Bye Bye Bavasi

Well, it finally happened.  At a planned press conference to be held today at 2 pm PST, the M’s will give former GM Bavasi the ol’ heave-ho.  Vice president/associate general manager Lee Pelekoudas will fill in temporarily as interim GM, while Mariners CEO Howard Lincoln searches for a permanent replacement.

Bavasi’s firing is a fitting result after a weekend three-game sweep at the hands of the no-name Washington Nationals.  If a team that Bavasi constructed can’t mount a serious challenge against the likes of Tim Redding and Kory Casto, then he simply does not deserve the opportunity to be a major league GM.  His talents are best suited for scouting and development, but as an overseer of an entire franchise’s operations, Bavasi’s guiding hand amounts to little more than a kiss of death.

Hopefully, cutting ties with Bavasi will help the Mariners as it did the Angels, who let Bavasi go in 1999, yet won it all in 2002 with a team largely built by players Bavasi scouted and signed.