Rethinking the GM, Part I—American League East

Maybe it’s time to rethink how GMs are hired instead of lauding owners for adhering to stats; for placating media demands; for listening to fans; for doing what they think will be well-received and garner them some good coverage while hoping that it’s going to work in lieu of hiring the best person for the job and all it entails. Some people may have sterling resumes, extensive experience, a great presentation and charisma and then fail miserably at one or another aspect of the job. Just because a GM was great at running another club’s draft, running the farm system or was a valuable jack-of-all-trades assistant doesn’t make them suited to do the big job.

With the struggles of GMs from both sides of the spectrum like the Mariners’ Jack Zduriencik, who built his club based on stats; and the Royals’ Dayton Moore, who rebuilt the entire Royals farm system into one of baseball’s best, after-the-fact and self-indulgent criticisms from the aforementioned factions of stat people, media and fans are essentially worthless. Zduriencik’s bandwagon has emptied since his first overachieving season as Mariners GM in 2009 when the team, which he had little to do with putting together, rose from 61-101 to 85-77 due to luck and performance correction rather than any brilliance on his part. Moore is a veritable punching bag for the Royals collapse from 17-10 after 27 games to 21-29 and sinking.

Instead of ripping the GMs for what they’ve done, perhaps it would be better to look at each GM and examine how he got the job without a retrospective on the moves they made and the teams they’ve built. This isn’t as flashy as dissecting his decisions as GM, but it’s probably more useful to those doing the hiring in the future. In short, was the hiring a good one in the first place and was the decision made based on factors other than putting a winning team together?

If you think it’s so easy to put your individual stamp on the job of being a Major League Baseball GM, then walk into your boss’s office today (if you have a job that is) and tell him or her some of the things you say on blogs and message boards and tweets to Keith Law: “This is how it’s gonna be, and I’m gonna do this my way and you better just give me full control…” On and on. Then, after you’re done, go get your resume ready to look for a new job. It doesn’t work in the way people seem to think it does and the audacity of someone who’s working the stockroom at Best Buy telling experienced baseball people how they should do their jobs needs to be tamped down a little. Actually, it needs to be tamped down a lot.

Let’s go division by division. First the American League East with subsequent postings to be published discussing all of the other divisions in baseball.

Boston Red Sox

Ben Cherington was the next-in-line successor to Theo Epstein when Epstein abandoned ship to take over as president of the Cubs. He’d worked in the Red Sox front office going back to the Dan Duquette days and was a highly regarded hire. His first season was pockmarked by the aftermath of the disastrous 2011 collapse, the interference of Larry Lucchino and John Henry and that he was overruled in his managerial preferences for someone understated like Gene Lamont in favor of Bobby Valentine. Now the team has been put together by Cherington and they’re trying to get back to what it was that built Epstein’s legacy in the first place.

New York Yankees

Brian Cashman walked into a ready-made situation when he took over for Bob Watson after the 1997 season. He’d been with the Yankees since 1986 working his way up from intern to assistant GM and barely anyone knew who he was when he got the job. His hiring inspired shrugs. He was known to George Steinbrenner and Cashman knew what his life would be like functioning as Steinbrenner’s GM. He was taking over a team that was a powerhouse. Little was needed to be done in 1998 and his main job during those years was to implement the edicts of the Boss or steer him away from stupid things he wanted to do like trading Andy Pettitte. If the Yankees had hired an outsider, it wouldn’t have worked because no one would’ve been as aware of the terrain of running the Yankees at that time as Cashman was. He’s a survivor.

Baltimore Orioles

Whether the Orioles would’ve experienced their rise in 2012 had Tony LaCava or Jerry Dipoto taken the job and been willing to work under the thumbs of both Peter Angelos and his manager Buck Showalter will never be known. Dan Duquette was hired as a last-ditch, name recognition choice whose preparedness in the interview was referenced as why he got the nod. Duquette has never received the credit for the intelligent, gutsy and occasionally brutal (see his dumping of Roger Clemens from the Red Sox) work he did in laying the foundation for the Red Sox championship teams or for the Expos club he built that was heading for a World Series in 1994 had the strike not hit. He’s a policy wonk and devoid of the charming personality that many owners look for in today’s 24/7 newscycle world in which a GM has to have pizzazz, but he’s a qualified baseball man who knows how to run an organization. Suffice it to say that if it was LaCava or Dipoto who was the GM in 2012, more credit would’ve gone to the GMs by the stat-loving bloggers than what Duquette has received. All he’s gotten from them is silence after they torched him and the Orioles when he was hired.

Tampa Bay Rays

For all the talk that Andrew Friedman is the “best” GM in baseball, it’s conveniently forgotten that he is in a uniquely advantageous situation that would not be present anywhere else. He has an owner Stuart Sternberg who is fully onboard with what Friedman wants to do; the team doesn’t have the money to spend on pricey free agents nor, in most cases to keep their own free agents unless they do what Evan Longoria has done and take far down-the-line salaries to help the club; and he’s not functioning in a media/fan hotbed where every move he makes is scrutinized for weeks on end.

If he were running the Yankees, would Friedman be able to tell Derek Jeter to take a hike at the end of this season if it benefited the club? No. But if it got to the point where any Rays player from Longoria to David Price to manager Joe Maddon wore out his welcome or grew too costly for what he provides, Friedman has the freedom to get rid of one or all. That wouldn’t happen anywhere else, therefore his success isn’t guaranteed as transferrable as a matter of course.

Toronto Blue Jays

After the rollercoaster ride on and off the field that was having J.P. Ricciardi as their GM, they tabbed his assistant Alex Anthopoulos as the new GM. There were no interviews and no interim label on Anthopoulos’s title. He was the GM. Period. Anthopoulos was a solid choice who had extensive experience in front offices with the Expos and Blue Jays. He’s also Canadian, which doesn’t hurt when running a Canadian team.

Should the Blue Jays have done other interviews? If the former GM is fired because his way wasn’t working, then that’s not just an indictment on the GM, but on his staff as well. No one in a big league front office is an island and if the prior regime didn’t succeed, then interviews of outside candidates—just to see what else is out there—would’ve been wise. It’s like getting divorced and then turning around marrying one of the bridesmaids. Anthopoulos still might’ve gotten the job, but it would not have been done with such tunnel vision.

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A Simple Solution to Cure the New York Times’ Implied Disease of Being a Mets Fan

If it was meant to be tongue-in-cheek, the end result was closer to finger-in-throat.

