Kumbya or kumgoodbye?

9:45 a.m. BREAKING NEWS!  Manny Machado signs with the Padres, 10 years, $300M.  The logjam is over.  Expect a lot of moves in the next few days.

Did the player's worst case scenario materialize?  Kind of.  Dollars and years were not affected, but player's choice of teams was. I'm not sure Machado really wanted to end up with a non-contender.  True San Diego has a lot of youth and are rebuilding, but Manny's going to be watching his former team, the Dodgers, in the next few play-offs.

...........

With everyone in camp, a lot of new faces, the time is right to think about a particularly elusive concept in sports: team culture and chemistry.  Those are just a catchy terms to describe morale, the level of harmony and happiness experienced among people working together.

Although much is made of good morale contributing to high performance, there are no data showing that people are necesarily happier with each other in successful organizations, baseball teams included.  Indeed, a chicken-egg, cause and effect, problem arises when the issue of morale and performance are considered: could be that winning causes happiness, more than happiness produces winning.

In fact, the chemistry logic flies in the face of some dearly held conceptions about stoic professional athletes who are presumed to effectively play through physical pain or emotional hardship.

This issue becomes relevant to the Mariners, because, since arriving as manager three years ago, Scott Servais has made it a priority to create and maintain a positive clubhouse culture.  Everything from a pool table in the locker-room to special team meetings to Joe Maddon-like costumed roadtrips, Servais has nurtured player relations.  So much so, that GM, Jerry Dipoto, is reported to have said last July, when the Ms were 24 games over .500, that this team had "the best environment" he'd ever seen in a major league clubhouse.

Yes, that's the same team that went 33 and 41 for the rest of the season, had a clubhouse brawl between Jean Segura and Dee Gordon and finished 8 games out of the play-offs.  Which fell apart first, the good play or the good feelings?

Whatever.  Servais gets a do-over.  Segura, who was believed to rub team-mates the wrong way is gone and the clubhouse is full of new, young players presumably ready to buy in to another year of SoDo mojo.