Don Wakamatsu believes he did a good job with the Mariners last season.
But the Mariner manager never claimed to have done his job in Seattle better than any other team’s skipper.
And, in fact, despite managing the major league team that made the single best improvement in win total (24) from 2008 to 2009, Wakamatsu has no problem with the award’s going as it did Wednesday to the Angels’ Mike Scioscia.
“When you look at the job he did,” Wakamatsu said, “it was solid all the way.”
In the first week of the season, Scioscia and the Angels lost pitcher Nick Adenhart to a fatal car crash. For much of the first half of the season, team ace John Lackey wasn’t available, either.
Still, the Angels stayed within range of the red-hot Texas Rangers in the early going, then rallied behind the efficient Scioscia and eventually buried the rest of the American League West en route to the title.
“I’ve worked with Scioscia, and I know the kind of job he does,” said Wakamatsu, who finished tied for fourth in the voting in his first year as manager. “He sets the standard.”
Wakamatsu wound up getting named first on two ballots and finished with 19 votes, the same as Texas’ Ron Washington. Finishing directly behind Scioscia was the Twins’ Ron Gardenhire and the Yankees’ Joe Girardi.
“Not to sound too coy, I’m only as good as the people around me, and the people around me did a great job this year,” Wakamatsu said. “We did some good things. But we have more to do here in Seattle. The job has just begun.”
What Wakamatsu and his coaching staff did was take over a team that lost 101 games and instilled a we-can-compete attitude starting in the spring. Wakamatsu called it a “belief system.” The system included players’ holding their peers accountable and everybody generally pulling in the same direction.
Along the way, the players all began to believe in Wakamatsu. From holdover veterans such as Ichiro Suzuki to veterans-and-newcomers such as Ken Griffey Jr., players bought into the Wakamatsu system. As a result, the Mariners won about as many games as their talent would allow, which is all any manager can hope for.
NOTES: Veteran left-hander Jarrod Washburn, who spent 3½ seasons with the Mariners before being traded to Detroit just before the July 31 trade deadline, told FoxSports.com that the Mariners continue to be on his short list of preferred locations for 2010. Washburn, 35, is a free agent. ... The Mariners announced their Cactus League schedule for next spring. It’s something of a duplicate of past schedules, save for the last three days, when Seattle plays twice in Albuquerque, N.M., against the Rockies on April 2 and 3 and in San Francisco against the Giants on April 4. The first spring game is March 3 against the Giants in Peoria, Ariz.