Combine pompous verbiage and inept analysis and you get this—the New York Times article by Michael Powell about the New York Mets that has some calling it the “best” piece written about being a fan of the Mets they’ve ever read.

I suppose it is if you consider “good writing” to be maudlin whimpering masquerading as insightful poignancy.

Powell writes the Gotham column in the Times. That and his identification as a Mets fan somehow qualifies him to speak for the entire fanbase regarding how difficult life is rooting for a struggling, rebuilding team.

First, the writing is a study in attention-grabbing, overuse of horrific metaphors and ludicrous assertions. Some examples:

We step through the turnstiles to find 22 ticket scalpers, lost souls all, clustering around us.

We walk in, a beaut of a stadium with fans scattered in so many nomadic clumps amid acres of green seats.

22? Exactly 22? Did he stand there counting them for accuracy in his portrait? Or is it a nice round, ridiculous number to punctuate the absurdity of what the Mets have become—something similar to just about every other team that is playing out the days of a season in which their playoff hopes are gone?

“Nomadic clumps amid acres”? Good grief!!!

Ruben Tejada, our shortstop, steps to the plate. He’s a soft-bodied, sweet-fielding kid who is hitting .286, an average made up almost entirely of little tear-drop singles to all fields. He replaced Jose Reyes, our rangy and powerful All-Star shortstop whom the Mets, in their infinite wisdom, chose to let walk away without first trying to trade him.

Naturally, without context it sounds like a farce. Is Tejada supposed to imitate Reyes and be something he’s not? Try to steal bases, hit triples, pop 12 homers a year and, I suppose, spend a substantial amount of time on the disabled list?

The Mets didn’t trade Reyes when they had no intention of signing him unless he got hurt and/or his market crashed. This is true. But the Mets were still trying to attract fans to the ballpark in August and September and, misguided as it was, they had no chance of keeping him if they traded him. If they kept him, maybe he would’ve stayed. It was a retrospective mistake, but not a catastrophic one. In fact, it was understandable in a business sense.

The only team that did offer Reyes the $100+ million he wanted were the Marlins, and the Marlins are the team the Mets have beaten in the past two days; the team that spent the money the fans (and apparently Powell) wanted the Mets to spend, but didn’t because: A) they couldn’t; and B) they’ve tried that in the past and it didn’t work.

The Marlins are also the team that will keep the Mets out of the basement in the National League East. They are an organization in far worse shape on and off the field with a new, empty ballpark that has their ownership under investigation because of alleged financial chicanery that got the thing built.

But they have Reyes who, by now, must be growing comfortable playing for teams that are viewed as disappointing at the high end and disastrous on the low.

The most exhausted and cynical Mets fan looks at the Marlins and says, “I’d hate to be rooting for them.”

…[Jason] Bay might recover his stroke and Lucas Duda might stroke homer after homer deep into the periwinkle skies over Flushing Bay.

I’ve mistakenly used the same word twice in short order, but I’m not writing for the New York Times nor do I have an editor supposedly perusing what I’ve written and gently nudging me in a preferable direction. “Stroke” and “stroke” twice within six words? And periwinkle? Good grief!!!!!

Oh, and I looked up “periwinkle.” I had to because I didn’t know what it meant. It means a pale, bluish purple. If nothing else, I’ve learned a new word I’m never going to use.

What’s our choice? To root for the triumphalist Yankees is to describe an impossibility, like walking through Manhattan chanting: “Goldman Sachs! Goldman Sachs!” Instead, we adopt the mien of Scottish highlanders facing the English army — loss is assured, but let’s go out with panache and a touch of humor.

There’s an obsession that Yankees fans have of Lording (in keeping with the rancid English army allusion) their success over the Mets. 27 World Series, blah, blah, blah. Never mind that the Yankees have been in existence over 60 more years than the Mets; that the bulk of those championships were won long before anyone had even formulated the concept of the Mets, but this inferiority complex on the part of Mets fans when it comes to the Yankees and the Yankees superiority is based on absolutely nothing other than an inveterate desire to bully or supplicate. There’s no connection between the two other than what’s created by dueling fanbases and a biased media.

We’re just in time to watch the manager pull Dickey for a pinch-hitter. His chances of winning 20 games officially are on life support; you want to page Manager Terry Collins and point out that Dickey has a better chance to get a hit than any of the Ghandian hitters on the Mets’ bench.

Ghandian?!? GOOD GRIEF!!!!!!

“I have a lot of faith in the Wilpons,” Commissioner Bud Selig told Newsday’s Marc Carig on Wednesday. “I have a lot of faith in Sandy Alderson.” He went on: “I’m very confident about the Mets. Very confident.”

The Mets have, after a fashion, constructed a very 21st-century New York team. Crony capitalism by Flushing Bay, with Selig in the role of crony enabler.

Going back to the Wilpons’ $25 million loan taken from MLB nearly a year ago to meet operating costs, it’s been expected that the financial circumstances surrounding the club due to the Bernie Madoff Ponzi scheme would sink them once and for all. Based on speculation and extrapolation, but not fact, it was taken for granted that the Mets would be unable to pay all their debts.

Well, to the disappointment of many, the Mets paid back the MLB loan when they settled the case with the government’s trustee of the case, Irving Picard, and still own the team.

Selig is the commissioner of baseball, a position of considerable power, but still an employee of MLB owners. He is not in a position to force an ownership to sell anything. Selig is the crony enabler? Of what? He’s the commissioner, not the King.

Getting past the words and scouring the content of the article itself, I’m having trouble seeing the point.

What was the purpose of this other than to add to the attempted embarrassment lavished on the Mets and to make the fans feel as if they should be ashamed to support their team?

There is a segment in Mets fandom, propped and promoted by the media—Mets haters and not—that takes joy in attacking the organization no matter what they do. It’s a story with a secondary benefit. “Oh, we’re Mets fans. Poor us. We’re destined to suffer.” But is there a team anywhere, including the Yankees, that has a gaudy enough record in recent vintage that would make it a hopelessly losing endeavor to be a Mets fan that a non-self-loathing fan, as the article implies, should abandon the club or accept the lot in life of loser?

The Dodgers were recently a financial nightmare due to the alleged misuse and abuse of the financial coffers on the part of former owner Frank McCourt and are now again one of the high-end destinations in baseball and spending insanely with Magic Johnson as the frontman of the new regime.

