Beardless Dustin Ackley

I have things in the offing this evening, so there won't be a long post today. Instead, I will show you a picture of former Mariners 2B/OF Dustin Ackley.

That's a cherubic face.

Ackley was once an emblem of what was supposed to be a new era for the Mariners. He was taken #2 overall in the first draft under new GM Jack Zduriencik, a guy poached out of Milwaukee to replace the sweet-natured but dim-witted Bill Bavasi. Jack Z was going to overhaul the scouting department, institute statistical analysis, and make the Mariners relevant again after many years in the wilderness. He even bamboozled Fangraphs with his pitch.*

*Note: that article was written by David Cameron, who may work for Fangraphs but is the worst baseball "analyst" to come up through the sabermetric ranks.

It tuned out that Jack Z was a charlatan, just another old-school aging white dude, much more gifted at selling himself than anything else. The team has struggled to draft and develop players, put effective rosters on the field, or really do anything other than alienate its fans.

Ackley was traded to the Yankees today, basically for nothing. It's a mark of how abused M's fans feel that they've been mourning his loss, despite the fact that he's been one of the worst players in the game this year and has exactly one half of one good season to his credit in a 4-year MLB career. There's no way to know if Ackley failed because he was coached poorly, or if he failed because he simply wasn't good. Either way, Zduriencik is at fault. The only good thing that may come out of this, one day, is that Jack Z must surely follow his protege out the door.