The Seattle Mariners are taking a step back and cutting back on the spending this offseason in hopes of getting the team back on the right track.  The idea isn’t a bad one, but many Mariner fans are convinced that team president Chuck Armstrong and his partner in crime CEO Howard Lincoln are incapable of making the right moves for this team.  The only easy way to get rid of these guys would be a change in ownership.

We’ve known that Nintendo of America, the majority owner, has been getting ready to sell their shares for quite some time.  Thanks to Prospect Insider’s Jason A. Churchill we have some addition insight via a Lookout Landing FanPost.

A group headed by minority owner Chris Larson has apparently been trying to buy the majority of the shares from Nintendo of America and take control of the team for quite a while now, and it appears that things have heated up a bit over the summer.  Larson is described as more of a baseball fanatic than a businessman and is of Microsoft fame.  He originally paid $30M for his share in the franchise.

CEO Howard Lincoln is apparently negotiating the sale of Nintendo’s shares as well as his own.  The process appears to have gone back and forth for about a year and a half now.  The sale is probably going to happen; the hazy part is when it will go down.   One source told Churchill that “there is a real possibility that the team is sold before Opening Day 2009,” but went on to add that it wouldn’t be a surprise to see the negotiations stall out again and continue after the 2009 season.

When and if this happens only good things should come from it.  Many are under the impression, myself included, that Hiroshi Yamauchi and the rest of the Nintendo group are more concerned with the financial and business side of things at this point in the game.  Larson, described as a “baseball geek” in Churchill’s post, would be more likely to put a high priority on winning and building up the organization for the long haul, as well as keeping the Mariners profitable.  It would also be the end of the Armstrong/Lincoln era.  Neither would be welcomed back, but Armstrong is said to be “retiring” and Lincoln would probably take off after selling his shares anyway.

It would be fantastic if the organization could be sold before a new GM is chosen by Armstrong and Lincoln, but I don’t get your hopes up.  Churchill has the odds of the franchise being sold this offseason at 50/50, but even if it is sold the chances of it being completed between now and the end of October when the current front office intends to name the new GM is slim.

Churchill thinks that if Larson gains control of the team he’ll bring in former Mariners GM and current Phillies GM Pat Gillick to become the team president or CEO.  Many fans are dreading a Gillick return after the way he neglected and tore apart the farm system, but Churchill makes a good argument as to why he would make a better president/CEO than a GM.  Gillick was brought in to put a winner on the field ASAP and that’s just what he did.  We spent the last few seasons suffering from his work, but we enjoyed some of Seattle’s most successful seasons under Gillick, including the 116 win season in 2001.  The arguement is that Gillick wasn’t hired to build a dynasty, he was brought in to put a winner on the field ASAP.  As a president/CEO, he would supposedly take a much greater interest in player development.

I’m not sure how I feel about bringing back Gillick, but either way I would feel much more comfortable having him choose the new GM than Armstrong and Lincoln.  I plan on going into the Gillick scenario in another post sometime soon.

We’ll keep an eye on this and hopefully there will be some good news soon.  This organization needs change!

[A quick thanks to Jason Churchill for providing this great information, despite taking a break from Prospect Insider.  Jason has great contacts and keeps the rumor mill going around here, so here's to hoping he doesn't give it up entirely!]