The Orioles have launched themselves back into the playoff picture for the first time in 15 years after their reviled owner Peter Angelos ran off one baseball man after another and treated the club as if it was an underachieving, poorly managed offshoot of his law firm.

The Phillies, the losingest baseball franchise ever, became a champion and turned into an incarnation of the Yankees, spending, trading, signing amid fan-booing their way to a $170 million payroll and a .500 record in 2012 with an entire roster laden with stars in their early-to-mid 30s and rolling over the hill.

The Yankees, whose main metric is based on winning a World Series otherwise the entire season is a failure, have achieved their goal once on the past decade with a payroll that dwarfs every other team in baseball.

The Red Sox, the totem of how to rebuild a dysfunctional mess and rejuvenate it to become a contender on an annual basis has come apart with worse infighting and dysfunction that the hard-partying, drugged out, underachieving Mets of the late 1980s never could’ve fathomed.

Being a fan guarantees nothing. Because you like Tom Cruise doesn’t mean you’re going to love every movie he appears in. If you enjoy the writing of John Grisham doesn’t promise the endless enjoyment of every book he writes. And being a fan of whichever team in any sport doesn’t mean you’ll wind up being able to gloat—and that’s the main idea—about “your” team.

The meme transferred from one entity to the other is rife with a egomaniacal narcissism. “We predicted the team would be this bad.” This comes from Mets haters like Michael Kay; from Mets antagonists like Mike Francesa; and self-proclaimed Mets supporters, openly despondent at the state of the franchise, Bob Klapisch and Howard Megdal.

I didn’t hear anyone in June saying the trash they’re saying now because it would’ve made them look foolish and, in a strange way, honest had they so baldly betrayed their poorly hidden agendas by ripping the Mets while they were playing well. Instead, they waited until things came apart. Now, they were “right.” Their “predictions” of doom and gloom came to pass.

Except they weren’t right; their predictions didn’t come to pass in the spirit of honesty.

The theme in the Times article appears to be one of imprisonment. “Woe is me, I’m a Mets fan.” But there’s a solution for Powell and for anyone involved with the club in any fashion as a player, beat writer, a front office employee, or any individual whose life is somehow diminished by being a Mets fan or chronicler. I’ve said on multiple occasions, the Mets have to stand up and tell those who revile the club and themselves to this degree that they’re compelled to write it in so histrionic a manner. It’s simple.

Leave.

Go root for another team. Go play for another team. Go cover another team. Go work for another team. We’ll get someone else. If you have become so jaded that the current situation of your baseball team is infecting your being so you can’t be a professional and need to project that hurt in multiple, self-destructive ways, then say goodbye. Move on. It was this one act that the Rays of 2007-2008 began their rise into annual contender while they were a laughingstock for their entire existence, running into one another like a slapstick comedy with an empty park and no hope. They said, with their actions, that they didn’t want people who didn’t want to support them and be happy to be members of the Rays organization and fanbase. This is what the Mets have to do.

Leave.

Go elsewhere. But you can’t come back. And you can’t whine. And you can’t cry. And you can’t derive the clear supplementary boost you get from identifying yourself as a Mets fan with a shrug and an eyeroll as if it’s a terminal disease for which there’s no cure.

But there is a cure. A simple one. Excise the disease.

Leave.

We’ll start a registry and track you so you can’t come back. But you can go. You’ll be free. With such burdens in everyday life, the last thing I would want is my diversion of a baseball team making it worse.

It’s tragic, it’s horrible, it’s depressing. So end it.

Leave.

In a way, writing is like a mathematical formula without numbers. It’s artistic; it doesn’t have limits; there’s no “right” or “wrong” way to do it, but either it works or it doesn’t. When there’s a forced shoehorning of bad use of language and rotten word choices in an effort to anoint oneself the representative of a large group of people who didn’t nominate you, didn’t elect you, don’t agree with you, and don’t want you, you get the New York Times piece on the Mets by Michael Powell. It’s poorly written, pretentious, self-indulgent pabulum.

And my solution to Mr. Powell is simple. So simple that I’ll say it again.

Leave.

Trust me. We’ll be fine.

The article is entitled “Turn Out the Lights.”

Fine. I’ll turn them out. After you leave.

And don’t come back.

Ever.

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Hot Stove Losers, 2011-2012

On Friday I listed the winners of the off-season. Now let’s look at the losers.

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Boston Red Sox

It’s not the maneuvers they made that are specifically bad.

Confusing? Yes, trading Marco Scutaro to free up some money and then spending some of that money to sign Cody Ross while leaving shortstop in the questionable hands of Nick Punto, Mike Aviles and/or rookie Jose Iglesias was one of a long line of bizarre decisions, but none could be called “bad”.

My focus is on the perceived and practical appearance of disarray that’s taken hold in Boston since the departure of Theo Epstein.

Say what you want about Epstein and the moves he made, but you knew he was in charge.

Now, with Ben Cherington elevated to GM and Larry Lucchino clearly diving into the breach and interfering in team matters (Bobby Valentine would not be the Red Sox manager without Lucchino championing him), there’s a troubling lack of cohesion.

What you have is a team of well-paid stars whose behavior was enabled by a disciplinary lackadaisical former manager, good guy Terry Francona; a transition from a clubhouse dominated by Jason Varitek to…who?; a front office with multiple voices and philosophies trying to gain sway; and a polarizing manager who won’t want to blow what is probably his final chance to manage in the majors and working on a 2-year contract.

They haven’t addressed issues in the starting rotation other than hope that Daniel Bard can make the transition from reliever to starter and sign a bunch of low-cost veterans on minor league deals to see if they can cobble together a back-end of the rotation. But what happened with the Yankees and Freddy Garcia/Bartolo Colon in 2011 doesn’t happen too often, so the Red Sox shouldn’t expect to get similar renaissance-level/amazing rise performances from Aaron Cook, Vicente Padilla, John Maine and Clayton Mortensen.

There are more questions than answers with this team and the solution to what ails them starts at the top.

And at the top, it’s chaos.

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Baltimore Orioles

Regardless of the ridicule his hiring received, Dan Duquette is a highly competent baseball man who never got the credit he deserved for helping put together the Expos of the 1990s or the Red Sox of recent vintage.

But the Orioles are devoid of talent, especially on the mound, and it doesn’t matter how qualified the manager (Buck Showalter) and GM are, you can’t win if you don’t have talent.

