Mariners hire Milwaukee's Zduriencik as general manager

It’ll be interesting to see how many of the scouting folks head over to Seattle with him. That would have more of an impact than just Jack Z. leaving.

Just great. He better have left us a nice big crop of prospects from that last draft. Doug Melvin being more involved in the draft process does not excite me.

Good luck to Jack Z, he’s earned the opportunity.

Does this mean he’ll be less apt to trading away prospects for established vets? Or does it mean he goes after the free agents hard? Or does he go hard after anyone he can find at any established position and use up our crop of prospects while we still have something – get a title under our belts and then restock the system by flashing money.

here

Goddammit.

We were rooting against him simply because we didn’t want to have to learn to spell his name. Zduriencik, 57, spent six years as the Brewers’ director of scouting and the last two as a special assistant to GM Doug Melvin. He’s not a retread, and he’s thought of pretty highly around baseball. Still, the hire does make it look like the Mariners simply defaulted to the old white guy after initially building such an impressive list of candidates.

Um, yeah. Or, maybe they picked the best future GMs on the market.

I know DM has a track record, but Jack Zs work has been nothing short of brilliant.

When Melvin took over, the smartest thing he did was to keep Jack Z. in place rather than put his own guy there. Hate to lose a guy like that, but Melvin’s extension probably assured that he would be gone sooner or later.

Good luck Jack Z. Maybe this will make it easier for us to trade with Seattle in the near future.

interesting though is that the guys at m’s landing don’t seem very pleased with the hiring.

my main concern, as said above, jack taking most of his scouts to seattle. i’m not sure any of them would be good at his scouting position here, but i think i’d rather see someone who worked under jack take that position here.

the emigration of good people from the Brewers administration continues. What a hit to the Crew! Those picks for CC and Sheets suddenly don’t look nearly so peachy.

Good Luck Jack Z! We wish you well.

By having to rebuild the M’s

It is kind of nice that in another dept our team has gotten good enough other people want our people to come work for them.

I suppose I’m happy it’s at least not an NL club that ended up hiring him.

Knowing that Jack Z would be able to reload with all of those extra picks was part of the reason I think the Brewers did the trade, confident in our man to find the best out there.

Now we will probably not net any players who are going to make it to the big leagues from those picks. It is easy picking in the top 10, because most players are heavily scouted and many people are in agreement how the top few picks should go. But in the 30s it gets a lot harder to identify major league talent.

I am happy for Jack and he deserves it, I am surprised he hasn’t been offered a job before (Pirates was close and where I think he should have ended up last year). I just really wish the Crew could have him for this draft, because it is monumental for this organization and will determine if we will be competitive in the 4-6 years from now. I don’t want this to be the team’s only taste of the playoffs. But in a small market your success is so dependant on the draft, that Jack’s job may be just as important if not more important than Melvin’s job. (see Rays)

He definitely has earned the opportunity and I wish him the best of luck. With the amount his name has been tossed around the last year or two I think the organization had to have realized that this day would come sooner or later. That being the case I would hope they’ve been planning for it and are prepared with someone waiting in the wings to pick-up where Jack left off, or at least have some names in mind.

I have to believe that whoever Melvin tabs to take over is going to be the most important move of the offseason, especially with the picks gained from the loss of Sheets and CC.

But Z was the head of a large team… as long as the culture stays the same and most of the people stay there is no need to think that things will suffer.

Well, he was a vital part in making the team we have today. I am greatful for what he has done for this team, the organization, and hopefully he takes Seattle back to the state it was in when they had a young Jr. and Arod. He’s going to do great in this business I think.

Congrats to him all the way, and I hope his actions and decisions rub off on the scouting director we get in place of him. Seattle made a great great choice, just sad to lose him.

Maybe there’s a prospect in the Brewers system Jack Z really likes and Doug isn’t too high on, and we can work out a deal for Adrian Beltre.

Interesting offseason on a lot of levels… Trying to get another starter, bullpen arm and seeing what happens with Hardy/Prince will be entertaining.

when did TGJr play an integral part of our playoff run? Did I miss something? I thought his only value was a throw-in in a trade to the Pads.

Yep, Ned Yost!

just read a newer AP story on Jack Z, something about how his blue-collar roots prepared him for this job.

As you may know, many AP stories use boilerplate background paragraphs over and over again. That “foundations” paragraph was in there…but without TG Jr. Heh.

Melvin expects Zduriencik to take some of his scouts with him to Seattle, including top assistant Tony Blengino.