Before Jack Zduriencik could contact his finalists to notify them of who would be filling the managerial vacancy for the Seattle Mariners, the Puget Sound Business Journal decided to leak the identity of the chosen candidate via their Twitter feed.  The unsolicited disclosure sent Mariners’ officials scrambling, quickly calling all those interviewed to inform them that they were not chosen, and, at the same time, apologizing for the means in which their fate had been made known.   Even the man selected to take his turn at leading the Mariners’ stagnant rebuilding effort was unaware he had been hired by the Mariners when news broke across the Twittersphere.  Despite a new season, the incompetence by the Mariners’ front office seemingly continues.

Lloyd McClendon, welcome to Seattle.

Yes, the same McClendon who was the close runner-up to Eric Wedge in 2010, with some reports even indicating that McClendon was the preferred choice by Mariners officials, choosing instead to go with Wedge believing his Manager of the Year Award and near World Series appearance in 2007 would be a better sell to fans and season ticket holders.

From a list of candidates looking for their first manager gig at the major league level, McClendon was the only applicant with prior big league managerial experience.  He led the Pirates for five dubious seasons before his firing in 2005, guiding the Bucs to a 55-81 record that year.  McClendon would then catch on with Jim Leyland and the Tigers, where he has served as batting coach since 2007.  Despite his long tenure with the Tigers, as well as being highly respected by Leyland and his front office, McClendon was passed over for the Tigers’ managerial opening, with the team opting to go outside the organization with the hiring of Brad Ausmus, a former big leaguer who had no prior coaching or managing experience at the major league level.

McClendon now becomes the third manager hired in five seasons under Zduriencik.  In a year where the Mariners could use a shakeup, Zduriencik went back to same old well, choosing yet another flamed-out manager looking for a second chance.  Uninspired, lackluster, and safe; more of the same qualities seen in the product put out on the field year after year.   Like watching a struggling pitcher continually short-hop the catcher;  it eventually gets to the point where you just want to see one hurled high and outside, all the way to the backstop, rather than continue to be witness to redundant futility.

Ultimately, though, the fate of McClendon will rest in the hands of Zduriencik and Howard Lincoln.  A team lacking in talent and productive everyday major leaguers, the Mariners will have ample amounts of money to fill glaring holes via free agency or trade if they choose to do so.  If not, and Zduriencik decides to, again, lean heavily on in-house prospects and bargain-basement veteran acquisitions, he will be asking McClendon to accomplish what two others before him failed to do:  perform the miraculous.