What does being CEO entail?

What does being CEO entail?

Taking bonuses worth millions for nothing. It doesn't matter if your company is successful or not. You're getting bonuses in the tens of millions. if you can commit a white-collar crime, even better!

Duquette would do a GREAT job. Gives a good reason to support Pittsburgh. Wish they'd give him the Nats, which would be home.

If the Pirates hire Dan Duquette as CEO, it would not be evidence AGAINST the idea that the Pirates are trying to lose.

Yes and bigwigs in the public sector are clean.

Interesting possibility. Pittsburgh is a small city in terms of its media, so Duquette would have a much easier time than he had in Boston. I'm confident that Duquette would be a capable decision maker under those circumstances. The big question I'd have is whether he can set the right tone for the organization.

I saw the headline in Hot Topics and wondered if karl would be here. Yep.

If the Pirates hire Dan Duquette as CEO, it would not be evidence AGAINST the idea that the Pirates are trying to lose.

I assume that just Primer snark. Dan Duquette had an excellent track record as a GM and based on what he did in Montreal, he'd be great fit for the Pirates.

Man, for a second, I thought they wanted to hire Jim Duquette.

This is the best news concerning Nutting in a long time. Duquette was a very effective user of the draft and Latin America and he has legitimate small market cred.

I apologize. I only know Duquette as the GM of the Red Sox during the Big Money For Jose Offerman / Desperate Trade For Mike Lansing / Big Money For Troy O'Leary / Desperate Trade For Dante Bichette / Big Money For John Valentin / Big Money For Steve Avery / Darren Lewis Must Play Full-Time era, during which many of his decisions about how to spend the team's copious resources ended up giving them declining players who were not even as good as advertised in the short run, let alone the long run. He was universally loathed by all Red Sox fans everywhere. If you say he is much better as a small-market GM, then I believe you.

Given the general belief in Duquette's competence, I now doubt much more that he will be hired. Prove me wrong, Nuttings! Prove me wrong!

Dan Duquette would easily be the most capable member of upper management in the Pirates organization since Syd Thrift built the late-80s team. He wouldn't have the checkbook to sign a Manny Ramirez (as he did in Boston), but he would make that farm system productive.

Yeah, I too was initially worried for a moment that the Pirates were considering hiring the lesser Duquette. Dan Duquette got a raw deal and does deserve another shot to work in a MLB front office.

I followed the Red Sox very closely from 1997, and I thought Duquette did a good job. You've got to remember that until the Yawkee Trust finally sold the team off, John Harrington was the CEO and had a tight budget for a club in that market: the equivalent then to what the Giants' or Braves' budget is today. Probably lower; there was general despair about it on the sports radio of those days. I remember Eddie Andelman moaning "I guess they're a mid-market team now, so they'll never win again," and such.

Duquette did a nice job at the start of his tenure in Boston, particularly in picking up guys off the scrap heap (Wakefield, Daubach, O'Leary) and the deals for Pedro and Varitek/Lowe. But his later work wasn't as impressive, with the moves mentioned by Crispix, his feud with Williams (though Jimy shares much of the blame) and the inability to cut loose some of those scrap heap guys when they got more expensive. He didn't get a raw deal. The new FO was perfectly justified in letting him go when it did. Nonethless, I do believe deserves another shot, and would be a good hire by Pittsburgh.

No, you're right about Duquette, Crispix: He's the perfect guy to continue giving big contracts to middling players, a linchpin of the Pirates' strategy throughout the Nutting era.

He was universally loathed by all Red Sox fans everywhere. If you say he is much better as a small-market GM, then I believe you.

That's flatly untrue. He did some dumb things, and the end of his tenure was pretty ugly but most thoughtful Sox fans I know recognize that he is the guy who built most of the 2004 Red Sox core group---Pedro, Manny, Wakefield, Lowe, Varitek, Damon, etc. There's no getting around that when assessing his tenure, I don't think.

He's likely a better baseball decisionmaker than anyone else Pittsburgh can attract, as that job is (unfortunately) seen as a dead-end by most I suspect. But from the PR/organizational harmony side of things he definitely seems an imperfect fit and likely will have to prove that he learned some things while out of the game.

how much of an influence was Gimbel during the Montreal/early Sox days?

Duquette would do a GREAT job. Gives a good reason to support Pittsburgh. Wish they'd give him the Nats, which would be home.

Given all the Bosox fans in D.C. (you can't get rid of them, they're like cockroaches), Duquette could never have succeeded in Washington. Pittsburgh is a far better fit for him, given his Montreal background, unless Heinz and US Steel have hired a lot of young yuppies from MIT and Harvard.

Troy O'Leary is the epitome of the duality of the Duquette era: great move to pick him for free as a waiver pickup, but erred when he gave O'Leary an extension.

What's important is that Duquette is unlikely to bet the GM, so I'm hoping that the trade/signing gaffes that he made in the past will be unlikely to repeat themselves (at least due to his influence). The key thing for Duquette is that he seemed to have surrounded himself in both Montreal and Boston with guys who can spot young talent and know how to develop said talent. That's what is desperately needed in Pittsburgh right now. The team is not 3 trades away from contending... they need a complete white wash of the minor league and foreign development systems. Duquette is a guy that could provide some positive movement in those directions.

Um, Russ... the Pirates' minor league and foreign development systems already are a whitewash. There's nothing there to even tear down.

BTW, I don't even know why I'm getting my hopes up. This is SOP for the Pirates... talk up a big exciting name here, a cool young prospect there, and then WHAM... I'd like to introduce you to Ed Wade, your new CEO of baseball operations.

