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Saturday, May 27, 2006
Hey, look! The Royals have a plan for something important.
The Royals have offered the job of general manager to Braves assistant Dayton Moore but are ready to move on to other candidates if the two sides can’t reach agreement by this weekend.
The only major hang-up to an agreement, multiple sources have told The Star, is Moore’s demand that he receive written assurance of complete control over personnel matters from club owner David Glass.
If that proves to be a deal-breaker, the Royals appear ready to move into negotiations with former Phillies general manager Ed Wade and/or former Tigers and Padres general manager Randy Smith.
Nevermind.
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1. Textbook Editor Posted: May 27, 2006 at 08:06 PM (#2040035)Seriously, the only way the Royals could be a bigger joke than they already are is for them to hire Ed Wade. I can see Rob & Rany's heads exploding if they hire him.
They couldn't work out a Dual Duquette operation?
The Glass family, who made their names in cheap retail, not in baseball, want to control the next GM.
Danny Glass is the President of the Team, and he has that job because his father is the owner of the team.
If they don't hire Dayton Moore, then the Glass family is not committed to winning.
PERIOD.
I don't think he'd have the luxury to satisfy that sweet tooth if he were the GM of a low budget franchise. Are there other shortcomings that make him especially inept?
(Note: I'm not trying to argue Wade is a good GM. I'm just not sure he belongs in the category with Smith, Bonifay, etc.)
Trading Polanco for Ramon Martinez and Flamey McStab was pretty egregiously awful, I think.
C- Estrada
1B - Howard
2B - Utley
SS - J-Roll
3B - Rolen
LF - Burrell
CF - Michaels
RF - Victorino
P - Myers, Madson, Floyd, Hamles, Wolf, Geary, Elizardo Ramirez, Buckholtz, Eaton, Tejeda
Obviously not as good on the pitching side, but this team was largely built in-house, and with players drafted and developed under Wade. His trades were pretty bad, especially Schilling and Rolen, and of course, Polanco and Bell were bad moves, but overall, not bad. I don't know if Wade considered himself a Moneyball guy, but the team is always up there on Neyer's Beane Count.
I grant there's at least a possibility that Wade could do a good job in another situation. That is not true of Randy Smith.
No, hiring Randy Smith would.
and why is randy smith considered here?
I'm sure he was recommended by Glass' buddy, Drayton McLane. His father, Tal Smith, is President of baseball operations for the Houston Astros.
Steve Phillips would insist on throwing Alex Gordon and Billy Butler in the deal. We'd probably have to give up Mike Adams in return.
The Royals would be an attractive team for a GM who wants to make a name for himself. Sweeney is the only major salary commitment; almost nobody is on the books past next year. Plus, you have to think that even modest improvements would yield big dividends relative to the Royals as they stand; if you put together a $50 million team next year and were even moderately competent about it, you'd have a good chance to improve the team by 20-odd games.
Personally, I think the "DePodesta approach" to GM jobs is exactly wrong. At least as outlined in Moneyball, DePodesta was waiting for a big-money team with an established major league roster offered him a spot. Of course, when he actually took a job like that, he found out that everybody was pretty content with the way things had been working and saw no reason to change. Much better to take a job with a team that's bottoming out: then you've got a built-in rationale and fan constituency for doing things differently than before.
If the Royals start looking at retreads, I actually wouldn't mind if they interviewed DePodesta himself. A lot of the causes of his downfall in LA would be significantly diluted in KC, plus there's that built-in rationale for doing things differently than before in KC that wasn't there in LA. Given that my number-one desire in a GM is a guy who is willing to actually work out the expected runs scored, runs allowed, and wins for his roster before conducting the experiment on the ballfield, I wouldn't mind DePodesta.
Braves assistant GM. Was considered JSs eventual sucessor.
Considered by just about everyone to be the top, or at worst one of the top 2 or 3, GM prospects out there.
Are you suggesting that the Royals job provides "the elbow room to do things differently"? It seems to me like the evidence with Baird, and with the Glasses not yet signing authority over to Moore, is that the problem with the KC job is precisely the lack of elbow room.
..Scary thing is, I could actually see this happening.
The plight of the Royals has been very well documented and even the semi-informed national analyst is likely to blame ownership as much as anything else for the Royals suckiness. If the Royals don't get their candidate -- and by engaging in this level of discussing, it would seem that Moore is willing to play ball -- the only reason that the Royals failed is (a) the Glasses failed to stop meddling or (b) they lowballed him with salary.
I think that the public fallout for either reason would too great and the Glasses are going to have to bite the bullet -- especially with salary since they just won financing for a "new" Kaufmann and they are being called out nationally for not spending their revenue dollars as it is. They might be willing to draw a line in the sand about meddling ... but if they do, I would think that they would take a huge hit at the gate. Telling your fanbase that you aren't willing to trust your #1 candidate to run the team right and they still want the owner's kid to be able to play with his dad's toy is just a horrible, horrible message.
Had this story not "leaked" I could easily see President Dan Glass telling Moore where he could stick it. Not sure he can anymore.
