and he got shot after shot. Or Aguirre or Dumars or Lambeer or Vinnie Johnson. It was a team where individual egos, in a game that highlights individual egos, frequently disappeared. For heaven's sake, they had Worm Rodman, too. That was Daley. Players understood, bought in, excelled.
Daley was a maestro.
He transformed that team into something it wouldn't have been without him.
I don't see that in Wedge. Hey, I understand the hiring (if I didn't agree with it). He was the Sarge, the guy to reclaim the clubhouse aftger the Figgins disaster. Of course, getting rid of Figgins might have been a more effective way to send that message, but it didn't happen. Wak got canned, Wedge was the un-Wak.
But I haven't seen (from a great distance, surely) a guy who wins the locker room over because he makes the right decisions, time and again. I've seen a skipper, but not The Skipper.
Know what I mean? At some point Chuck Daley just put guys, repeatedly, in positions and situations where they would/could/did succeed.
Is Wedge to blame for all the M's failures? No way! Nor is he the cause of Smaoks lack of ability or Guti's hammy.
But we haven't seen a guy who gets results. That is the simplest and most pertanent indictment.
He's been paid handsomely for doing something we all dream....and blog, about.
But it's time he go, even if he is a nice guy.
moe

It seems that there aren't too many capital S Skippers in MLB. And Socia has a job already unfortunately.

Blowers and Sims were remarking about how tight the guys were on the field before the game, grinding away in batting practice.  That the locker room was apparently like a funeral home and people were afraid to breathe too loudly (paraphrasing and re-conceptualizing remarks made throughout the night).
The smiles in the dugout after we'd hung half-a-dozen on the Astros were pointed out several times during the broadcast and Blowers, who has the emotional range of petrified bark behind the mic, said "man is THAT good to see" with obvious relief in his voice.  I could run over that dude's foot with my car and he'd say, "Well that stings a little, Dave.  Probably gonna need to put some ice on it.  Wouldn't want it to cause later problems."
But he's reveling on air in the positive vibes from the dugout like a man being freed from solitary and dropped off in a sunny park?
That's what concerns me.  Wedge can say all he wants that Brendan Ryan needs not to gnaw the knob off his bat beaver-style when he's struggling at the plate, but if Wedge is encouraging this mentality in the clubhouse - to beat yourself up after a bad series - or at least can't short-circuit it, then yes he may be in trouble.
I remember vividly Jeff Cirillo's time with the Mariners.  He didn't approach hitting the way Sweet Lou wanted his hitters to, and their "discussions" about hitting in the dugout when Lou had a bat in his hands and was talking while Jeff looked like he wanted to crawl into a hole and die.
So instead he crawled to the plate and died.  Just a bad match of a player and manager.  Luckily for those Mariners the team had been stuffed with players who matched up well with Lou's style.  Cirillo was an outlier (although he was a reason we didn't make the playoffs in '02).
Do these Mariners and their personalities fit Wedge's style?
Wak was very zen-placid, and Wedge is the Sarge, but if these guys need a cheerleader instead... then yeah, change could be coming.
But to the manager position, or the GM one?  We'd better start winning.
~G

The original "True To The Blue."

The problem with Baker's angle is that EVERY beat writer of EVERY team could cite 2-strike production as an achilles' heel. It's a false narrative because ALL teams suck at 2-strike hitting. It is not a sign of "lack of fight." USSMarc easily makes the case.

One way managers fire up teams is to protest calls with umps, getting tossed if necessary. Wedge rarely, rarely, comes out of the dugout to protest a call, let alone get in an ump's face to fire up the troops. Remember the short slide at secomd base in the last home stand where Ackley tagged the runner out by a long ways? And the tag on Morales today at first to complete a double play? Why doesn't Wedge get out on the field and support his players to the umps? If you as the manager are fighting a "give-up" attitude, then lead by example.

In tonight's 3-2 loss to the lowly Lastros, Wedge's weaknesses (e.g., stubborn loyalty to over-the-hill veterans instead of playing younger, more talented players who give the team a better chance to win; poor in-game tactical decisions - intentional walk to Pena leading to a Lastro run; failure to pinch hit when called for - letting weak-hitting Andino get last AB in 9th with Bay & Peguero on the bench) were on blatant display. Given the raised expectations for this team and its terrible start a critical point is approaching for GMZ.
Is he going to continue to support a failing Wedge, jeopardizing GMZ's own job? Or is GMZ going to make the tough decisions that are called for: 1) Admitting that Raul was a terrible mistake and kicking him upstairs as a special assistant or coach, 2) Cutting his losses on Smoak and sending him to AAA now, and 3) Cutting his losses by firing Wedge, who is rapidly becoming the symbol for the veteran ineptitude and prospect failure that is costing this team games every week.
I consider myself a patient fan who supports the rebuild from the ground up, but I'm tired of watching Miguel Olivo play over John Jaso and a washed up Raul Ibanez bat against LHP and butcher balls in the OF. I'm tired of hearing Wedge say Raul "deserves" critical ABs against LHP. I'm tired of Wedge bad-mouthing Montero when he needs support from his manager. Time for Wedge to go before he takes GMZ down with him.

