General manager Jack Zduriencik's mind is made up on who the next manager of the Seattle Mariners will be - and the only one who could change that is, well, Jack Zduriencik.

“I’ve established a pecking order.” Zduriencik said. “I’m not sure anything will change my mind, but I reserve the right to back away, let the dust settle and think about it a bit longer, then make my decisions.

"I'll sleep on it, think about it tomorrow, make a few calls. We could have an announcement Tuesday."

The new manager of the team, he said, will come from the original list of seven candidates interviewed last week - Arizona coach Chip Hale, Boston coaches DeMarlo Hale and Brad Mills, St Louis coach Jose Oquendo, White Sox coach Joey Cora, Portland Beavers manager Randy Ready and Oakland coach Don Wakamatsu.

There will be no experienced candidates added, no need for a second face-to-face interview.

That’s because Zduriencik spent the weekend talking to all those candidates one more time by telephone, and then talking to baseball sources who knew them.

“We’re pretty close to making a decision,” Zduriencik said.

And will it be his decision, or will he have to run the hire past tam CEO Howard Lincoln and president Chuck Armstrong?

“They’ve told me it’s my call,” he said.

“After the interviews, I said I wanted to take a step back, collect my thoughts and proceed from there. Now, I think it’s probably time to take a step forward.”

General manager Jack Zduriencik has spent his weekend on the telephone, talking to those in the game whose opinions he trusts – and to five of the seven candidates interviewed last week for the job of the next Seattle Mariners manager.

“I’ve got two more guys on that list I haven’t been able to reach yet, and until I do there’s not much I want to say,” Zduriencik said. “But we’re pretty close to making a decision.

“After the interviews, I said I wanted to take a step back, collect my thoughts and proceed from there. Now, I think it’s probably time to take a step forward.”

In his conversations with five of those seven candidates, Zduriencik has told each it’s about time he hired someone. He’s given each a second-chance telephone interview, and whether he needs go hear more than that from any of them remains to be seen.

Zduriencik seems, however, to be close to naming a new manager – and may not need new candidates or even second face-to-face interviews.

Those candidates include Arizona coach Chip Hale, Boston coaches DeMarlo Hale and Brad Mills, St Louis coach Jose Oquendo, White Sox coach Joey Cora, Portland
Beavers manager Randy Ready and Oakland coach Don Wakamatsu.

By tomorrow, that list could be narrowed to one.