Locked On Mariners - Daily Podcast On the Seattle Mariners - Wrappng Up the Lou Piniella Years

Episode Date: April 10, 2020

Jon Miller joins D.C. Lundberg to talk about the Lou Piniella years of the Seattle Mariners. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Thank you for tuning in to Locked-on Mariners, part of the Locked-on Podcast Network, your team every day. Here's your host, D.C. Lundberg. Thank you very much, J.M. Welcome to Locked-on Mariner's, part of the Locked-on Podcast Network. Today is Good Friday, and I am your reasonably nourished host, D.C. Lunberg. I just had lunch, so I'm not that cranky yet, but I will be towards dinner time because I can't have any snacks. Oh, well, it's the life I chose. Anyways, please remember to download, rate, and subscribe to Locked-on Mariners on Google podcast, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher Radio,

or whichever podcasting app that you personally care to use. Ask your smart device to play Locked-on Mariners podcast or any of the other programs here on the Locked-on Network. Follow the show on Twitter at L-O-U-U-U-Nor-Mariners, and follow me on Twitter at D.C. underscore Lundberg, L-U-N-D-B-E-R-G, if you are scoring at home. Today we are going to wrap up our look back at the Lou Pinelli ears of the Seattle Mariners.

Here with me to talk about Sweet-Loo's tenure is Locked-on Mariners contributor. John Miller, John, welcome once again to Locked-on Mariners. Thank you very much for having me again. You are very welcome. I know that you've been kind of keeping up on the yearbook series listening to the different shows. And I guess I'll ask you this question.

What is your favorite thing or moment in Lou Pinella's tenure as a mariner? It doesn't have to do with Lou Pinella himself. But what was your favorite part of that 10-year period? Well, it very quickly comes down to either, 1995 or 2001. And we like to talk about Griffey and Buneer and Edgar and then we get into Ichiro and then all the other players, your Rich Amroll and Alex Diaz and David Bell and everyone who was a very part of that cohesive unit.

But the person who has the very apt title of manager, is the one who had a role in bringing those people together, putting them in in the right situations, a lot of behind-the-scenes work that we don't see. Right. And to have the comeback that they did in 95 when, and because we just listened to that episode, where you'd think the Mariners were out.

They might end up in third place in the division, and that's it, and they make it to the ALCS. Yes. And then in 2001, yes, we had all those great players. Yeah. And you are right that the title of manager is very apropos because there's a lot of behind-the-scenes stuff. He rallied a team very, very well. He kept a team together very, very well, which is not something, the great ones can do it. And for my money, Lou Penel is a Hall of Famer. He missed out by one vote the last time he was in the Veterans Committee. I consider him a great manager. The other great managers have that same. quality and you also spoke to the fact that any move that he made seemed to work out which was

no more true than it was in 2001 where everything he did seemed to work out even when he was giving his starting players a rest he could put in mark mcclemore and left field shortstop third base second base and he would contribute he could plug stan haviour into left field right field center field first base he would contribute a year later you could plug desie relliford into the outfield, third base, short stuff, second base, and he would contribute. Or Tom Lampkin was a very good backup catcher in 2001 and 2009, I think, also. But everything that Lou Pinella did, and every player that Lou Pinella plugged in a certain situation seemed to work.

Charles Gibson, the same thing. Do you remember the play in Minnesota in 2001? I forget who the runner was, but he threw an absolute BB from center field to home plate and it looked like it was Ken Griffey Jr. or somebody like that, Chuck and that ball home. Gibson had a great arm. He was one of my all-time favorites. Yeah, he was really fun to watch. I saw him in Tacoma and then saw him up in Seattle, too.

Yeah, I mean, in 1999, this is one thing, this is one other thing I remember about Lou Pinella specifically. If you couldn't play defense, you would get on his bad side very quickly. And in 1999, when Russ Davis was having massive problems on defense, I mean, he wasn't, that season he was horrible, but he wasn't that horrible. And I think his confidence was done. But the last part of the season, he had Charles Gibson as a starting third baseman only because of the defense.