What the Orioles have to do is make the difficult decision to take their most marketable assets—Nick Markakis, Adam Jones, Jim Johnson and even Matt Wieters—and let the rest of baseball know that they’re open for business and willing to listen to any and all offers.

Whether owner Peter Angelos or Showalter will be on board with that is up in the air.

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Oakland Athletics

So Billy Beane gets another rebuild?

How many is this now? Five?

The Athletics use a lack of funds and a difficult division—along with their GM’s increasingly ridiculous and fictional reputation as a “genius”—to justify trading away all of their young talent for the future.

That future is far away in the distance and contingent on a new ballpark that they hope, pray, plead, beg will one day come their way.

Here’s a question: why do the Rays, facing the same logistical issues as the Athletics, try and win by making intelligent, cost-effective moves with their players and somehow succeed while a supposed “genius” is continually given a pass because of a resume that is bottom-line fabricated from start-to-finish?

Yet we’ll again hear how Beane got the “right” players in dumping Gio Gonzalez, Trevor Cahill and Andrew Bailey.

Right players for what?

If the answer is losing close to 100 games, then he’s definitely succeeded.

Oh, they kept Coco Crisp and signed Bartolo Colon.

Beane deserves an Oscar more than Brad Pitt for maintaining the veneer of knowing something others don’t.

It’s a ruse and you’re a fool if you continue to fall for it.

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Milwaukee Brewers

They understandably lost Prince Fielder because they couldn’t and wouldn’t approach the $214 million he received from the Tigers.

Signing Aramis Ramirez was a good decision and they kept their bullpen and starting rotation together, but their hot stove season was pockmarked with the failed(?) drug test of NL MVP Ryan Braun and possible 50 game suspension for using PEDs.

With the pitching and remaining offense in a mediocre division, they’d be able to hang around contention even without Fielder, but missing Braun for 50 games could bury them.

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St. Louis Cardinals

You can’t lose three Hall of Fame caliber people and consider the off-season a success. Albert Pujols, Tony LaRussa and Dave Duncan are all gone. Lance Berkman and Carlos Beltran will offset the loss of Pujols…somewhat, but he’s still Pujols and fundamentally irreplaceable.

Mike Matheny has never managed before and it was the rebuilding aptitude of Dave Duncan that salvaged something out of the broken down and finished pitchers he continually fixed like an abandoned but still workable car.

LaRussa is the best manager of this generation.

A seamless transition? No way.

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GMs The Second Time Around

With two big general managing jobs open—the Angels and the Cubs—let’s take a look at recognizable title-winning GMs and how they’ve fared in second and third jobs.

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John Schuerholz

Schuerholz won the World Series with the 1985 Royals and moved on to the Braves after the 1990 season because Bobby Cox had gone down on the field and handled both jobs after firing Russ Nixon. It was Cox who drafted Chipper Jones (because Todd Van Poppel insisted he was going to college, then didn’t—he probably should’ve); Kent Mercker; Mike Stanton; Steve Avery; Mark Wohlers; and Ryan Klesko. He also traded Doyle Alexander for John Smoltz.

Schuerholz made the fill-in moves like acquiring Charlie Leibrandt, Rafael Belliard, Otis Nixon, Alejandro Pena and Juan Berenguer; in later years, he signed Greg Maddux and traded for Fred McGriff.

It was, in fact, the predecessor to Cox—John Mullen—who drafted Ron Gant, Mark Lemke, Dave Justice and Tom Glavine.

The idea that Schuerholz “built” the Braves of the 1990s isn’t true. It’s never been true.

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Andy MacPhail

MacPhail was never comfortable with spending a load of money. When he was with the Twins, that was the way they did business and he excelled at it building teams on the cheap with a template of the way the Twins played and a manager, Tom Kelly, to implement that.

He put together the Twins 1987 and 1991 championship clubs. MacPhail became the Cubs CEO in 1994 and stayed until 2006. The Cubs made it to the playoffs twice in MacPhail’s tenure and came close to winning that elusive pennant in 2003.

MacPhail’s legacy running the Cubs—fairly or not—is that he was in charge while Kerry Wood and Mark Prior were pushed very, very hard as young pitchers trying to win that championship.

It was a vicious circle. If the Cubs didn’t let them pitch, they wouldn’t have made the playoffs; and since they let them endure heavy workloads at a young age, they flamed out.

MacPhail went to the Orioles in 2007 and the team didn’t improve despite MacPhail seeming to prevail on owner Peter Angelos that his spending on shot veterans wasn’t working; MacPhail’s power was usurped when Buck Showalter was hired to be the manager and his future is uncertain.

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Sandy Alderson

Credited as the “father” of Moneyball, he was a run-of-the-mill GM who won when he had money to spend, a brilliant manager in Tony LaRussa, and an all-world pitching coach Dave Duncan. When the well dried up, the A’s stopped contending and he was relegated to signing veteran players who had nowhere else to go (sort of like Moneyball), but couldn’t play (unlike Moneyball).

Alderson drafted Jason Giambi and Tim Hudson among a couple of others who contributed to the Athletics renaissance and the Billy Beane “genius”.

Moving on to the Padres as CEO in 2005, Alderson created factions in the front office between the stat people and scouting people and appeared more interested in accumulating legitimate, on-the-record credit for himself as a cut of the Moneyball pie than in building a winning team by any means necessary within the budget.

He joined the Mets as GM a year ago. Grade pending.

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Pat Gillick

Gillick is in the Hall of Fame. He built the Blue Jays from the ground up, culminating in back-to-back championships in 1992 and 1993.

He’s retired and un-retired multiple times, ran the Orioles under Angelos and spent a ton of money and came close, but continually lost out to the Yankees.

He took over the Mariners and built a powerhouse with Lou Piniella; they came close…but couldn’t get by the Yankees.

He went to the Phillies, built upon the foundation that had been laid by the disrespected former GM Ed Wade and scouting guru Mike Arbuckle and got credit for the 2008 championship.

He says he’s retired, but I’m not buying it even at age 74. The Mariners are the job I’d see him taking if it’s offered and with another bad year from Jack Zduriencik’s crew in 2012, it just might be.

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Walt Jocketty

Jocketty won the 2006 World Series and, along with LaRussa, built the Cardinals into an annual contender. He was forced out in a power-struggle between those in the Cardinals from office that wanted to go the Moneyball route and Jocketty’s people that didn’t. One year after the World Series win, he was fired.