I disagree. The Pirates feed a random semi-decent player to the system every once in a while by accident, but then he gets chewed up (Burnett), delayed (Boeve) or spit out (Shelton). They'd be better off if they got rid of all the minor league coaches and turned each level into Lord of the Flies.

I wrote a quick diary about this at Charlie's joint yesterday.

When I started looking more closely at Duquette, I was suprised by how many good players he pulled in while he was in charge of Milwaukee's drafts. In two years, he added Gary Sheffield, Greg Vaughn, Darryl Hamilton, Jamie Navarro, Bill Spiers, Troy O'Leary and the good Steve Sparks, along with various role-players and such. That's not a bad haul, although the Brewers didn't do very well at capitalizing on it.

I also think that Duquette's Israeli connections are intriguing, after his work with the IBL. Israel is a pretty untapped market, scouting-wise, and it might be a good target for marketing as well if he can get the Pirates back on their feet.

Duquette would keep David Littlefield as GM and provide mentor like advice to get him back on track.

By 2012 everyone would realize that wasn't working and the CEO system will be scrapped.

The above is worst case scenario with Duquette. I think he is a viable candidate. I would like someone with Duquette's experience as a gm to bring in someone young who has never been a gm before but has vision of winning.

BTW, I don't even know why I'm getting my hopes up. This is SOP for the Pirates... talk up a big exciting name here, a cool young prospect there, and then WHAM... I'd like to introduce you to Ed Wade, your new CEO of baseball operations.

If they can get him out of the tree...

If they can get him out of the tree...

I'd make a Police Academy joke here, but I can't remember which one had the cat in the tree gag. How sad for me.

I'd make a Police Academy joke here, but I can't remember which one had the cat in the tree gag. How sad for me.

That you are trying to remember something from a Police Academy move? That is sad. Please get help. :)

Where is karlmagnus? Maybe he really is Dan Duquette?

Feuding with Jimy Williams is not a negative indicator for a GM. Hiring Jimy Williams as a Manager is.

Duquette was almost universally reviled at the end of his tenure in Boston. He was supposedly an a-hole with no people skills, autocratic, poisoned the atmosphere in the front office from the top on down, killed everyone's motivation, raka raka raka. How's that going to change when he gets to Pittsburgh? Did he get Jesus or something?

Duquette was a very good general manager.

Take a look at these two rosters: 1994 Red Sox; 1995 Red Sox. Duquette turned a whole bunch of free talent into a division winner.

He also did a great job with big-ticket signings. Manny Ramirez 8/140, Pedro Martinez 6/90, Nomar, Varitek, and Lowe to pre-FA deals, Damon 4/32. He couldn't sign a good player for under $25M to save his life, though.

He had a great run in Montreal - built a good chunk of the '94 roster, traded for Pedro - and I think there's good reason to think he'll do very well in another small market situation.

"He was supposedly an a-hole with no people skills, autocratic, poisoned the atmosphere in the front office from the top on down, killed everyone's motivation, raka raka raka. How's that going to change when he gets to Pittsburgh?"

People in Pittsburgh hardly bother to talk to Littlefield at this point, since all that comes out of his mouth is lies, spin, and rancid oil. Someone who's honest, even an honest jerk, would be a nice change.

As for the thing about being an autocrat, some degree of institutional control would be nice. As of a few years ago, the player development people weren't even teaching the same techniques/approaches at different levels.

duquette was real good at finding something of value when he had little money to spend. when he had freedom to spend, it was as if you gave a kid a lot of money at a flea market, all the good vendors were in the back, and he just started spending it all at the first two crappy booths.

duquette was real good at finding something of value when he had little money to spend. when he had freedom to spend, it was as if you gave a kid a lot of money at a flea market, all the good vendors were in the back, and he just started spending it all at the first two crappy booths.

That's not correct, which is one of the weird things about Duquette. His record with big-ticket free agents is incredibly good - Pedro's contract was the best of the decade, for instance.

Somehow, though, once he started spending heavily, he lost the ability to identify cheap talent and started signing poor players to fill holes around his stars, and he stopped putting any effort into the farm system.

He was sort of like two completely different, but nonetheless good GMs. First he did well with the farm and cheap talent, then he did well with big-ticket FAs but lost his touch with cheap talent.

but he would make that farm system productive.

all without the help of the amateur draft! robinson checo uber alles!

Somehow, though, once he started spending heavily, he lost the ability to identify cheap talent and started signing poor players to fill holes around his stars, and he stopped putting any effort into the farm system.

i don't think this was really the problem. each year the trading deadline would come around and he'd have no prospects to trade, so he took on big contracts to get the players he wanted (he wanted rolando arrojo, he got mike lansing, too). that's the reason he had a bunch of expensive players like lansing filling minor roles.

Duquette was almost universally reviled at the end of his tenure in Boston. He was supposedly an a-hole with no people skills, autocratic, poisoned the atmosphere in the front office from the top on down, killed everyone's motivation, raka raka raka. How's that going to change when he gets to Pittsburgh?]

Maybe that's what the organization needs at this point. An A-Hole who knows what he's doing. [Well compared to DL and McClatchy, Duquette certainly should qualify as someone who knows what he's doing]

I was initially against it, and then the more I read and refreshed my memory the more I think he could work. John Schuerholz is not the most personable individual, but he is a straight shooter and highly effective. This lying joke has worn so thin that a snarling Duquette would be pretty refreshing, especially if he can do what he did in Montreal.