It's Time for the Mariners to Hire an A**hole

Baseball managers tend to fall into two categories. You have your nice guys, and you have your a**holes. Just-fired Mariner manager Don Wakamatsu is one of the former. As was M's manager John McLaren before him. And Mike Hargrove before him. And Bob Melvin before him.

You have to go back to 2002 to find an a**hole Mariner manager: Lou Piniella. Who, coincidentally or not, was also the only manager in Mariner history who won a g*ddam*ed thing. [Ed: I'm just going to let Seth do this asterisk thing, since he seems to be enjoying himself, even though the TSB style guide doesn't flinch at "asshole."]

Baseball teams prefer to hire nice guys. Who doesn't? A**holes like Piniella can be counted on to berate their subordinates, have public tirades, and openly question their bosses' competence. Would you hire such a person? Not unless you were desperate. Which is what the Mariners were in 1993, when they hired Piniella.

The circumstances were similar to what the franchise faces now. In 1991, the Mariners had an incredibly encouraging year. The team won more games than it lost for the first season ever, which, sadly, then counted as a reason to celebrate. In 1992, the team was supposed to Make The Leap. They did--right off of a cliff, back to the bottom of the American League. Needing a manager with credibility, no matter how much of an a**hole he was, the Mariners went with Piniella.

Piniella's a**hole qualities were no secret. As manager of the Cincinnati Reds, he'd brawled with a player and thrown first base during an argument. But he'd also managed the Reds to a World Series championship*. That was the winning background the Mariners needed.

In 2010, the Mariners find themselves in a similar position. An encouraging year followed by a complete nosedive has led not to fan anger, but worse: fan apathy. Despite a payroll that consistent ranks among the largest in baseball, despite playing in a four-team division, the Mariners will now have their 10th consecutive playoff-less season. During this streak, team poobahs Howard Lincoln and Chuck Armstrong have hired a succession of nice, but utterly passionless managers.

One, Mike Hargrove, was so disinterested in winning he up and left the team. And Armstrong and Lincoln, nice guys that they are, inexplicably agreed to pay Hargrove's salary through the end of the year.

At some point these two former corporate managers have to realize that they aren't running an accounts receivable department. Baseball is a competition. Their high-paid players need someone pushing them to compete game in and game out. In other words, an a**hole.

Two well-known a**hole managers will be available this off-season: Former Mets manager Bobby Valentine, and Piniella himself. (Piniella supposedly is retiring at the end of the season, but if you think he'd be going if the Cubs were winning, I've got a Milton Bradley contract I'd like to sell you.) There may be other a**holes available in the minors. Let the search begin.

*The only other Mariner manager to have accomplished that feat, Dick Williams, was perhaps even more of an a**hole than Piniella. Williams would give his autobiography the joke title No More Mr. Nice Guy, the joke being that Williams was anything but.