At mid-season 2008, he was hired by the Reds and was given credit for the 2010 NL Central championship, but that credit was a bit shaky.

Wayne Krivsky was the GM before Jocketty and traded for Brandon Phillips and Bronson Arroyo.

Dan O’Brien Jr. preceded Krivsky and drafted Jay Bruce and signed Johnny Cueto.

And it was Jim Bowden who drafted Joey Votto.

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The common denominator with the names above and the levels of success or failure they achieved had to do with the groundwork that had been placed and, in part, what they did after their arrival.

The Cubs and Angels are both well-stocked for their choices to look very smart, very quickly; but the hiring of a “name” GM doesn’t automatically imply that the success from the prior stop is going to be repeated and that has to be considered with whomever the two teams decide to hire.

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Showalter For Manager/GM?

It has been whispered that the Orioles should do something decidedly old-school and name manager Buck Showalter GM as well.

There hasn’t been a manager/GM since Bobby Cox went back on the field to replace Russ Nixon as Braves manager in 1990 and that didn’t last long as John Schuerholz was hired as GM after that season and Cox stayed on the field for…well, forever.

Jack McKeon was the GM/manager for the Padres in the late-1980s; Whitey Herzog did it for the Cardinals in the early 1980s.

It’s all but impossible to do both jobs correctly in today’s game of GM-rock stardom. There’s really no way Showalter could do it and maintain his sanity and/or health.

That said, there’s a way to go about it if the Orioles want to give Showalter final say in the direction of the franchise.

Herzog joined the Cardinals as manager in 1980; late in the season they fired GM John Clairborne and named Herzog GM as well. Completely out of contention, Herzog handed the managerial reins to Red Schoendienst for the rest of 1980. Herzog didn’t do both jobs simultaneously. That’s a good thing given Herzog’s penchant for saying whatever popped into his head without concern as to how it was framed or perceived (think J.P. Ricciardi to the tenth power); it would be a PR disaster in today’s game.

But he was able to find players and he’d do the same thing today.

Showalter can do it in a similar fashion if he steps off the field because he’s more tight-lipped and manipulative of the media than Herzog was. Herzog was a gruff, intimidating type; Showalter is more nuanced and calculating.

Herzog built the Cardinals for the spacious dimensions of Busch Stadium with improved speed by getting Lonnie Smith, and installing Tommy Herr at 2nd base; he shored up the defense and attitude by trading Garry Templeton for Ozzie Smith; traded for a defensive minded catcher, Darrell Porter; brought in pitchers who threw strikes like Joaquin Andujar; and got the game’s best closer in Bruce Sutter.

By 1982, the Cardinals were World Series champions and won two more pennants under Herzog in the next five years.

Could Showalter do that as GM?

The Orioles can hit, but their top-to-bottom pitching is so awful that they’re going to have to consider trading some of their young bats Nick Markakis or Adam Jones to find some arms. Those arms would have to strike people out or coax ground balls to mitigate the bandbox of Camden Yards; he needs to improve the bullpen and the infield defense.

Trading talented bats like Jones, Markakis and Matt Wieters are not easy decisions to make.

If someone is going to make that call, it has to be the man who’s entrusted with the future of the organization and is completely responsible for what happens, good or bad.

Showalter would have to stop managing for a time to do the GM job properly; he’d have to be given an autonomy that owner Peter Angelos might balk at providing, but if the Orioles are going to have Showalter give his approval to whom is hired as the new GM, it’s probably easier to let Showalter do it while the Orioles are rebuilding and then have him go back on the field when he has the players he wants.

That’s the only way it could work.

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Blaming Peter Angelos For Mike Flanagan’s Suicide Is Despicable

Former Orioles star pitcher, Cy Young Award winner, executive and broadcaster Mike Flanagan committed suicide yesterday.

One reason being presented for the act is that he was despondent over the state of the club for which he dedicated most of his professional life, the Baltimore Orioles. The TV station that reported this somewhat unbelievable line of reasoning—WBAL-TV—is backtracking while “supporting” the reporter, Gerry Sandusky.

There was no note and police are saying it was “financial difficulties” that led to this. The police had interviewed Flanagan’s widow to come to this conclusion.

Who did Sandusky speak to?

Multiple unnamed sources.

If Mike Flanagan’s personal problems caused his suicide—whether they were real or imagined—and it turns into an indictment of the baseball ownership of Peter Angelos or stuff the media and nameless, faceless people are saying about Flanagan’s work in the Orioles’ front office, then it’s a despicable attempt to pin a sad event on a reviled owner.

Saying that Angelos’s stewardship of the Orioles led to this is akin to saying that Gabe Paul’s death in 1998—at age 88—was caused by the stress of working for George Steinbrenner.

In other words there’s no direct connection between the two and making one with speculation and rumor is not only ludicrous, but it’s vile.

Angelos is the owner of a baseball team; his team has been poorly run and dysfunctional for the past 15 years. Flanagan worked for them for much of that time. Equating one with the other by implying friends said that was the reason is idiotic.

Those overreacting to the prospect of Flanagan having killed himself because of a perception that he ruined the Orioles clearly don’t understand what small things can go through a suicidal, depressed, mentally ill person to drive them over the edge. It could’ve been anything. He should’ve asked for help and if the philanthropically minded Angelos knew that things were heading to this point with Flanagan, he absolutely would’ve helped him.

But partisan voices are trying to sully Angelos because he’s run a baseball team badly. This selfish storytelling is making a terrible situation worse and it has to stop. Now.

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MLB Trade Deadline Rules To Live By

And/or die by.

Here’s a logical and well-reasoned list of rules that teams should adhere to when assessing whether or not to buy, sell or stand pat at the trading deadline.

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Don’t do something stupid.

It sounds easy enough, but there are always teams and GMs that let ancillary issues like job security of the participants influence what they’ll do. If a GM or manager is on shaky ground and concerned about his own status, of course he’s going to do something to try and make his own situation better whether that hamstrings the team for the future or not.

If he knows his job hinges on 2011 results, what difference does it make to Dave Dombrowski if Al Avila has a solid foundation to rebuild the aging Tigers?

Regardless of what you think of their various strategies, at least you can trust that Billy Beane, Brian Sabean and Larry Beinfest are doing what they think is right for their clubs based on current and future needs rather than what’s going to be perceived as “correct” or “incorrect” by would-be experts in the media and fan bases.