Smeagol: Smoak and Ackley both hit the ball hard again tonight...
Gollum No...NO! We don't likesees! Smoak doesn't have a single home run so far. Not ONE!
Smeagol: Still, the way those two have hit the ball the last few games makes me still hope for some breakout.
Gollum: Gollum, Gollum. No breakout. No. They are false, FALSE! They trickses us!

Can't buy it M-Pops - Rather go down with Hultzen, Thames, Peguero, and Zunino than Raul and Smoak. My reasoning is that we have clear cut answers as to what Raul and Smoak are on the MLB field. If we are to have another futile season we might as well see what the rookies can do out there. So no it's not hitting the panic button IMHO putting younger talent on the field. Yes, Wedge has to go but that's a NEED not panic, again IMHO.

Love it, Daddy....
Clearly the Smeagol voice has convinced the M's that Smoak is a guy to keep rolling out there. I've cringed with his two 2-hit games, because it just means that we see him for that much longer. 4 hits from hit is good for 20 more starts from Wedge.
Gollum is right about Smoak.....he trickses those that count.
But I'm not sure that Smagol isn't right about Ackley. He had a great season....and then a bad one. The jury is still out on which is the normal Ackley.
Not so on Smoak, I think.
Frodo: You swore! You swore on the precious! Smeagol promised!
Gollum: Smeagol lied.
moe

In this feel-good story about Kyle Seager figuring it out at the plate after a huge slump earlier in the year. "Seager, 25, said he realized he needed to start using his legs and lower half more in his swing, which freed up his hands and gave him "more space" at the plate."
Good news, right?  Here's Wedge:

Manager Eric Wedge said Seager's ability to analyze and correct his own swing was one of the things that separated him from other young prospects, though it took him much of the spring to get squared away.
"It's funny because I never really felt Kyle got going all spring and even early on this year," Wedge said. "Whereas I felt like pretty much everybody else to the man had everything going. It's just the irony of baseball where Seager comes out of it first and everybody else crashes and burns for a while. Now I hope everybody is on the rebound, and I think we are."
I agree, Seager is a self-fixer.  Saunders was not a self-fixer, but found someone (outside the org) who could fix him. Every other young prospect has struggled like crazy and apparently nobody in the org has any flippin' clue why that would be.
Where's our Bard?  Where's the guy who can tell the young prospect something that can help him if he can't self-correct easily?  Nowhere.  What am I paying a hitting coach for if Brendan Ryan, who hit .290 over large sections of time in St. Louis (when he wasn't hitting .230) might as well be blindfolded and spun around at the plate before his at-bats for all the good it does him?  Or Smoak? Or Ackley?  Ackley has finally discarded basically EVERYTHING the Mariners have told him over the last 3+ years and has gone back to his college swing to attempt to start over.  Hey, look at that, he's driving the ball the other way now.  Fascinating.
This is part of that thing that Sandy talks about, where the Mariners don't actually help any of their hitting prospects develop.  They watch them get older and gain more experience but they don't actually ASSIST them in any meaningful way.  There might be corrections suggested or even mandated, but they aren't helpful.
At this point I don't blame Nick Franklin for refusing to give up his switch-hitting.  What's an org like this gonna teach a young hitter anyway?  He might as well do it his way and see if he can teach himself how to be a big-league contributor.  Catricala took advice and got messed up so badly it looks like he may never fix it.  Same with Poythress.  Liddi and Peguero have the same holes in their swings that they've always had. 
Maybe that's not a coaching thing, but I've seen guys with HUGE holes in their swings who were good major-league contributors because they simply learned (or were TAUGHT) what to do with their at-bats to minimize the weaknesses they couldn't fix. Mark Reynolds has a pro career, doesn't he?  How come zero of our holey-hitters can get one?
Definitely a bootstrap organization when it comes to hitters, at least from an outside view.  And that's extremely frustrating.
~G

As I showed back in Spring Training, Miller's swing has been modified for the better since college, and to good effect especially regarding his power potential.  Whoever coached Miller into his swing changes should get a better-paying job.  There's an opening with the Mariners, or might be shortly...
~G

Right now, if I were GMZ, I would offer Mr. Bard over $1M/year salary, plus an unlimited budget for whatever else he needs, to come fix the M's young hitters. If I had to buy out his Denver business as well, never mind, it's cheap compared to the cost of the lost asset value represented by the systematic and systemic failure of the M's young hitters.

