The inevitable finally happened on Wednesday, one of the principal architects of the Milwaukee Brewers revival Special Assistant to the GM and Scouting Director Jack Zduriencik was hired by the Seattle Mariners to be their new General Manager.

Most Brewer fans probably don't need a reminder of all of his accomplishments, because in the last few years his profile with the team was boosted by increasing attention paid to the farm system by the various beat writers who recognized his good works. The writer of the linked article did a pretty good job listing the current Brewers drafted by Jack Z (though Manny Parra and Matt LaPorta probably merit a mention as well) and one has to also remember that there is quite a bit of talent still working it's way through the system that will one day also be credited to his draft resume. He was the first non-general manager to win Baseball America's Executive of the Year Award last year.

Of course being a good scouting director is no guarantee of his being a good general manager so we'll have to wait and see how  Zduriencik does before we're sure that this was an astute move. Anyone who saw the FSN feature on the Brewers 2008 draft, however, is going to have a pretty good impression of his skills as a manager of people and a process and is probably going to be inclined to give him the benefit of the doubt.

As a practical matter, this isn't the best time for Zduriencik to be leaving the Brewers. At the moment, the front office is busily looking to hire a new field manager and that search is going to dominate until that decision is made meaning that this is going to probably be relegated to the back burner. The Brewers would be well advised to at least look at the scouting staff in place first to see if there is an appropriate replacement in-house. Unfortunately, the scouting staff has already had a few guys graduate to jobs as SD's in recent years, so the "low hanging fruit" as it were, has already been plucked. Further complicating matters is the fact that Zduriencik will probably also be looking at the staff he knows from Milwaukee to fill in his scouting department, so there may well be competition for some of these guys. If the right man for the job isn't already in house, Melvin will need to go out and find him, which will take time and probably require more adjustment from the guys already on the staff.

The bigger picture isn't much better, because whoever is tabbed to run the Brewers draft in 2009 is going to presiding over an important one for the franchise and he will be doing so either as his first draft or (if they hire an experienced SD from elsewhere) their first time working with this scouting staff. The Brewers will likely have at least a few extra picks in the early rounds and may even have more (and better) extra picks than they did in 2008. Those assets don't come along every day and it is important to take advantage of them when you get them.

At least Brewer fans can rest easy knowing that the scouting staff that Zduriencik put in place is a capable one and that his replacement will at least have that going for him. It's a bittersweet thing to see an important piece of the organization move on, but it is a natural and unavoidable result of success.

I think I can speak for Brewer fans everywhere when I say "Thanks a million Jack."