What-if?

I’m enjoying the baseball season this year.  The Mariners are fun to watch.  They are a team that is better as a whole than the sum of its parts.  This year’s M’s are a team that I can appreciate for their play on the field and for results that have them within spitting distance of 1^st place.

They have far exceeded anything we expected.  Behind it is a GM – Jack Zduriencik (a.k.a. Dr. Z, a.k.a.  JZ) – that has established a strategy and has executed transactions that align with the set strategy.

Unfortunately, prior to JZ, Seattle suffered 5 years under a GM that had no set strategy; who made transactions that seemed as random as this years Dow Jones Average.

So as we head into the 2^nd half of the season, I provide this year’s what-if . . . Seattle never had to suffer the ridiculous and much too painful to be considered comical Bavasi regime.

Bavasi never existed Line-up (players in bold are players traded by Bavasi):
RF Ichiro Suzuki . . . . . . .362   6hr   24 rbi
SS Asdrubal Cabrera .300  2hr  34 rbi & filthy fielding (see double play v M’s)
LF Adam Jones . . . . . .303  12hr  47 rbi
1B Russell Branyan . . . . . .280  22hr  49 rbi
CF Franklin Gutierrez . . . .295  10hr   37 rbi
DH Shin-Soo Choo . . . .292  13hr   54 rbi
3B Carlos Guillen . . . . .286  10hr   54 rbi (last year’s stats, injured this year)
C Rob Johnson . . . . . . . . . .203    1hr    19 rbi
2B Jose Lopez . . . . . . . . . . .256  12hr    51 rbi
Kangaroo Court Judge, Clubhouse Jester, Hall of Famer In-waiting
Ken Griffey Jr. . . . . . . . . . . .219   10hr   26 rbi (he may not have a position on this team, but we’ll keep him . . . he tickles Ichiro for chrissakes).

Bavasi never existed Pitching Staff:
Tim Lincecum . . . 10 – 2   2.33 era
(Note: Bavasi was an idiot.  Zduriencik is not.  In my mind, Dr. Z would have taken local boy Lincecum, and I’m sticking with that assumption for this theoretical reality I have created)
Felix Hernandez . . . 9 – 3   2.53 era
Jason Vargas . . . . . . 3 – 3   3.82 era
Chris Tillman . . . 7 – 5   2.50 era (Triple-A stats)
Garrett Olson . . . . . . 3 – 2   4.42 era

Bavasi never existed Bullpen:
David Aardsma . . . . . 2 – 3   1.96 era 20 sv 6 hld
Rafael Soriano . . . . 1 – 1   1.48 era 12 sv 6 hld
George Sherrill . . . . 0 – 1   2.41 era 20 sv
Mark Lowe . . . . . . . . . . 1 – 4   3.24 era 1 sv 13 hld
Matt Thornton . . . . . 4 – 2   2.48 era 13 hld
Dude #1 to do mop-up/ long relief
Dude #2 to do mop-up/ long relief
(Note: I don’t blame Bavasi for getting rid of Ryan Franklin. He was suspended for taking steroids and was not producing.  Most GM’s would’ve sent him packing).

I know it’s unfair to speculate on what the specific roster would be today.  JZ would undoubtedly have made different moves if he inherited a more robust roster, thus some of this year’s additions would most likely not be on the team.  Nonetheless, the roster listed above, with the names and stats of players producing for other teams around the League, is a primary indicator of just how bad Bavasi actually was.  He completely depleted the M’s farm system and received nothing in return.

Of the players on the current roster, Bavasi was responsible for acquiring only five of them: Adrian Beltre, Erik Bedard, Jarrod Washburn, Miguel Batista, and Sean White.  That’s five players in five years.

In return, Bavasi filled rosters throughout the Major Leagues with good, if not outstanding, players.  There are 16 players on current MLB rosters that were in the M’s system before Bavasi joined the franchise that he generously gifted away.  Of the 16 players only Adam Jones, George Sherrill, and Chris Tillman were exchanged for a player on the M’s current roster.  All 3 were used to get Erik Bedard.  I would much prefer to have the combined production of the three former M’s than the output from a pitcher who can’t get out of the 6^th inning and spends half his time on the DL.

Additionally, only Chris Tillman was below Triple-A at the time of trade.  So the excuse that teams always trade low-level prospects (see David Ortiz) does not apply.

So, let’s celebrate a great 1^st half of a season and a new direction for a team in need of one.  Let’s celebrate the genius of Zduriencik.  And, most importantly as the trade deadline approaches, let’s celebrate that Bill Bavasi is far, far away from Seattle and from doing any further damage to the future success of our beloved Mariners.

Congratulations!!! You are Feldie Vision’s 1000th Reader!