Great post, Gordon.
But, I believe not meddling and allowing players to self-correct would be a step in the RIGHT direction.
Based on my 3,000 miles away, stats only observations, (supplemented with lots of reading of all the guys here with eyes-on observations), I continue to believe the organization IS instructing its prospects to do all number of things ... to hit with the "one, specified, optimal approach" the club likes.
But, I see two paradigms.
One is the mechanical - the stuff you and Doc and others dissect with great insight (in my completely unschooled opinion).
The second is APPROACH - the tactical plan in mind when stepping to the plate.
I think the club has had some success (Saunders) and some failures (Ackley) with mechanical coaching.
But, I think the club ultimately preaches approach changes that are across the board detrimental, because they are consistently working AGAINST the players individual psychological profile and instinct.
... analogy time ...
I think they are attempting to "cerebrally" turn EVERY player into a switch hitter. I think the number of players capable of successfully altering their approach is extremely small, so this is going to almost always fail. But prospects, desperate to play all the time work dilligently to adhere to the company line up to the point that it is a complete disaster and they just cave and revert to what brought them to the Majors in the first place.
If a player doesn't START with the company prescribed correct ratio between aggression and patience, (which I think Seager most readily displayed coming up), they meddle.
Pegeuro - you need to be more a lot more selective
Ackley/Smoak - you need to be more a lot more aggressive
Montero -- close ... but you're swinging at too many out of zone pitches. Dial it back a notch
Instead of thinking - "The optimal Swing% for Ackley and Smoak is 40%" and the optimal swing% for Peguero is 65%, they're trying to push EVERYONE to a Swing% of exactly 48.75.
I think the 20-car pileup begins because they get players to alter their approach ... their production plunges ... THEN they focus on mechanical fixes to a problem induced by the club to begin with. ("Our advice is sound - therefore YOUR execution is the problem here").
I could be a million miles off base ... not having any access to anything but quotes to the media from coaches ... but that's my sense of things.

In your opinion, is this attempt to get all players to use the same approach primarily due to: 1) Sgt Wedge's direction, 2) GMZ's direction, 3) Direction from someone else in the organization, or 4) A group decision by the M's brass?
And how, in the middle of prospect development, does an organization change course in terms of operating philosophy?
Additional evidence for your hypothesis is the failure of several of the M's highly touted Latin bonus baby hitters to improve in the lower minor leagues, e.g., Pimental, Castillo, F. Martinez (whose hitting has regressed since he left the Tigers org).

Actually, bsr, I'm reading a book at this moment ... "Nudge" by Richard Thaler and Cass Sunstein that addresses just this type of issue.
The explanation is a bit lengthy, but I'll try to boil it down. (pp 55-58)
1) In group settings, where opinions are shared aloud, the power of conformity can lead 20-40% of people to go along with group opinions on something, even when the answers are obviously wrong. (Lots of conformity experiments support this).
2) In experiments where a confederate of the testers made clear and confident declarations, the "group opinion" could easily be influenced in a given direction.
3) (and this is the part really important here, so I'll quote the book directly).
"More remarkable still, the group's judgments became thoroughly internalized, so that people would adhere to them even when reporting on their own - indeed even a year later, and even what participating in new groups whose members offered different judgments. Significantly, the initial judgments were also found to have effects across "generations". Even when fresh subjects were introduced and others retired so that ALL the participants were new to the situation, the original group judgment tended to stick, although the person who was originally responsible for it had long been gone."
While the GM changes and the Manager changes ... how many of the individual coaches and scouts and other clubhouse people change when a new GM/Manager is hired? I don't know. But, it ain't everyone.
Daren Brown has been an Ms minor league manager since 2001 and has been in Tacoma since 2007, (with a brief pop up to the Majors).
Jim Horner has been a minors manager since 2006 ... and was an Ms minor league player from '96-'04
============
I remember hearing the phrase "quality at bat" from multiple Ms managers, (as far back as Hargrove).
I think the Ms have ONE idea of what a quality at bat is ... and are making no real adjustment to the concept that a quality at bat for Smoak or Ackley is actually significantly different than a quality at bat for Montero or Peguero.
While I could easily be wrong about the cause ... the evidence of prospect implosion (exacerbated by length of stay in the org), supported with the reality that many prospects have left the org and flourished ... goes back at least a decade. There is a point at which one has to conclude that absent a "negative" development influence, the Ms would have just "lucked" into producing at least one .800 OPS bat of their own.