And then earlier in the summer, he had Rico Rossi as a starting third baseman only because of the defense. And they were both pretty much punchless slap hitters. Well, and Pinella learned all this from years of playing, and he, managed for years and actually started out with the good Yankees team in the mid to late 80s. Yes. And we mentioned all the good things, and we could talk about him or go as far back as Connie Mack or go Tony LaRusa, or any great manager or someone who, if the same goes for a manager or player,

if they are around for a long time. Yes. An inordinate amount of time. If players around for 15, 20 years. he's doing something right. If a manager is around for that long, with that many teams or with one team, all let's say like Mike Sosha or something,

he's doing something right. The team loses and he's still there. Or Tom Kelly with the twins. Oh, yeah, Tom Kelly. He should have mentioned a great manager. Very underrated. Yes, I agree completely. And did Pinella do everything?

No. There were obviously decisions that he made to take an extra base, or to throw on this runner or to put a player in in this situation that didn't work out and we didn't win the game, we didn't score the run. But what that goes to is that the majority of his decisions

were correct. And that he, first of all, he had the guts to try in that situation and make something happen. And that is what I think makes a great manager, is having the guts and the intuition to go with that. Yes, and then having the guts to stand up to the media after the game and say, yes, I tried this, it didn't work. One thing I want to bring up, talking about managing,

specifically is a quote from Don Zimmer when he was managing the Cubs. He said, and this is a paraphrase, it's not exactly, he said, I can put a play on, I can put a player in, but so far I haven't pitched a ball this season. I haven't came to bat. I can put something on, but it's on the players to do it, and right now they're doing it or something like that. Yeah, that makes perfect sense.

Yes, it does. one thing about Lou Panella that I didn't get into during the yearbook series, but I think has to be brought up. People love this, his temper tantrums. He had a good snap. His first ejection is a Seattle Mariner, which I don't remember. It was 1993 in early June, was the Bill Hasselman brawl in Baltimore,

when Bill Hasselman charged the mound against Mike Musina. After the brawl was over, he was talking with the umpires, and it seemed to be pretty calm at first. but then he got upset that Mike Musina wasn't dejected and he reached for his cap and it looked like he was going to be a slow boil but he just erupted through his cap on the ground and then just went off, kicked his cap

and he was gone in like two seconds. I remember that very well. That was great. You're thinking that it's going to be Earl Weaver type or in the case of some and you could look up the videos on YouTube Earl Weaver where he just

goes and goes and it's a foul-mouthed tirade on the umpire and he's going for five minutes telling him what his mother did wrong and everything and but in loose case here it you're fully anticipating something like that and then he just the hinge just snaps and he goes uh-huh it was beautiful there were there are two specific ones that i want to bring up the one in cleveland where he took his hat off through it on the ground and then was kicking him all over the uh the infield he went up kicking it into the stands and somebody threw it back. That might be his most famous one as a mariner. I'm sure you remember this one. Yes, John. Yes, I do. I want to say it was 1998. It was 1998. They had the sleeveless road uniforms at that time that were

hideous, and that's what they happened to be wearing that day. These are little things that my ridiculous brain remembers, ladies and gentlemen. The other one was in Tampa Bay. In 2002, It was last season as a mariner, yes. And the broadcasters were noting that his parents were there, that his parents had come to watch and manage the game, and that was the game where he disagreed with John Shuluck, the home plate umpire, I think over balls and strikes. I don't remember what the argument was,

but he wound up kicking dirt all over home plate, and then he knelt down and covered home plate with dirt after he had been ejected from the game. And then, of course, John Shulock refused to brush it off, and then Dan Wilson, as classy as he is, just kind of reached back for the umpires brush. Shulok gave it to him, and Wilson had to clean the playoff.