That being said, whomever gets hired at any position is likely going to look like a genius as the Royals are likely to revert to their mean true wp for the remainder of the season, which is probably around .350 to .375. It is also awfully hard not to improve on a team of this poor a caliber next year, even on a limited budget, so again, the new GM is probably going to look pretty good, at least for a while, no matter who it is.
mgl, I like the way you think.
I believe he is one of the worst managers in baseball history
Would that make him better or worse than Boone and Muser?
The Royals need more hitters like Esteban German.
Because the ballboy pulled a hamstring and they need a short-term replacement.
Randy Smith would fire Buddy Bell, again.
Granted.. Bell wouldn't be so stupid as to provoke his own firing again.
Maybe.
I wonder if Marty Brown wants to come back to the US in 2007.
Random fun Frank White fact
Frank until 29 (1973-1980): .252/.287/.354, 133 doubles, 31 triples, 39 homers, 77 OPS+
Frank at 30 and after (1981-1990): .257/.296/.401, 274 doubles, 27 triples, 121 homers, 91 OPS+
Probably the rare sort of player who made himself much more valuable at 30 and after. He averaged 15 HRs per 162 games at 30 and after and 6 HRs per 162 from 22 to 29.
And some of those years in the 80s, Frank smashed lefties.
Anyways...
Two other managers who intrigue me are
1) Ken Oberkfell (Norfolk)
2) Tony DeFrancesco (Sacramento)
Anybody got any thoughts about either of those guys?
The Nats are hardly hog-tied if Moore does go to KC... not only is Wren a readily available candidate, but they could look to poach one of the other hotshot assistants. Once the new ownership is in place, the Nats' GM position will be a very attractive job. You get to rebuild a team on a long-term timetable with a sizeable budget, and with no pressure to win before the new stadium is completed. There will be a lot of interested people.
The problem here is not all David Glass.
The problem is mainly Danny Glass, who is the President of the team, because his dad owns the team.
Pre-Ed Wade
1996 67-95
1997 68-94
Ed Wade's first year (moved up in March, I think, so you can decide whether he gets credit/blame/nothing for this)
1998 75-87
Ed Wade "Era"
1999 77-85
2000 65-97
2001 86-76
2002 80-81
2003 86-76
2004 86-76
2005 88-74
So he took a team that had really plummeted after the magic 1993 season, pushed them a little toward mediocrity, suffered a miserable setback in 2000, then initiated a 5 year string in which they averaged 86 wins a year.
Of course, he had more money to play with, especially by the end. And the main complaint a Phillies fan can make is that the Phillies had more obvious holes than any other contender the last couple of years. Wade seemed to do nothing to fill them, either creatively or uncreatively (third base last year) and the team came up just short. That's major league frustrating.
There's another. They could hire Randy Smith, who may well be the worst front office person of any kind in the history of sports. Randy wasn't about the flashy kind of stupid move that gets everyone's attention; his MO was a relentless erosion of every positive quality that a franchise can have. Randy Smith arrived at the office each morning and found new ways to make his team worse in the short term, the medium term, and the long term.
Someone above hinted that the Randy Smith Tigers averaged 100 losses per year. That's grossly unfair; they actually averaged only 98 losses a year.
More troubling, Randy Smith's good qualities, such as they are, seem to me to be pretty much a carbon copy of Allard Baird's good qualities. They've produced startlingly similar on-field results as well, though Baird leaves his organization in much better shape than Smith left that Wreck of the Medusa that some called the Tigers.
Yes. Wade has no redeeming qualities.
Ed Wade is perfect for the job though, if the primary job responsibility is "ownership lackey." However, the Royals could do worse, Chuck Lamar is available.
The Bears had a similar organizational structure, and still do. Nepotism is no way to run a team. It never works and it promotes incompetence.
Well, it works in the sense that the owning family makes millions of dollars. In the case of the Bears that's even sadder. They're just riding Halas's and Jim Finks's accomplishments to a paycheck.
I'd still prefer a Dierker or Art Howe with some winning MLB managerial experience.
Jo Po calls out the Glasses and endorses Moore
I don't know enough about Dierker to make a call on him.
We should get a manager who is good with handling young players.
Any body got any suggestions when it comes to that?
Anna Benson? < hiccup >
For example, in 2005, Kauffman Stadium was once again a good hitters park, and a very poor park for home runs. Walks are pretty much the same, while strikeouts are reduced in Kauffman Stadium due to the excellent sightlines.
The fact that only RFK, Pro Player, and Petco were worse for homers in 2005 should be a good hint to any GM that it would be a bad idea to sign guys who are most valuable due to their HR hitting abilities. Like Reggie Sanders.
Kauffman Stadium will probably stay on the low part of the totem pole when it comes to homers. Unless the fences are moved again.
Preferably by making as many trades as possible involving Brad Ausmus.
Randy Smith's best quality as a GM was being lucky enough for Juan Gonzalez to be stupid enough to turn down his 8 year/$140 M contract offer. That contract would have run through 2008!!
That just made me nauseous. Can you imagine?
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