In other circumstances, you can’t say that. Will Dombrowski do something crazy to try and placate his impatient manager Jim Leyland and keep their jobs? Apart from legacy, what stake does Orioles GM Andy MacPhail have with the Orioles as he’s been marginalized by the hiring of Buck Showalter and is likely out the door after the season?

If you see a top prospect traded for a negligible talent like Ryan Dempster or a pending free agent like Carlos Beltran, you’ll get a pretty good idea of the intent and underlying reasons.

Any team that acquiesces to the Padres apparent demands of a top prospect for Mike Adams—a journeyman set-up man with atrocious mechanics and a history of arm problems whose success has been late-coming; is arbitration-eligible and a free agent after 2013 and is 33-years-old—is foolish. Plain and simple.

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Don’t say something stupid.

Theo Esptein sounded like a total moron and he was in full self-defensive spin mode after the Yankees had addressed every single one of their needs in 2006 by acquiring Bobby Abreu (whom the Red Sox were after), and Cory Lidle.

Epstein’s quote was something to the tune of “we can’t afford to do certain things; we have to build now and for the future” to explain away their inaction as the season came apart…then after the season, they turned around and spent a load of money on Julio Lugo.

Or Mariners GM Jack Zduriencik explaining his re-acquisition of Russell Branyan with the silly statement that “part of development is winning games” as if Branyan was going to be a key piece to that end.

It didn’t work in any context.

Either speaking in indistinct circles or telling the truth are better than saying something that people are going to remember and toss in your face years later.

Like I just did.

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Read every word written by Joel Sherman and think the exact opposite (except when he’s plagiarizing me—click this link and scroll to the section beginning with “Hmmm”).

I don’t care much for unnamed “sources”.

Everyone likes to portray themselves as an “insider” and get credit after the fact for being “right”, but much of the time these rumors are utter nonsense that emanated from some reporter/talk show host’s ass.

A year ago, Sherman had Cliff Lee traded to the Yankees for about 12 hours before—lo and behold—Lee was traded to the Rangers. He went into desperate backpedal in trying to explain the intricacies of when a trade is truly completed and flung his favored “Amazin’ Exec” Zduriencik off the roof of his skyscraper of fantasy consisting of unnamed executives and built on quicksand as he tried to maintain the role of someone who knows what’s going on before the fact when he’s dumber than even the most idiotic and reactionary fan.

You’ll hear the nonsense from Michael Kay, Buster Olney, Jon Heyman and even Peter Gammons.

Ignore it.

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Know when to go for it; when to hold off; when to clear the house.

Mets fans have the audacity to take Sandy Alderson’s decisive act of brilliance in getting rid of Francisco Rodriguez and his onerous contract option and are interpreting it as the raising of the white flag.

White flag to what?

If the Mets were in the NL Central and in their exact same position, there’s an argument for holding off on making any trades of veterans.

But they’re not.

They’re in a division with the Braves and Phillies; have inexplicably played about 5 miles over their heads with limited talent and countless injuries; and are not contenders regardless of the propaganda designed to rip them for anything they do.

What do the fans/media geniuses want?

The Mets get aggressive when they’re not contenders and trade Scott Kazmir for Victor Zambrano and get roasted. They hire Omar Minaya and he convinces the front office to eschew the lifetime severance employment for Al Leiter and John Franco and signs Pedro Martinez and Beltran and try to win immediately, he gets treated as an utter fool after the fact for spending money unwisely.

That Mets team was a Duaner Sanchez car accident and one hit away from a World Series they would’ve won in 2006.

How would Minaya look had things gone a bit differently?

They fire Minaya and hire the cold-blooded and stat savvy Sandy Alderson; he assesses the situation and does the right thing and what happens? The Mets get hammered by the same fans who aren’t even coming to the ballpark now.

Tell the fans to take a hike if they don’t like it.

A team like the Pirates needs to go the opposite direction.

As hard as it is to believe, they’re in the NL Central race. But if you examine how they’ve done it, it’s unsustainable over the long term. They’re winning because of superlative performances from mediocre veterans like Jeff Karstens and a patched together bullpen of journeyman from whom a continuation of this work is not going to happen.

The Pirates don’t have a group of young pitchers who are developing as the Giants had with Tim Lincecum and Matt Cain in the years preceding their 2010 title.

Their defense has saved them and they can’t hit.

The Pirates must make a bold move now to try and win in 2011 because in 2012, it’s more likely that they’ll fall back to 90 losses than to continue the innocent climb.

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Have a check on the baseball people.

In retrospect, it was a bad thing that Orioles owner Peter Angelos overruled Pat Gillick and Davey Johnson as they tried to trade Bobby Bonilla and other veterans at mid-season 1996 when they looked hopelessly out of playoff contention.

But back then, it worked as the Orioles got hot and made the playoffs.

In fact, the Orioles were Jeffrey Maier’s act of fan interference on Derek Jeter‘s homer away from beating the Yankees in that year’s ALCS and maybe winning the World Series.

They made the playoffs the next year too.

I’m not saying that the Mets college of cardinals approach in 2004 when they sat there and voted on the trade of Kazmir was the right way to go, but the owner has a right to nix a deal he doesn’t think is the right thing to do. It’s the height of arrogance for a baseball man to sit there and say, “I want to have final say” in the construction of the club. He doesn’t own it, he doesn’t get final say.

It’s not a bad thing to have dissent or questioning from the man signing the checks if he’s willing to listen and analyze rather than bloviate.

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If top prospects are traded for veteran rentals, make sure you can sign them or are going to win with them before letting them leave.

Dodgers GM Ned Colletti was criticized for trading Carlos Santana to the Indians for Casey Blake in 2008.

Why?

The Dodgers had a 25-year-old catcher in Russell Martin who, at the time, was heading for superstardom; they were in a winnable and weak division and were built to win immediately. They needed a third baseman/outfielder and solid veteran, so they traded for Blake.

Looking back, you can say it was a mistake, but Blake helped them greatly in both 2008 and 2009 as the Dodgers were a couple of plays away from possibly winning one or two World Series.

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Don’t mess with something that’s working just because you can.

The 2004 Dodgers were streaking, rolling and blasting towards the playoffs. They had a devastating bullpen and a team that had grown organically and been built by former GM Dan Evans and manager Jim Tracy; they trusted each other and have a cohesiveness that pure statistical analysis can’t account for.