I distinctly remember, and as you're mentioning that, I'm remembering again, thinking, okay, so what would have happened? If Wilson wasn't such a classy guy and Blue Goat leaves the field, and the plate is still covered with dirt? You know, and this is not,

I love John Marzano, but I would have loved if John Marzano was behind the plate instead of Dan Willow. at that time. Because Marzano's a tough guy. He doesn't take any crap from anybody. I would have loved to do a scene what he would have done in that situation. He was

retired by then, but the point remains. It's your job. I'm up to it. Exactly. Something tells me Marzona would have been tossed too, but in any case, we are kind of running up on a break, so we're going to take one at this time. We will

return with John Miller to speak about Lou Pinellas tenure with the Seattle Mariters, and those years in general, right after these commercial massages. Hey gang, D.C. Lundberg here for Postmates. If you're the type who starts thinking about what to eat for dinner while you're eating lunch, then you will love using Postmates. They deliver food from every restaurant you can think of right to your door. But Postmates just doesn't deliver burgers and sushi.

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We are back here on Locked-on Mariners, talking about Lou Penella's tenure with the Seattle Mariners or those years in general. John Miller is here joining me to speak about those years. And John, we're going to go back, let's go back to the 90s like we haven't already. and 1995 through about 1999 specifically. Those teams were very, very good offensively, particularly 1997, but the pitching was horrible. Do you think that if the Mariners had better pitching

than they might have won a World Series or at least gotten further? I feel like that in 1997, if the Mariners had better pitching, they could have at least made it to the championship series, but those Cleveland Indians were awfully hard to beat in those years. They really were, and it took the Bott Marlins seven games in 97 to beat them. That is true. The Indians also had a very, very good offense, but they also had the pitching. They had Dennis Martinez in 1995, Oral Hersheiser, Charles Nagy, who was a very underrated

pitcher for his era. Chad O.J. was pitching well at that time. Jarrett came up in 1997 and had a very good half-season and into the play. playoffs that year, but never really did much after that. It's, I mean, it's so tough to say, and now that I say it out loud, I'm not sure, simply because those Cleveland Indians teams were so dominant. Yeah, well, and you had mentioned our pitching, looking at it. Our pitching in 97, we had Jeff Viserra, who was 16 and 9,

Randy Johnson had 20 wins and only four losses, and Jamie Moyer was 17 and 5. and their ERAs were not through the roof, but it's that we only had those, and I think that Cleveland was just that good. They were that good, and the other part of it is it was mostly the back end of the rotation, because Randy Johnson was around until the middle of 1998. Jamie Moyer came to the mayor's, the trading deadline in 1996. The back end of the rotation seemed to always be a problem, as did the middle of the bullpen.

The back end of the bullpen, most of the time. time was okay. Norm Charlton had a very, very good 1995 when he came over from Philadelphia. Bobby Ayala actually had a pretty good 1997. In 1994, he was very good. Getting to those back-end relievers, Mike Jackson also in 1996, getting to those back-end relievers was a problem. Yes, it was. I mean, the names escaped me because the Mariners just went through so many pitchers, but, you know, Kevin

King, Steve Gikowski, it was mostly guys like that who was in the middle of the bullpen, Raphael Carmona, who looked like he was going to have a good career until the automobile accident pretty much destroyed his arm. You know, it's tough to, you know, hindsight being what it is, obviously, and, but in any case, those teams were awfully fun to watch, and let's talk about the offense a little bit. 1997 specifically with junior hitting 56 home runs, I think Bone hit 44. I mean, the power were that those two provided from the third and the fifth spot of the lineup, Edgar was the cleanup hitter with all of his doubles and RBIs. That was a scary offense, one through nine.

Russ Davis hit ninth in that lineup. That's kind of shocking that someone like him would hit ninth. Everybody had some sort of power. He could go through the lineup and think, okay, well, but maybe second base Joey Coro wouldn't have done that. He had 40 doubles. Yeah, he did. He had a little bit of pop in his bat. And 1997 for him was a career year. He could always hit. He was a good contact hitter. Didn't strike out all that much, somewhat patient hitter. He was a really good number two hitter. The one thing that the Mariners lacked as well was a true lead-off hitter. They had Joey Corr leading off most of the time, but he was better suited for number two, I think. Yeah. Well, and you mentioned the power. That 1997 Mariners team was the team that until just

recent years and held the single season home run record for a team for about, was it 20 years? About that. The Yankees beat them, I think, two years ago, three years ago, something like that. When they had John Carlos Stanton and Aaron, it was the year Aaron Judge hit 52 home runs, I believe. I could be wrong. I think you're right. So they held the record for 21 years or so, and then just recently, the Yankees and the Twins of both demolish that, but... Let's go over some of the other... Dan Wilson had 15 home runs that year. Paul Sorrento had 31.

Paul Sorrento's two best years as a major leaguer came as a Seattle Mariner. Joey Cora hit 11 that year. I think his previous career total was four, but like I said, he was just off the charts had a career year. Alex Rodriguez 23. Russ Davis hit 20. That was his best season as a major leager. Jay Buehner hit 40. Edgar Martinez 28.

even Jose Cruz Jr. in 49 games hit 12 home runs before he was traded at the deadline for pitching, I guess, help. And in 30 games, Roberto Kelly hit seven. Everybody was hitting the ball out of the ballpark. Rob Deucey hit five. Brent Gates even chipped in with three. Yeah, our team batting average excluding pitchers is 281. That's amazing. That is amazing. Actually, I think it, oh, that's a non-pitcher total. You're absolutely right. pitcher totals 188. That was also the first year of interleague play. A lot of these cats hadn't hit in a while, save for Jeff Vicerro,

and he hit 200. Jamie Moyer hit 333. Omar Alavaris hit 500. Yeah. Speaking of Omar Alvarez, let's get to some of the trades that the Mariners made during this time from. Some of them were very, very good. Darren Bragg for Jamie Moyer. And I liked Darren Bragg.

I thought he was a good fourth outfielder who you could play three, four times a week. but the return on investment for that trade was just off the charts. Oh, definitely. I've heard talk recently that because of some of the pitching win totals have gone down for entry to the Hall of Fame that Moyer could get in on the Veterans Committee. He could. He could. I think let's go to Jamie Moyer's career stats. I'll get them up here real quickly.

Just off the top of my head, I'm not sure his ERA would be low enough. His career ERA was 425. He was such a late bloomer and when he was pitching in the 80s and early 90s, he was really, really bad. For example, he led the National League in earned runs in 1987, and he had a 5-10 ERA, and he has given up the most home runs in Major League history and holds the single season record.

You know, career-wise, if you're just looking at 1996 when he really blossomed and beyond, then I think there's a case, but you've got to go for the whole career, and I'm just not seeing it, unfortunately. I'm in agreement with you, but that's where I've heard talk and read articles about that. And it's fun to think that you could have Edgar and Griffey

and then add someone else to that mix from these Great Mariners teams. They just fall short, I think. Well, they don't just fall short. I think Moyer falls quite short. Jay Buneer falls quite short, although he did gain one Hall of Fame vote when he was on the ballot as one year. I still want to know who voted for him. And then Dan Wilson is not even close,

even though he was probably the number two defensive catcher in the American League. For some people's money number one, I think he might have been an overall better catcher than Pudge Rodriguez was. Pudge obviously had the better arm. But for blocking a ball in the dirt, calling a game, handling a pitching staff, I would go with Wilson any day of the week. And his arm was not that much behind Pudges.

Oh, yeah. And that's where you, get into, well, Pudge obviously just had more power. Yeah, I mean... Pudge was built in the form of a Johnny Benj. Yeah, and obviously a far superior hitter to Wilson. Yes. Getting back to some of the

trades, because that's where we kind of gone off that there was some very good ones. Another very, very good one that Woody Woodward pulled off, the Randy Johnson trade. The return on investment on that one was also very, very good. From what I can recall, yes. It was Freddie Garcia, Carlos Guillaen, and John Halama.

