Mather captures MLB’s problem with remarks
In a strange sort of way, baseball might ultimately owe Kevin Mather a debt of gratitude.
Mind you, it’s not because of anything he’s accomplished in the game, where he’s existed largely as an executive numbers cruncher until 2014, when he was promoted to president and chief operating officer of the Mariners.
No, Mather ensured his legacy not with a deft hiring of a general manager or an industry-altering innovation, but rather by stepping in front of a Zoom camera for 45 minutes of truth telling in a session with the Bellevue (Washington) Breakfast Rotary Club.
Fallout from the video led to Mather resigning Monday.
Consider his performance, captured by an eagle-eyed Mariners fan, Exhibit A for what’s wrong with Major League Baseball.
We’re not sure if there’s a three-mimosa minimum before regaling the Bellevue Breakfast Rotary Club, but Mather’s candor in front of a friendly audience was a startling glimpse into the men who control the teams you cheer for.
In the Mariners’ case, it’s a 58-yearold golf aficionado with a disdain for players who don’t capitulate to management, a streak of ethnocentrism bordering on racism and a history of inappropriate workplace behavior toward women, according to multiple former employees.
In an era when baseball is desperate to amplify its current and emerging stars, here’s the very first thing Mather had to say about 20-year-old outfield prospect Julio Rodriguez:
“He is loud. His English is not tremendous.”
At a time the game likes to boast of its international cast of players yet fails to match the NBA and NFL for global appeal, here’s Mather’s take on Asian players, like former Seattle pitcher Hisashi Iwakuma, requiring interpreters:
“When he was a player, we’d pay Iwakuma X, but we’d also have to pay $75,000 a year to have an interpreter with him. His English suddenly got better; his English got better when we told him that!”
As the highest-ranking executive on a team with the longest playoff drought in North American team sports, Mather was not nearly as interested in the Mariners’ playing in October than he was making free agents come begging for a job:
“We have taken the position that there are 180 free agents still out there on Feb. 5 unsigned, and sooner or later, these players are going to turn their hat over and come with hat in hand, looking for a contract.”
And in an industry that tries to at least pretend it does not artificially suppress salaries or make good-faith efforts to field the best roster possible, Mather stunningly admitted in multiple passages that the Mariners did and will do just that with outfielder Jarred Kelenic and pitcher Logan Gilbert:
“There was no chance you were going to see these young players at T-Mobile Park,” Mather said of the pandemic-altered 2020 season in which the Mariners allocated precious spots in their player pool to several top prospects, noting “you might’ve seen my big tummy out there in left field” if the team ran short of players.
As for Gilbert?
“You won’t see him April 1,” Mather said, letting the Bellevue Breakfast Rotary Club know the club will blatantly steal a year of service time from Gilbert, even if he faces 50 batters and strikes all of them out in the Cactus League.
It’s an unseemly and increasingly popular maneuver with teams – rather than letting talent determine if a kid makes the big-league roster, threaten a banishment to the minors unless you sign away multiple free agent years.
Worse, Mather frames this as a matter of virtue, giving first baseman Evan White a pat on the head for agreeing to a deal guaranteeing him $24 million before playing a major league game while castigating Kelenic for rejecting it.
Never mind that White was far less vaunted a prospect at the time of the offer than Kelenic.
“I like Evan White,” Mather said, moments after noting White opted not to heed the union’s advice in signing the deal.