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My sense, and I freely admit it is only an intuition, is that Jack's problems are related to the expansion of his duties to the full gamut of a GM job. Precisely what aspects might be the problem area, I have no way of knowing. Like you suggest, I can't imagine it's the X's and O's.
Someone with Zduriencik's experience is not likely to be a buffoon. Surely he brought real, demonstrated skills to this job. It's not like the M's hired him in a vacuum; they consulted with people around the league on who they were getting. But what he didn't bring was a demonstrated ability to handle the full responsibilities of a GM. Doesn't mean he COULDN'T handle it. Just means he HADN'T yet handled it. Certainly someone GM'ing for the first time would encounter some rough years while he got his sea legs on the job. Making some fundamental course corrections early on would be par for the course. Unfortunately the M's needed a birdie from their new GM, not a par, because they were 20 over par for the tournament, so to speak. Me, I would never have hired a rookie GM to turn this team around after Bavasi.
Sure, Zduriencik sold them on his plan, and that plan coincided with what Lincoln/Armstrong wanted to do. But it didn't mean he had the overall chops and experience to pull it off without taking the first five years to sort through his own personal adjustments to the job.
Add in Tweedle-dee and Tweedle-dum above him, and clearly Zdurencik faced, and still faces tremendous hurdles. Sometimes money can buy you out of them; sometimes it can't. He can still retrieve his regime, but this article is going to make it much, much tougher.