People are overlooking that Kevin Mather called Mike Leake a dick
A very important story is going under the radar here
Then-Mariners President Kevin Mather gave a talk to the Bellevue Breakfast Rotary Club on February 5 this year, the video got leaked, and now I have to call him “Then-Mariners President” instead of “Mariners President.” The reason he no longer has that job is that public reaction to the talk was, uh, not positive.
Some of his comments were casually racist, like when he talked about Julio Rodriguez’s poor English (his English is generally thought of as excellent) and claimed that Hisashi Iwakuma’s English improved dramatically when he was told his interpreter cost $75,000 a year. Some were bizarrely ignorant, like how he called Luis Torrens “Luis Torres” multiple times — and let’s not pretend that race wasn’t a factor here, since he wasn’t forgetting the names of any white major leaguers.
But mostly, Kevin Mather was just honest about things You Should Not Be Honest About. He said Kyle Seager was “probably overpaid” and wouldn’t be with the team after his contract expires in 2021. He stated outright that in no circumstance in 2020 would the Mariners have called up any of their top prospects who were at their alternate site in Tacoma, explicitly including Jarred Kelenic, the #5 prospect in all of baseball according to Fangraphs. He insulted the facilities at the team’s minor league affiliate in Everett, Washington.
He bitterly described the Players Union’s demands to play 162 games and said the failure of management and labor to come to an agreement to play fewer games was “embarrassing.” He made very clear the economic realities of the game from management’s side, including talk of service time manipulation (with Kelenic in particular) and the high revenues they get from their TV deal. He talked in glowing terms about Evan White, because Evan White signed a long-term deal with the team, and much less glowing terms about Kelenic.
And he called Mike Leake a dick.
Now, that wasn’t in so many words — he technically never used Leake’s name — but he was very clear about it. From the Lookout Landing transcript of the talk:
One good story in 2019, we had a veteran pitcher, that we have since traded to the Arizona Diamondbacks (if you want to figure out who it is) who had a, you know, attitude.
In 2019, the Seattle Mariners traded Mike Leake to the Arizona Diamondbacks.
He’d been around, he’d been there, done that.
Mike Leake had, in fact, been around, been there, and (checks Baseball Reference page just to be sure) done that.
And our bullpen coach was talking to the starting pitchers in spring training; he was talking about, you know, when you go out and throw your bullpens, you know, it’s only 20 pitches [so] let’s make sure it’s quality, and he was giving this speech. And the pitcher who’s no longer with us kind of rolled his eyes and said, “Don’t tell me how to throw my bullpens yet.”
This pitcher who’s NO LONGER WITH US just had to ROLL HIS EYES at a coach who was JUST DOING HIS JOB.
As the meeting broke up, Marco Gonzales, with a help of a couple bullpen guys, pushed this particular pitcher into the locker and said, “Listen, if you want to be a dick, be a dick, but do it quietly.”
This is the best part, because here Mather gets to put words into someone else’s mouth to call Leake a dick and maintain deniability for himself. It’s so weaselly! You almost have to be impressed by his commitment to slagging a player in a way that he thinks will not reflect poorly on himself at all, except by “impressed” I mean “the opposite of impressed.”
Oh, and the cherry on top: This story is from 2019 (obviously, since Leake was traded midseason that year). The question he was responding to specifically asked about positive leadership stories in 2020. So Kevin Mather went wildly out of his way to tell a story about Mike Leake being a dick, but then framed it in a way to make it look like he personally was not calling Mike Leake a dick, even though come on dude we all know what you’re doing here.
So to sum up: Kevin Mather is a dumbass who lost his job for his dumbassery, and not the harassment allegations from 10 years ago, or the culture of discrimination that Lorena Martin brought up on social media in 2018. He had terrible opinions that he couldn’t help but spew all over the place, and also very standard opinions normally kept quiet that he also couldn’t help but spew all over the place. He deserved to lose his job, and it’s probably a good thing for the Mariners that he’s gone, considering the team’s sad showing over his entire tenure there.
And he called Mike Leake a dick. Mike Leake may well be a dick! He was an extremely mediocre pitcher during his nine starts with the Giants, which is most of my experience with Mike Leake. And that’s not a great experience. But, you know, at least he doesn’t have to work for Kevin fucking Mather ever again.