One of you reading this blog post is my 1,000th reader!!  Feldie Vision has reached a major milestone.  I started my blog on March 18th, the first day since 1863 that the Seattle P-I did not go to press.  Since,  I have confused, dumbed down, and generally disturbed 1,000 readers!!

I know 1,000 may not bring me riches  . . . or even enough to buy a Rainier Tallboy at the Historic Triangle before an M’s game.  Other things I have started have reached more people.  Feldie’z Nutz served 1,000 customers during an average homestand.  World Wide Broadcasting delivered audio entertainment to over 2,000 people on a daily basis.

One thousand is relatively insignificant when I think that the past two years I helped install a software platform that serves over 500,000 microfinance clients living in poverty in developing nations.  Or that I was responsible for providing timely, overpriced, and mainly useless information to nearly 5 million daily as the product manager for 411 at T-Mobile.  Or that the Seattle P-I couldn’t stay in business because it only had a daily circulation of 125,000 paying readers.

Still, I am proud that Feldie Vision has reached the 1,000 reader threshold.

Here are some stats:

• 17 posts (counting this one). That means each post brings nearly 63 readers.
• 47 comments.  About 3 comments per post.
• 250 monthly readers.
• 9 daily readers.
• 110 people read my most popular post “I Don’t Pay for Cable“.  Apparently, people really don’t want to have to pay for their cable.
• 87 people are aware I will not find a job this year because they read my 2nd most popular post “I Will Not Be Hired This Year“.
• 64 people wanted to find out who was responsible for posting the garbage on this blog and clicked on the “About Feldie” link.
• 31 wanted to get a review of Star Trek by visiting “Star Trek Sneak Peek“.  A disappointing number considering the post came out 3 days prior to movie release.  Of course, 31 people were most likely disappointed when they found out the post really wasn’t a movie review.
• 25 people found my blog when using the search term “Bruce Harrell“.  This is followed by 11 using “trekkie” as the two most often used search terms to find Feldie Vision.
• 13 read “Life after the P-I“, my first and lowest trafficked post.
• 2 readers came to Feldie Vision using the search term “drunken teenagers“.  I claim no responsibility for that one.
• 1 disappointed MD happened on to Feldie Vision while using “orthopedic surgeon business card” as a search term.

On the trend side, it appears things are picking up for Feldie Vision:

• In July Feldie Vision is averaging 12 readers daily on non-post days.  In June the daily non-post day average was 5.
• My most recent two posts account for 20% of the visits to Feldie Vision.
• These two posts also generated 15 comments, which accounts for nearly 1/3rd of all posted responses.
• The past month has accounted for 29% of Feldie Vision visits.
• And last week was the most popular ever for Feldie Vision, accounting for 12% of all time visits.

My biggest disappointment thus far is that only 29 people have visited “The Mouth” post.  I am thinking about adding navigation to my top 10 posts and “The Mouth” should always appear.  I urge  those that are reading this to click on “The Mouth” and artificially inflate the numbers to guarantee its perpetual place in the Feldie Vision Top 10.

Overall, I have enjoyed writing Feldie Vision.  My goal is to do more posts; the target is 4 – 6 monthly.

Thank you all for clicking in and reading my confused, distorted, and often times blurred view of the world around me.  And I hope you will continue to return to get a look of the world through the lens of Feldie Vision.

I Will Not Be Hired This Year

“It’s like I was playing some kind of game, but the rules don’t make any sense to me. They’re being made up by all the wrong people.  No! . . . I mean no one makes them up. They seem to make themselves up.”
- Benjamin Braddock, The Graduate

I will not be hired this year.  I am not taking a defeatist attitude, I have simply accepted the truth.  I know this because things are absurd out there right now.  How else can you explain that a recruiter at an accounting and finance staffing agency ends my interview by telling me that the bartenders at a local bar are former strippers.  “That’s right, Jodi will show you her tit, just ask her,” explains Matt, cupping his hands below his left breast as if he were a women holding out her tit.  “You know what I am talking about!?!”  The elevator couldn’t come fast enough to provide an escape from the conversation.

Why I spoke to that guy for an 1 1/2 hours still blows my mind, but getting that final statement made me realize how absurd this process is.  I mean, this guy is actually gainfully employed while 1 in 10 people you bump into on the street are searching for employment.  In a business setting, 99% of my fellow unemployed would not say something as fucking stupid as Matt.

Interviews are really just false justification for the interviewer.  The interviewer tries to make the job seem difficult and unique.  This reflects on the interviewer who of course also has a job equally or even more difficult and unique.  Really?  My question to my readers is have you ever had a job that was really so hard that no one else could do it?  In honesty, I haven’t.  In reality, unless you are a NASA scientist or a brain surgeon, you haven’t either.  That is because most jobs, especially in the corporate world, allow for a significant amount of failure.

