Major League Baseball

Zduriencik hoping M's don't repeat drama of '10

Published Feb. 25, 2011 3:12 a.m. ET

foxsports

When all 63 Seattle Mariners were on the field for the first time in spring training, Jack Zduriencik was hopping around the cloverleaf of four fields eagerly watching the mix of youth and experience he put.

Seattle's general manager is still a scout at heart.

''I've always bounced. I've always tried to get different looks,'' Zduriencik said. ''It's probably the scouting in me from over the years.''

It's moments like these where Zduriencik can try to move forward from Seattle's miserable 2010 season where seemingly nothing went right for the 60-year-old GM about to enter his third season in charge of the Mariners.

There were the injuries and controversies. Trades and abrupt retirements. Firings and embarrassment all clumsily wrapped into a 101-loss mess that was a massive step backward from the progress made in Zduriencik's first season.

It wasn't easy for him to watch, but he insists the franchise is headed in the right direction, learning from last year's mistakes.

''The focus was so much on the big league club and there were just things where it didn't work. It didn't fall into place,'' Zduriencik said. ''We are continuing to build this thing and I've been here two years and we're just starting a third season. You look at what we accomplished at the lower levels, the pieces at the big league level, it's going to come together. I feel very strongly that this is a good organization, it's a great place to be, it's going to be a hell of a club eventually.''

When looking back on last year, Zduriencik hangs on to the success in the minors, because really there wasn't much good to find with the big league club - sans Felix Hernandez's AL Cy Young award, another 200-hit season by Ichiro Suzuki and center fielder Franklin Gutierrez's first Gold Glove.

Zduriencik still shakes his head thinking back to all that went wrong in 2010. Key players had some of the worst stretches of their careers. A team that was going to be offensively challenged to begin turned out to be offensively inept.

And that doesn't even include all the problems off the field. There was the report of Ken Griffey Jr. sleeping in the clubhouse and then The Kid's abrupt retirement. Chone Figgins tried to fight manager Don Wakamatsu in the dugout during a game. Cliff Lee was traded to Texas for three prospects, one of whom - pitcher Josh Lueke - had pleaded no contest to charges of false imprisonment with violence in Bakersfield, Calif.

But lost in all the Mariners drama was some good taking place in the minor leagues.

''The big league club is obviously the most important element of everything we do. That's what it's all about, but the process to get to where we want to get to has been going on. We continue to add talent, we still continue to have an effective draft, we can still continue to build the minor league systems,'' Zduriencik said

''Sitting back and having everybody focus on the big league club I get that 100 percent, but if you were speaking to any of the people in our minor league system through the course of the year, everyone was excited.''

When Zduriencik took over before the 2009 season, there was a massive void of talent close to making the jump to the big leagues in Seattle's farm system. While trying to put together a winning product at the major league level, Zduriencik was also tasked with replenishing the minors.

It's starting to work. Seattle's Triple-A affiliate, Tacoma, won the Pacific Coast League title. Their nine affiliates combined to win a club-record 490 games, with eight of the nine making the playoffs. In Baseball America's recent rankings of the top 100 prospects in the minors, Seattle had three of the top 53 - second baseman Dustin Ackley, RHP Michael Pineda and SS Nick Franklin. Ackley was 12th and Pineda was 16th with both possible to make their Seattle debuts sometime this season.

Just asking about Ackley and Pineda and some of Seattle's other youngsters brings a smile to Zduriencik's face. For the second time in three seasons, the Mariners will have the second pick in June's amateur draft.

Of Seattle's 40-man roster, 17 players will be 24 or younger come opening day.

Zduriencik accepts this season is a bridge to what the Mariners could be, thanks to the young talent they've accumulated, and that 2011 could be full of more bumps for a franchise now a decade removed from its last playoff appearance.

But he also sees the possibility on the horizon.

''Our sport takes time and it takes courage to build an organization and you have to understand you can't just take your dollars and throw them, it depends what's out there. You can't just throw dollars at players and hope that it works. You've really got to have a sound philosophy,'' he said.

NOTES: Hernandez, LHP Erik Bedard and LHP Jason Vargas all threw to batters on Thursday, but the hitters were only tracking pitches and not swinging. ... Gutierrez returned to Seattle to have additional tests for stomach issues that bothered him last season. He's expected back at camp on Friday.