Seattle Sports Insider

This and That for your General Consumption

Dr. D as Gatekeeper, dept.

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11/4/17

Lookout Landing has a cogent description of the M's shortstop situation: Zach Vincent, Andrew Romine, Taylor Motter and Shawn O'Malley. Wow. There is stoploss and then there is STOP Loss. You realize you're talking about somebody to play BEHIND Jean Segura, who played 142-153 games per, every year till last year.

We pointed out a week ago that James' new rate-a-rookie had very high marks for Taylor Motter. He's for choice here.

LL also has the Open Letter to Shohei Ohtani that Bat571 recommended. Remember, the first hurdle here is getting a posting agreement in place, since the pusillanimous Players' Union is scowling about not yet getting enough in the deal. Will be no huge surprise if the Union's recalcitrance torpedoes the chance of Ohtani coming over this year: put it 75-25 in favor of Ohtani arriving.

Preusser's last two paragraphs are about finding a home where a player can be a beloved player, and she ain't lyin'.

But hey, there y'go. SSI's "gatekeeping" will begin at the most important place of all, that being SSI's comment section, obviously. Also see below.

Oregon Sports News has a fun column on the 2017 ex-M's All Star Team: Taylor SS, Morrow RP, Lind 1B, Taijuan SP and Montgomery SP, and so forth. For the record: Jean Segura and Mitch Haniger for Taijuan and Ketel Marte? I like the trade every blinkin' inch as much as I did the day of. I'm happy for Taijuan and his fine year in the easy-squeezee NL, a 9-9 record with a 4.04 ERA but cured gopheritis.

It turns out the Mariners declined their option on Yovani Gallardo. It's a funny thing; my heart feels bad about a friend I have who just went to jail for 30 days, but 50,000 dead in a tsunami doesn't register. Similarly, I feel pretty bad for Jack Z and his Ackley-Smoak-Montero thing but on Guy Art Dough, I feel no pain, baby. Some tragedies are just too vast to process.

G-Moneyball, who is also a sports therapist, pointed out that baseball (hitting) is a lot more like golf than it is like the NBA or NFL, and so Lorena Martin (who is really good with the NBA and NFL) has a lonnnnggggg row to hoe. When it comes to helping golfers and baseball players. Dr. Detecto, who is not G-Money but who slept at a Holiday Inn Express last week, points out that no matter what training regimen you make up -- High Intensity Interval or Hatha Yoga or what have you -- it has already been given a name. Sorry, Charlie. Tabata? Swimming? Marathoning? From 4 minutes to 4 hours, from stretching to squat jumping, it's all been done.

(That's an expression taken from Bobby Fischer in 1966, by the way: "Whatever maneuver you come up with, they already gave it a name. So you can't invent anything."

... oh! But we can tell which player to do which exercise! ... :ulp: ... well, okay. No harm tryin'.

Lorena Martin is the right choice for her job, no doubts there. The question is whether this job has any oomph left to it. ... don't get me wrong. Dr. Martin is into motivation, and state of mind, and into everything in fact. With studies under arm. We like. We just dunno.

BABVA,

Dr D

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Shohei Ohtani

Comments

On Shohei

What I can pass along is a couple decades working with Japanese businessmen while sitting in the Northwest. (Maybe that's relevant...maybe not.)

There are two boxes on his achievement grid that stand out to me: "being loved by everyone", and "humanity". As Kate points out, there is ample evidence for Seattle being a town that will adore a Japanese star. So I think we've got a great chance there.

But I wonder about the "humanity" thing. From what I know of their culture, this isn't just a description of what someone would like to be...but also what they expect and respect in others. What you say and do--particularly at first sight--is less important than what you DON'T say or do. Silence is valued. Every word is weighed. Which leads me to wonder about JD's approach. He has such a winning personality...and is so conversant with the statistical side...that what he has found works well with American free agents might make opposite impression on someone coming to a new country from Japan. To put this another way, what I presume was Gillick's persona and approach may be far more successful.

There are plenty of people in the M's organization who have been through the Ichiro and Sasaki and Johjima experiences. I hope JD seeks them out.

Japanese-style Respect

One of yer best comments Diderot, and that's saying a lot.

Thanks for relaying your experiences with your Japanese friends. It rings absolutely true. Jerry Dipoto is obviously an EXTREMELY self-confident, extroverted guy and that wouldn't necessarily play well in your typical such negotiation.

That said, the Mainframe does give the hyper-intelligent JeDi credit for understanding that he'll be dealing with a Japanese contingency :- ) and he notes that no other MLB GM's were raised in Japan either. ;- ) So we could be okay.

Good reminder on the cultural difference. Let's hope that the Seattle org would blunder less often than the typical org.

ALL Kinds of Personalities Negotiate

I would be surprised if there were more than a handful or even one or two GM's (and assistant personnel) who are not readily aware of cultural nuances to dealing with other cultures in the arena of negotiations. You can't get through a modern business school (and by modern I mean within the last 25-30 years) without cultural awareness being an extremely prominent part of things. On a personal note, I've been in business school at both ends of that time period. Our political climate also mandates this kind of thing.

Unless JeDi has an extreme blindspot due to to ego about such things, I would be shocked. In fact, I would expect his ego to be something that would drive him to be ahead of the curve when it comes to this kind of situation.

Of course....I could be way off base here.

Yes, this is a good point

No doubt JD will want to be the best at whatever he does...and has the smarts to pull it off.

As long as he doesn't let his inner cheerleader take over :)