Since graduating with an MBA from UCLA Anderson, I have been a mid-manager.  A mid-manager’s decisions and work are greatly muted by the layers of hierarchy within the corporation.  The output has limited affect on the health of the overall organization.  It is the people at the top of the pyramid whose decision affect the livelihood and success of the people below them. So what makes someone successful in the corporate world?  I guess luck.  And I have had the unfortunate luck of being the victim of some pretty dumb decisions made by those people at the top of the pyramid.

As I reflect on my career I realize the the vast majority of my career has been absolutely subjective.  There is nothing measurable that indicates I create greater output than the next guy.  At least not in how I have been reviewed by my supervisors.  All my reviews have been strictly opinion.  And in talking with my friends, I know this is not unique to my career.

The hiring process is absurd.  Supposedly the goal is to ferret out the best candidate.  In reality, it’s used to identify the candidates that the hiring manager is most comfortable with . . . i.e. the person who has the background that is most similar to them.

“Wow! You were a McKinsey consultant!!  I was a McKinsey consultant!!! I found McKinsey to be boorish, lame,  and void of any true value that I have found useful for this job.  You’re hired!!”

On the other hand, a review of my candidacy is more like “Wow!  You have an interesting background!!  You have done quite a lot that does not have any similarity to my background!?!?  I’m sorry, this job is not for you because you are A. too qualified B. not qualified or C. not willing to suck my dick on command.”

The absurdity of our system was best articulated by a successful internet executive who was the commencement speaker at my younger brother’s graduation.  As the basis of his speech he decided to mock the infamous line from The Graduate “I got one word for you . . . plastics”.  The executive, apparently oblivious to the meaning of that scene, proclaimed in his speech the word should  “obviously not be plastics but rather internet!!”  With his statement, the executive, self proclaimed as “one of the country’s premiere businessmen“,  successfully placed himself in the role of the business person the scene was mocking.

Contrary to the premise of my MBA education, the market is NOT rational.  It makes for an easy model when teaching business cases, but, come on, are most business decisions being made in a structured, analytical way?  Not from what I have seen.  Are consumers, as a whole, truly analyzing the cost benefit of each purchasing decision?  HELL to the NO!

Shortly after being hired by InfoSpace to help launch their first direct-to-consumer mobile business, I decided to look at the fledgling business’s financial model, which projected revenue for the next 3 years (unfortunately I did this after making the major life decision of leaving a secure job).  I realized I had made a major career mistake when I asked “how did you come to project $15million in revenue by year 3?”  “Oh, that was the amount the Board said we had to make in order to get approval to launch this business.”  The model was a sham.  Made up of simple backwards calculations and opportunistic assumptions.  Nothing based on research or reality.

Short-term thinking and the easy way is what drives the market.

If the market were rational, how could the American diet be explained?

Rational is defined as a thought process based on reason, sane, logical.  There is nothing sane in Supersizing?  The irrational thought is that for only 10% more money I get 50% more food.  Make that 50% more salt, sugar, and fat; nothing of which the body needs.

The human body, like most things in nature, has an equilibrium.  There is an optimal amount of intake for the amount of energy the body produces.  Obesity (34% of the adult population in the US) is the result of far too much intake for the amount of output.  In other words, eating too many calories for the amount of physical activity.

If the market were rational, the consumer would not Supersize.  The consumer would not pay 10% more money for something not needed – i.e. 50% more salt, sugar, and fat.  In fact, the rational consumer would not eat anywhere a Supersize was offered, because any food offered at such an establishment is not needed.

Thanks to a largely irrational food industry, Americans now spend less than 10% of their income on food, where as 40 years ago we spent 18%.  Great!!  Wrong.  This is a prime example of short-term gain (I am saving money today) and the easy way (its easy to keep a poor, cheap diet).

In reality, the reason for the savings is food is made cheaply and the market demands that the suppliers continue to find ways to make it cheaper.  Over the long-term, this short-sighted mentality costs both the individual and the market as a whole.

Forty years ago we spent 5% of our income on health care.  Today we spend 18%.  That’s a net loss.  The combined expense of food and health exceeds the amount we paid 40 years ago.

Our irrational market has created a country populated with obese people that suffer from heart disease and diabetes.  And has produced a health care system that no one can afford.

If the market cannot act rational when it comes to food, an activity done for reasons of basic survival, then how can we expect the market to be rational with any endeavor?

So why am I writing about this?  What is my point?  I guess it’s just a rant.  A chance to vent.  An acceptance that I am playing a game in which the rules don’t really make any sense because they really just kinda make themselves up.