That didn’t stop then-GM Paul DePodesta from dropping a bomb in the middle of the clubhouse and undermining everything that had been created simply because he could and it made some form of theoretical sense.

Theory and practice are two vastly different things.

Trading the leader of the team and the manager’s favorite player Paul Lo Duca, the best set-up man in baseball in Guillermo Mota and Juan Encarnacion to the Marlins for Brad Penny and Hee-Seop Choi was a failure in every conceivable metric.

Penny got hurt immediately; a proposed trade of Penny to the Diamondbacks for Randy Johnson came apart because Johnson refused to waive his no-trade clause; Mota’s designated replacement Darren Dreifort was atrocious before he predictably got hurt; and Choi was a disaster.

You don’t muck with something that’s good even if you don’t understand why it’s good.

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If you follow these simple rules, you’ll have a good chance of doing what’s right rather than what’s popular.

Of course I expect the world at large to ignore me, but they’ll do so having been warned.

It’s in writing.

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I’ll be on the Red State Blue State podcast tomorrow. Dig your trenches.

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New Yorkered

Did you hear?

Mets owner Fred Wilpon allowed New Yorker writer Jeffrey Toobin insider access for a piece in the new issue—link—and the antics of the embattled owner have become fodder for more ridicule hurled at the organization.

This is on top of the Bernie Madoff mess; the on-and-off field player issues; and the attempt to sell a portion of the team while still maintaining control for the Wilpon family.

Dissected everywhere by voices credible and not, it would take far too much time to selectively retort to individual analysts. Some make salient and sensible points; others use this as ammunition to tear into the Mets and Wilpon.

This is a story because it’s a prominent piece in a reputable magazine; the Mets are always a target for abuse; and there are agenda-driven writers making it out to be more than it is.

Fred Wilpon has always been a yeller, but has shied away from actual interference in the club machinations; son Jeff was seen as the meddler, not Fred. His contribution has been signing the checks and getting his dream ballpark built. That he watches games and criticizes like a fan is unsurprising and no different from any involved owner who cares about his team.

Billy Beane was seen to have been tearing into his manager’s moves during the Moneyball fantasy and he was the hard-charger whose actions were evidence of the organizational boss who wanted things done his way; Wilpon does it and it’s more humiliation flung at the organization.

But Beane was considered an infallible genius; Wilpon a clueless fool.

It’s all about perception and framing.

For all the things that were published in the piece, we don’t know what else was said regarding Jose Reyes, David Wright and Carlos Beltran. Didn’t it occur to anyone that if Toobin was following Wilpon to the degree in which he was able to write a 12 page article on the Mets owner, that Wilpon probably said quite a bit more—much of it likely positive—than what was printed?

Could it be that Toobin and the editors of the New Yorker knew what the reaction would be? What the number of webhits would be? How many extra copies of their somewhat pompous magazine would sell to the Mets fanbase—a fanbase that is generally more blue collar and presumably isn’t a regular reader of the New Yorker?

The majority of the piece isn’t even about the Mets. It’s about Bernie Madoff; it’s about the way Fred accumulated his fortune; about his family and the reaction to the Madoff disaster.

Did anyone bother to read it or were they taking the same tack as Toobin, picking and choosing that which was more convenient to reach the end result of another tool to swing at the Mets?

It looks bad to have the criticisms against players in print, but in truth it won’t matter at all in the grand scheme; players are notoriously pragmatic when it comes to getting paid; if the money is there, then they’ll willingly sign with the Mets.

As for the statements about Beltran, Wright and Reyes, they were harsh to be sure, but were they inaccurate?

Carlos Beltran has been a loyal Met; he’s played hard and brilliantly, but he signed with the Mets for one reason: they offered the most money. And this was after he and agent Scott Boras tried to sell Beltran to the Yankees for fewer years and less money than what he got from the Mets.

David Wright is a terrific player, but is he a mega-star along the lines of Alex Rodriguez? Of Albert Pujols? No.

Reyes wants to make up for the signing of the far below market value contract he signed in August of 2006; a deal that precluded his arbitration years and cost him a lot of money; a deal he signed simultaneously to Wright signing his longer and more lucrative extension. Reyes is going to want “Carl Crawford money” as Fred said. If the Mets offer the highest amount of money, he’ll stay (if he’s not traded first); if not, he’ll leave.

The number of players who do as Cliff Lee did and go to the venue of their preference at the expense of money is very, very few and far between; Jim Thome did it as well, but these are veteran players who had either gotten paid already and were in the twilight of a great career (Thome), or were going to get their money one way or the other (Lee).

Reyes is not one of those players; he’s looking to cash in. All will be forgiven if there are enough zeroes on the check.

Fred has never openly meddled with the player moves as Jeff has been perceived to have done. It’s going to be up to GM Sandy Alderson and the money available whether the Mets offer is higher than other clubs pursuing Reyes and, given his history, Alderson isn’t going to take the money that’s coming off the books—Oliver Perez, Luis Castillo, possibly Francisco Rodriguez, Beltran—and hand it all over to Reyes at the cost of 3-4 pieces that might provide more use to the club over the long term than one player.

The implication that Wilpon’s comments will scare off potential free agents or employees is ignoring both the past and present in terms of owner/player relationships.

George Steinbrenner was a raving maniac; a convicted felon; a twice suspended owner; a reviled and loathed madman for whom no one wanted to work—until he offered them enough money to look past his faults; beyond the rampant and repeated lunacy of the appropriately nicknamed Bronx Zoo. He got away with things because he spent cash and his teams won. Lo and behold, upon his death he turned into a “great man” rather than a capricious, mean and bullying force who embarrassed baseball and his club times too numerous to recount in a small space.

I don’t know if you can go through the list of sports owners and not find a vast percentage who were clownish and brutal in their treatment of underlings. Marge Schott; Jeffrey Loria; Ray Kroc; Tom Hicks; Peter Angelos; Drayton McLane; Vince Naimoli; Frank McCourt—all said and did things that created controversy and a media frenzy.

You can focus on their negatives or their positives based on whatever’s convenient.

Steinbrenner donated tons of money to charities and paid for the educations of the children of killed-in-action firefighters and police; Loria’s team wins under a minimalist budget; McLane’s teams were successful and his overruling his baseball people turned out to be right several times; Angelos’s teams were successful early in his ownership; McCourt’s teams have been a pitch or two away from back-to-back World Series appearances.

