Thiel: Mariners’ talent search was well handled

The game, as always, is about talent. So while Wednesday was about introducing Wakamatsu, the more impressive figure was Zduriencik, the talent finder. Partly it was because he had actually done something—even if he had swatted a fly, it would have been more exciting contact than Mariners hitters managed last season—but mostly it was about how he did his thing.

To check out Wakamatsu, he upgraded the vetting to include not just past employers, but his former teammates from 25 years ago at Arizona State University. He also called up clubhouse men at his earlier employment stops.

Like college guys, the clubhouse workers see all aspects of personalities, including the dark side’s back stabbing, undercutting, fighting, sloth, avarice and the remaining deadly sins, plus fresh ones. If they give a thumbs up to a candidate, it’s far more valuable than scuttlebutt offered by five scouts and 25 sportswriters.

To put it more directly: If Bill Bavasi had made one call to an Orioles clubhouse guy, Erik Bedard never would have been a Mariner.

As my old biz-guru “Harry the Spitoon” Yingling used to say (in between bootshots of Jameson Irish)..."Those dollar-an-hour countermen will kill you every time.”