I know David Sieghee disagrees, But again, hindsight being what it is, that was an excellent trade to get Freddie Garcia, who was the ace of the staff from basically 2001 for a couple of years before he was traded to the wife. And I forget who the Mariners traded him to the White Sox for. And then Carlos Guienne, who was a valuable infielder, shortstop. And then he just went off when he went to the Tigers. When they played him in left field at first base, he was hitting in the 340s some years, some years, if I recall. and then John Halama, who was a serviceable pitcher, but nothing spectacular.

I really can't complain about that, especially with the season that up to that point Johnson was doing. And at the same time, the Mariners were not going to be able to retain him. It was an Omar Viscal situation where they wanted to get something back from him instead of just having him walk as a free agent. And he was traded to the Astros, wound up signing with the Diamondbacks as a free agent. was traded to the Astros, wound up signing with the Diamondbacks as a free agent, where Visckel did re-signed with the Indians, the team to which he was traded. And he was there for years and years and years.

The Omar Viscale trade is not one that worked out too well. Felix, Fermin, Reggie Jefferson, and Cash. Eh, that, in hindsight, not so much. No. Although I like Reggie Jefferson, he could hit, but he didn't have a defensive position. So his days in Seattle were limited because if you're playing for Luponella, you've got to play defense. No, definitely. So, and then Reggie Jefferson signed

as a free agent with the Red Sox after his contract expired and played six seasons for the Red Sox, I want to say. And he was another underrated hitter, 300 hitter, kind of like Hal Morris, I think, but switch hitter while Morris was left-handed. And now I'm wondering if my audience knows who Hal Morris is.

In any case, in any case, we've got to talk about some of the bad trades. We'll just gloss over them. The 1997 trading deadline is a very dark day in Mariners history, Jose Cruz Jr. for Paul Spall, Jerrick, and Mike Timlin, and then, of course, Jason Veritech, Derek Lowe, for Heathcliffe Slocom. Anything to add to that genre, so we'd just move on and forget about it? I think we should just move on and forget

about those. I think you, I think that's the right answer. There were some other trades in 1995, Roger Salkald for Tim Belcher. I thought that was a very good trade. They gave Salkald, Maritors gave Solkold chance after chance after chance, and he just couldn't do it. And then Belcher was pretty serviceable for the Maritors in 1995. Yeah, he was. Same with Jim Converse being traded for Vince Coleman. And we talked about not having a lead-off hitter earlier in the show. Coleman was a legit lead-off hitter.

Oh, yeah, I wish he had done with us what he had done earlier in his career. Yeah, but he was 35 or 36 at that point. His career was obviously coming to an end. but you know he he provided a little bit of spark at the beginning of the of the lineup it allowed joey core to move down to the number nine spot if i recall i think you're right yeah i think we are going to stop at this time because we are just about out of it uh john where can people find you on twitter i can be found on twitter sphere at seattle pilot 69 excellent please do follow him john thank you again for uh joining me to look back at the lou panella years of the seattle mariners a lot of fun yeah it really was

It was a blast. Thank you for having me. You're very welcome. Ladies and gentlemen, Lockdown Mariners, is going to take next week off. We will return the week of April 20th, where we will speak about some recent history

and recall some of the greatest moments of the 2019 season. If I can find any to talk about that is, please remember to download rate and subscribe to this program on Google Podcast, Apple Podcast, Spotify, Sitcher Radio, or whichever podcasting app that you can think of. Follow me on Twitter at DC underscore Lundberg.

Follow the show on Twitter at L.O. underscore Mariners. Follow John on Twitter at Seattle Pilots 69. Thanks again to John Miller for joining me today. Thank you for listening and have a very happy Easter. This is Joey Martin, speaking for Locked-on Mariners, part of the Locked-on Podcast Network. Ask your smart device to play Locked-on MLB upon the conclusion of this program.