Had the Mets gotten one extra hit in 2006, 2007 and 2008 there was a legitimate possibility of three straight World Series appearances/wins.

How would that have altered the view of the Mets and their ownership?

Skilled writers who clearly had an agenda like Toobin can adjust stories to highlight points that will draw the most attention; the media-at-large can take that to establish or bolster their own personal biases and beliefs.

That’s what’s happening now.

It’s meaningless.

It’s ridiculous.

It’s a farce.

You can say the same about the Mets if you want, but it won’t be due to this article by Jeffrey Toobin or the over-the-top reactions to it.

****

I’m administrating a discussion group on TheCopia.com. Click on the link to leave a comment or start a new topic. Check it out.

****

Please purchase my book, Paul Lebowitz’s 2011 Baseball Guide.

I published a full excerpt of my book here. Conveniently, it’s about the Mets.

It’s available now. Click here to get it in paperback or E-Book on I-Universe or on Amazon or BN. It’s also available via E-book on Borders.com.

It’s out on Amazon Kindle and Barnes and Noble Nook.

If anyone would like to purchase an autographed copy, leave a comment; Email me; contact me on Facebook or Twitter.

Become a fan on my Facebook fan page. Click on the link.

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Cash Out

How much is Brian Cashman going to take as Yankees GM?

How much does he want to take?

For someone who’s been with the same organization since 1986 and worked his way up from intern to general manager, it’s not easy to say goodbye; nor is it easy to relinquish the cash and cachet that comes from being the Yankees GM, but when is enough going to be enough? When does it become a negligible risk/reward? When does the aggravation outweigh all the positives that come with the job?

Cashman has had a tumultuous few months going back to the messy negotiations with Derek Jeter. The front office sabotaged and interfered with everything he was trying to do in keeping the draft picks and money that were surrendered with the so-far disastrous decision made by Randy Levine, Hank and Hal Steinbrenner to sign Rafael Soriano.

Whereas he was perceived to have full authority to do as he saw fit with the club, the panic that overtook his bosses when the Yankees failed to sign Cliff Lee might have been the beginning of the end for Cashman as Yankees GM.

The Jorge Posada controversy is another unnecessary irritation, but as far as the Bronx Zoo goes, it’s not an untenable occurrence—one that’s going to make Cashman toss his hands in the air and say, “that’s it”.

But the confluence of events—Soriano, Jeter, Posada, the Steinbrenners and Levine—could all conspire to do what few in a similar position as Cashman would choose to do.

Leave.

Don’t discount the fact that the Yankees look peaked and old; that even with the young pitching in Dellin Betances and Manny Banuelos on the way up, the onerous contracts and declining production of Jeter and Alex Rodriguez have the potential to beget a couple of down years as the front office tries desperately to rebuild the dominant club they’ve been over the past 16 years on the fly, pushing him further out the door.

Spending on talent is impossible if the talent isn’t allowed to reach free agency to start with and the upcoming classes of free agents are limited and the Yankees are stuck with Jeter, A-Rod, Soriano and Mark Teixeira; they have to start thinking about an extension for Robinson Cano; CC Sabathia has an opt-out of his contract after the season, adding more headaches for the Yankees GM, whomever it is.

Has the Yankees GM job become a case of diminishing returns for Cashman?

Would he like to try his luck (and garner some legitimate credit and perhaps a Hall of Fame resume) by going elsewhere and building a club without the gobs of cash available when running the Yankees?

Some have implied that spending money is the only skill that Cashman has.

It’s unfair.

He’s made some mistakes especially with pitchers, but he’s a solid GM and smart baseball man. His newfound penchant for speaking his mind has not won him any friends among the players; in fact, it almost seems as if he’s made the conscious decision to say what he wants to say and no longer adhere to the corporate double-and triple-talk that was the hallmark of his earlier days as GM. He never actually said anything that wasn’t ambiguous or couldn’t be spun the way he wanted in its aftermath.

That changed with the Jeter negotiations; with the Soriano signing; with the Posada dustup.

There will be other GM jobs open after this season.

The Nationals are in a prime location with money; access to power; and a young foundation around which to build. Current GM Mike Rizzo’s signed through 2015, but that’s not a major obstacle. Naming Cashman club president or another high-end title would stickhandle around any firings.

Andy MacPhail isn’t expected to stay with the Orioles after this year; Cashman’s worked with Buck Showalter before; and after years with George Steinbrenner, he’d deal with Peter Angelos.

If the Mariners behave horribly again at some point and/or embarrass the ownership more than they did in 2010, Jack Zduriencik might be dismissed.

Depending on what happens with the Dodgers ownership, how enticing would one of the most historic franchises in baseball be? Located in Hollywood and with money to spend, he’d have all the ingredients to win big in Los Angeles on and off the field.

The Cubs are under new ownership, have young talent and are saddled with some messy contracts, but if Cashman was able to go to the Cubs and win a title, how would that look on a resume that already has 5 championships?

If he left the Yankees, Cashman wouldn’t be out of work long and he’d probably get a good job and the opportunity to truly run things the way he wants to.

Of course nothing can compare with the thrill and excitement of New York; in retrospect, the negatives will be viewed fondly after he’s away from the crisis-a-day atmosphere for a short while, but there are options.

With the team in its current state and the interference from above, it’s possible that Cashman is looking for a way out; that his newfound honesty is a conscious and calculated strategy to make clear that he doesn’t care whether he’s the Yankees GM after the 2011 season.

Levine dictating to Cashman which players he wants signed is a form of castration.

Would Cashman like to git while the gittin’s good?

It’s a bold act, but if he rappels out of Yankee Stadium, he won’t be out of work very long.

Is peace of mind and full power worth the pain of leaving his only baseball home?

It could if Cashman’s tired of the negatives that go along with the positives; if he wants to venture out on his own.

****

I’m administrating a discussion group on TheCopia.com. Click on the link to leave a comment or start a new topic. Check it out.

****

Please purchase my book, Paul Lebowitz’s 2011 Baseball Guide.

I published a full excerpt of my book here.

It’s available now. Click here to get it in paperback or E-Book on I-Universe or on Amazon or BN. It’s also available via E-book on Borders.com.

It’s out on Amazon Kindle and Barnes and Noble Nook.

If anyone would like to purchase an autographed copy, leave a comment; Email me; contact me on Facebook or Twitter.

Become a fan on my Facebook fan page. Click on the link.

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