The Great Man of M's history?

I majored in history at the fine institution that is the University of Washington, and over the course of my studies there, I became acquainted with what is known as “The Great Man Theory.”

Now, this turns out to be less of a theory and more of a framework: What has happened over the course of human events can often be attributed to the actions, influence and ideas of singular stand-out individuals.

Now, there are all sorts of issues with “The Great Man Theory” starting with its blatant emphasis on dudes and its tendency to overlook the wide range of attitudes, institutions and popular sentiment that inevitably influence the course of events.

However, a book I recently read about the best manager in Baltimore Orioles history has me wondering whether I’ve underestimated the singlular influence of one man in particular when it comes to the Mariners: Lou Piniella. More on that in a bit. First, we’ve got my weekly appearance with Mitch Levy:

I consider myself to be something of an expert when it comes to the construction and delivery of apologies. I’ve previously written about it in this newsletter. It’s also the subject of my column in the upcoming issue of Seattle Magazine.

And we’ve got one hell of an apology to sift through after KJR’s newest host went and stepped in it this week with what he had to say about two very well-liked fellows who are part of the Mariners media universe.

I’ll cut to the chase here: I give his apology a C-. It wasn’t the worst apology I’ve heard, but there were some issues. If you want to read the full report card, you can do that. Otherwise we’ll proceed directly to my reconsideration of Lou Piniella’s legacy.

Last month I finished “The Last Manager” which is John W. Miller’s biography of Earl Weaver of the Baltimore Orioles.

I was born in Oregon in 1974, which means I’m a bit young to remember Weaver in all his foul-mouthed and cigarette-sneaking glory. I knew some stuff about him like the fact he grew tomatoes and liked to argue with umpires, but I didn’t know the finer details such as the fact he had a special pocket sewn inside his jersey to stash his cigarettes and he was once ejected for smoking in the dugout.

I love non-fiction that presents people as they really were, and Miller’s book does that. Weaver drank to excess, he was ornery and he was demanding of his players. Before analytics was a flashing cursor in some statistician’s eyes, Weaver was practicing the kind of probabilistic thinking that is now standard-operating procedure within the sport.

The thing that struck me most, though, was the difference that this one man made in that franchise’s history.

It’s really quite remarkable, and it challenges one of my fundamental assumptions about American sports, which is that the baseball manager has less to do with the success of his team than his counterparts in the NFL and the NBA.

Some of this reflects a contemporary bias. Prior to free agency in Major League Baseball, managers had more influence (and certainly more power) than they do now. In fact, that is one of the most compelling ideas in “The Last Manager” because Weaver’s first term as Orioles skipper straddled the introduction of modern free agency.

It also got me wondering what it would look like if you viewed Mariners history through a similar prism with Lou Piniella cast as a central animating force.

Now there are some obligatory qualifiers that must be attached to all of this.

It was more than just a manager the Mariners had going for them in those 10 years that Piniella was in charge of the team. You had—at one point—a roster that included Ken Griffey Jr., Alex Rodriguez and Randy Johnson in the 1990s. Even after those three were gone, you had sufficient talent that the team won 116 games in Ichiro’s first season with the team.

Also it’s worth noting that Piniella wasn’t able to replicate the success he had in Seattle either in Tampa Bay—which is where he went after the Mariners—nor in Chicago where he managed the Cubs.

I don’t think this one great man explains everything about the Mariners best run of success. But I also think that Piniella had a larger impact than I have given him credit for.

The Mariners have had talent in the years since he left in addition to Ichiro. Adrian Beltre and Felix Hernandez, Robinson Cano and Nelson Cruz. Yet not only did the Mariners fail to win consistently, they couldn’t even make the playoffs despite the expansion of postseason berths.

I think I’ve underestimated the impact a manager can have, and while I generally liked Scott Servais—and attributed Seattle’s success after his firing to the addition of talent like Randy Arozarena and Evan Turner—I’m not so certain any more. Just for fun, I decided to break out Dan Wilson’s performance as manager and see what that looks like: