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Baseball Primer Newsblog— The Best News Links from the Baseball Newsstand
Friday, May 09, 2008
When will they ever learn? When will they ever learn?...Although Marchman does pick out a king stoned trio.
To cast the problem another way, try to name a terrible GM in baseball other than Sabean. There are, to be sure, uninspired executives. Toronto’s J.P. Ricciardi, Houston’s Ed Wade, and Seattle’s Bill Bavasi, for instance, all frequently make laughable moves. They trade valuable prospects for expensive veterans even though they have little chance of winning, sign free agents for too much money, release strong hitters for no reason, and so on. But none among them are so bad that you almost feel sorry for them. They’re merely unimaginative, and predisposed to take the safe bet. None are truly easy prey for shrewd operators in the Veeck tradition. None are inclined to do something such as signing a backup shortstop to a four-year contract, or making a washed-up Mo Vaughn their starting first baseman.
This depressing paucity of genuine, flagrant ineptitude likely has something to do with the alarming outbreak of parity in the league. Epstein, Byrnes, Oakland’s Billy Beane, and their peers may be sharp as all get-out, as truly an improvement on their predecessors as Utley and Fukudome are on theirs. But without true nitwits upon whom they can practice their dark arts, there’s no way for them to display the full range of their talents. Forty years ago, a canny executive could run a team near the top of the league just by getting a rival near an open bottle of whiskey. Today, he has to work for it. There’s always the hope of tomorrow, at least: Sooner or later some GM will be fired, and one can presume that Steve Phillips would not turn down a job if one was offered to him.
Repoz
Posted: May 09, 2008 at 03:12 PM | 64 comment(s)
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1. J. Sosa Posted: May 09, 2008 at 03:52 PM (#2774618)One minor quibble though. The line about four year deals for a backup shortstop brought to mind the alleged wife beater in Boston. That's likely to end up being as ugly or worse than the Meares contract.
That's probably a little unfair to the guy, but until/unless some of the talent he picked up in last year's fire sale pans out, his record is awfully shaky right about now. I still think the Adam Eaton fiasco was the worst trade in MLB since Jeff Bagwell.
I think a fantastic change to the winter meetings would involve mandatory drinking games followed by lightning round trade sessions. The draft should probably be held at that point as well. Also, allow the trading of draft picks.
Whatever happened to that "worst GM" poll anyway?
I think Durocher claimed that Horace worked best WRT swindling other teams when Horace was drunk.
Maybe people decided that, since all GMs make some good and some bad moves (the "sharp" GMs cited in the article being no exception), it's a ridiculous thing to write about?
Well, you start by taking the advice of your medical staff from last year and this year that Reed Johnson's back injury is going to interfere with him being an effective player, and then realizing that if you cut him before opening day you're only responsible for about 20% of his salary, thus saving about $3M.
Then you look at Frank Thomas' vesting option for $10M, and how it seems to take him longer each season to heat up, and how he's currently hitting 0.167, and has no value other than as a hitter. Incidentally, Frank is still slugging less than 0.350 on the season.
Also, Wilkerson will cost the Jays the same amount as Frank Thomas is costing Oakland, so it's not like JP lost money in the deal either.
[To clarify - hitting 0.167 at the time of his release]
A bottle of whiskey is the only thing that explains signing Jose Vidro to an EXTENSION to be your DH. I feel like I'm picking on the M's lately, though I don't mean to. If the A's can't win, I pull for the M's because I like the town and my brother lives up there. It must be maddening rooting for a ball team that is run like the M's.
Which, at $1.9M a year, given the widely agreed upon value of his defense, is essentially an underpay - even as noted in BP2008.
Now, I don't particularly like the idea of signing backups to two year deals, but it's not like this is a "break the bank" issue.
(Hope this doesn't sound too judgemental; I actually do think it's interesting.)
About the topic, I think its because of the internet. You basically have a higher amount of discourse, access to research and amount of information, that it's hard for stupid GM's to be in the dark, not catch on quickly, or not learn from their mistakes.
I just looked it up. 4 years, $36 million. Ouch. That looks like a contract that is going to have to be written off before long.
Not really an extension; a vesting option.
Good point. He must have been drinking the cheap stuff then.
That's why the Legendary Brian Sabean doesn't use a computer!
Yes, because we know how the Boston Red Sox are struggling for cash.
It's a vesting option, actually. But if you want to really pick on Bavasi (and I agree that he and Sabean slug it out for the worst executive, what with Littlefield gone) look no further than the three year extension the M's just gave to Kenji Johjima. And then look to his batting line.
I agree, I think he was referring to Omar as well, given the context of Sabean=bad. I just thought the Theo=good GM part looks odd given the line about a four year deal for a backup shortstop.
Yep. I didn't understand the Johjima extension at all. He'd been good, but not that good and there wasn't much risk of just letting him play out the season and having him become a free agent. I mean, there WAS risk that he'd put up a Posada-like year and then you'd have to fight off half the league for him, but, considering his age and previous performance, the risk of that was less than inking him to the 3 year extension. Do baseball teams have risk management departments? Maybe they freakin should.
Dave Dombrowski of the Tigers is not a dumb GM. In fact, he may be the best GM in all of baseball. Yet he did just what Marchman describes when he dealt Jair Jurrjens and Gorkys Hernandez for Edgar Renteria.
What the hell did the Tigers need Renteria for? Seems to me, they sure could have used Jurrjens in their rotation. At this point in the season, if you were Jim Leyland, who would you rather have in your rotation:
Jurrjens or Kenny Rogers? Jurrjens or Nate Robertson?
Wow, that might be worse than Lugo, though I am sure it was significantly cheaper.
I thought that Carlos Guillen was no longer an option at shortstop?
It's worse than that, actually.
They gave him a three-year deal, then said after the 2007 season, "give me one more year of that, Omar!"
David Murphy 2007: .343 .384 .552
David Murphy 2008: .265 .327 .462
Obviously the 2007 numbers were a bit high. Murphy may not be the end all be all of COF, but he is serviceable with the bat, and pretty good with the glove (depending on where he plays). Milton Bradley is off to a great start (.306 .405 .495). Some of his moves are paying off, but you are right. The players from the Teixeira trade need to live up to the start potential they are receiving. There is a lot to get excited about in the Rangers' minor league system (Max Ramirez who only cost Kenny Lofton), let's just see if they can produce in the majors.
Um, to play shortstop?
Interestingly, Ken Williams was on the verge of signing Omar Vizquel to a two-year deal on those terms when Brian Sabean jumped in and trumped him by adding the third year. That's when Williams bowed out.
Giving Vizquel the extension for '08 was pretty stupid, though.
This is an exact description of the attitude around here. No GM inspires more irrational hate than JP. That being said while I think that JP is a decent to good GM, at some point you have to win. Odds are someone worse will be hired but I'd be willing to take the chance at getting someone with that little piece of magic JP doesn't have.
Well, Salty has struggled in the majors, but he seems like he will come around. Andrus is doing his usual stuff, but he has the ARL thing.
Harrison has struggled after a strong showing in the Fall League. I am surprised. Figured he would be better when healthy.
But Feliz is already putting up great numbers. And many people thought he could be the potential steal in that trade. still looks so.
Well, it was a one year extension. It was probably stupid, but as we all know now the Giants didn't have a single shortstop in the organization capable of starting in AA, let alone the majors. Vizquel was garbage last year, and ancient, but he did have a long history of healthy and intelligent play, and was one of the only recognizable faces on a team so bad that it couldn't even market itself as rebuilding. Had the team, say, signed Eckstein to a 2-year deal, it would have been equally useless. The only attractive free agent name on the market was probably Cesar Izturis ... yipee! Which is to say, I think the Omar re-signing, although stupid, was a certain type of justifiable stupid. (Of course, Sabean himself created all of the miserable context that would justify such an uninspired signing)
I thought that Carlos Guillen was no longer an option at shortstop?
They were moving Guillen to 1B (he simply cannot be an everyday SS anymore, performance or health wise), so they needed an SS. I woulda held the prospects and gotten a FA, but they didn't know they were getting Cabrera and wanted to upgrade the O. Unfortunate but understandable.
