Woody Woodward Is Back

by ~ January 15th, 2009 at 6:37 pm

Woody Woodward, the Seattle Mariners GM back in the 1990s, has returned to the ballclub as part of the pro scouting staff, according to John Hickey.

It’s not a big deal, but I’ll admit that my heart skipped a beat when I read the headline.  Woodward did his share of good while with Seattle, but will always be known for a couple of painful 1997 trades, namely the one that sent Jason Varitek and Derek Lowe to Boston in return for Heathcliffe Slocumb

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  • seatown27

    our first playoff run was during woody’s tenure… i agree he did a lot of good things for the mariners, but he is also known for drafting ryan anderson, and trading varitek and lowe for heathcliff slocumb.

  • Librarian

    Damn this headline scared me, though as you said, Woodward did his share of good. Drafting Anderson is defendable, the Slocumb trade is not. As long as he doesn’t have major decision making responsibilities this should be fine/negligible.

  • http://bleedingblueandteal.com Jon Shields

    What confuses me is this

    Geoff Baker, last month:

    One new development with the Mariners that kind of got lost in the crazed aftermath of that 12-player J.J. Putz trade is that Seattle will no longer use an advance scout for games. This role is instead being transferred to the team’s new department of statistical analysis.

    I wonder what Woodward’s exact role will be. Perhaps the scouting work mentioned in the Baker blurb is more like “scouting the competition,” while Woodward’s department is closer to that of talent scout?

  • SABR Matt

    Woody was a very good judge of talent…he just made a really bad blunder with Slocumb.

    At the time, Varitek was not a very productive prospect…it took him a number of additional seasons to become a useful major leaguer. And Derek Lowe was a pretty low-upside pitcher who happened to max out his potential.

    But you cna’t deny that dyring the 90s, the Mariners had a lot of talent and Woodward’s scouting teams were a big part of that.

  • BoiseM

    I kind of miss those Arena Ball teams of the Nineties.