SEATTLE (AP) -After completing his fifth interview in three days to find a new manager for the Seattle Mariners, Jack Zduriencik sighed and chuckled.
“Another day at the office,” the team’s new general manager said Wednesday night after meeting with Oakland bench coach Don Wakamatsu for four hours in the morning and San Diego Triple-A manager Randy Ready into the evening.
These days that Zduriencik called “intense” might end soon.
The GM said he will take Friday to collect his thoughts after interviewing Boston third base coach DeMarlo Hale and St. Louis third base coach Jose Oquendo – the final two on his original list of seven candidates – on Thursday. He said it is “50-50” that he will then decide on a manager after this initial push of interviews or continue the search into next week.
o additional candidates come in, after a steady stream of recommendations from around baseball for the only managerial opening in the major leagues.
Zduriencik said at least one of his unidentified, potential candidates has experience managing in the major leagues, unlike these original seven: Hale, Oquendo, Boston bench coach Brad Mills, Chicago White Sox bench coach and former Mariners infielder Joey Cora, Arizona third base coach Chip Hale, Wakamatsu and Ready, a former major league player who has never coached or managed above the minor leagues.
“I haven’t eliminated anybody yet,” Zduriencik said. “I can tell you this is a very impressive group. Whether they become the manager of the Seattle Mariners or not, it wouldn’t surprise me if they were managers in the major leagues (soon).”
Ready played parts of 13 seasons with the Brewers, Padres, Phillies, Athletics and Expos, then went down to the rookie leagues to become a manager. Through 2006 he was leading Class-A Fort Wayne. After running Double-A San Antonio in 2007, Ready spent this season managing the Padres’ top affiliate in Portland, Ore.
Yet Ready says he is, well, ready to run a major league team. He spent September with the Padres learning manager Bud Black’s day-to-day dugout operations.
Ready came with a strong recommendation from San Diego GM Kevin Towers, a good friend of Zduriencik.
I’ve worked for,” Ready said. “I mean, I’ve paid my dues, going all the way back to rookie ball.”
Wakamatsu interviewed with the then-veteran Texas Rangers a few years ago, then went to the young, rebuilding Athletics to assist manager and friend Bob Geren. Wakamatsu thinks opposite approaches in those last two jobs would serve him well in Seattle, which is transforming itself from old and bad to young and hopefully better.
He said he was edgy talking to Zduriencik and trying to learn if the team is going to have a long-term rebuilding project or push immediately to win in 2009.
Zduriencik’s intent is to win as soon as possible and he refuses to declare next season a lost makeover. Wakamatsu said winning now is possible, even though 36-year-old Raul Ibanez, the team’s leading run producer, is a free agent, and the underperforming, expensive rotation includes Erik Bedard, Jarrod Washburn and Carlos Silva.
“From the outside looking in, this is a club that a lot of smart people around the world thought would make the postseason,” he said about the first team to lose 100 games with a $100 million payroll. “Why were they wrong? … What changed? I don’t see this team as being an old team. … In general, it’s a young team that maybe with some prodding we can win right away.”
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