David Murphy 2008: .265 .327 .462
Obviously the 2007 numbers were a bit high. Murphy may not be the end all be all of COF, but he is serviceable with the bat, and pretty good with the glove (depending on where he plays). Milton Bradley is off to a great start (.306 .405 .495). Some of his moves are paying off, but you are right. The players from the Teixeira trade need to live up to the start potential they are receiving. There is a lot to get excited about in the Rangers' minor league system (Max Ramirez who only cost Kenny Lofton), let's just see if they can produce in the majors.
Not to mention that the Rangers also got Kason Gabbard who looks like a serviceable back of the rotation guy and Engel Beltre, a decent prospect, all for a rental of Eric Gagne. The Eaton deal was off-the-charts awful but Daniels has at least a mixed record and there's no indication that takes a congenitally bad approach to deals. Certainly Hamilton for Volquez looks like the proverbial "good deal for both teams." The recent drafts have also looked good.
But trading Wilson Betemit for Scott Proctor, ugh. Signing Juan Pierre to that silly contact, ugh. Acquiring guys like Shea Hillennbrand, Nomar Garciaparra and Luis Gonzalez and using them over more qualified and younger players, ugh. Ugh.
That's exactly it, and that's the Sabean years in a nutshell. If Sabean had been fired, a new GM could have come in, signed Vizquel for another year, and simply thrown his hands up and said "WTF was I supposed to do?"
Sabean, on the other hand, has been asleep at the wheel so long that he did nothing to prevent the disaster. Signing Vizquel was probably an improvement - Sabean probably considered giving Izturis a 4-year deal or reanimating the corpse of Neifi! and giving Zombie Neifi a 2-year, $7m deal.
I don't know what he is waiting for
Yeah, the jury is still out for Daniels, but I'm not sure he'll last long enough to see those young guys blossom. I also like the Hamilton trade, despite Volquez doing a Cy Young impression for the Reds. Hamilton's performance has been outstanding, and between the scouting reports, last year, and this year, it's not crazy to think that his true talent level really may be a 140 OPS+ hitter.
jimmy gave a kazmir for z,
billy screamed and then he asked me,
"where have all the bad GMs gone?"
Well, I do recall Texas developing a pretty good starting pitcher a few years back... tall fellow, name started with a Y...
Sigh.
Maybe they need to exchange who jobs. Maybe Sabean can make a decent Star Wars movie, and Lucas can make one decent trade.
I'm hoping for a NL East team he hasn't already GM'd for.
CHARTER: "The Tigers have little chance of winning? Huh."
I'm not sure how much their chance of winning at the time of this trade mattered, being that Detroit, in my opinion, has less of a chance of winning by giving up a needed starting pitcher for a shortstop.
It would have made far more sense, given the strength of their offense and weakness of their rotation, to have acquired a free agent shortstop much cheaper than Edgar Renteria and held on to Jurrjens. I'm not exactly sure who that free agent should have been, but I imagine that some of you have ideas.
To be fair, there was crap on the free agent market at that point. David Eckstein and Cesar Izturis were probably the best options at the time.
Now, if Dombrowski had been a little bit patient, he could have picked up Adam Everett for peanuts, but he had no way of knowing that at the time.
There was a fair bit of Jack Wilson trade talk, but I don't know whether that was mere rumor or if they were close...
I'm probably overstating my point, but I figured Detroit could have done fine with crap at shortstop, if they upgraded their rotation. As it was, by getting rid of Jurrjens, who I understood really was/is a talented pitcher (despite TINSTAAPP), they hurt their pitching, one thing they couldn't afford to do.
And speaking of crap, the A's were shopping Marco Scutaro (career OPS+ 86*), who could have handled the job, with Carlos Guillen filling in now and then. Guillen, after all, played 132 games at shortstop in 2007 for the Tigers.
* Eckstein has a career OPS+ of 88 by comparison. IOW, both are crap offensively.
As a question, what is the average OPS+ for a starting shortstop in modern baseball?
Yeah, really. I think the last time I could name more than two Rangers starters was when they had John Burkett, Kenny Rogers and Rick Helling, or some combination like that.
BTW, the Rangers have been a lot less awful in the last 5 years than I had thought. All 4 of their seasons since trading ARod, they've won more games than in any of the 3 seasons with ARod.
So Eckstein has actually been a slightly above average offensive shortstop (before considering that OPS undervalues players with high OBP, blah, blah blah...). Interesting.
Yup, on Hearts of Oakland.
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