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GM Candidate List Begins To Take Shape

Straight from the best sportswriter in the city:

In search of a replacement for Bill Bavasi, who was fired on June 16, the Mariners will interview Peter Woodfork, the Arizona Diamondbacks assistant general manager; Jerry DiPoto, Diamondbacks director of player personnel; Tony Bernazard, New York Mets vice president of player development; Kim Ng, Los Angeles Dodgers assistant general manager; and Tony LaCava, Toronto Blue Jays assistant general manager.
...
The Mariners are expected to talk to more candidates next week as they aim for an announcement shortly after the World Series.

When you're dealing with people who don't have any prior GM'ing experience, it's impossible to say what they'd be like once granted total control of a roster, but based on a little quick Googling, none of these executives rode the nepotism escalator too close to the sun, so that's a step up from our last guy. There's pretty much no possible way we come out of this looking worse. It's just up to the suits in charge to maximize the degree to which we get better.

Of these five, I think I'm most fond of Woodfork (Harvard! Epstein!) and least fond of Bernazard (Controversy! Subterfuge!), but honestly, I can't say for sure, because we just don't know enough about these people to draw conclusions. It's a mystery, and as easy as it would be to simply judge the candidates based on the organizations for whom they've worked in the past, that's a dangerous and highly misleading approach, because a single organization will employ people with a million different philosophies. Mat Olkin and Bill Bavasi worked for the same team, remember. The same goes for Paul DePodesta and Randy Smith. Hiring someone who worked for the Red Sox isn't guaranteed to work out better than hiring someone who worked for the Orioles, because every front office is a mixed bag. We just have to hope that Armstrong and Lincoln know what they're doing, which, uhhhhh

We'll see which other names come up next week. Barring some nightmare, I think I'll be happy just as long as we avoid hiring some leathery retread. In this case, I'd say better the devil we don't know than the devil we do. If this organization is to persist as a failure, here's to failing differently.

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Fuck Harvard.

I would like this to be over already with a good resolution.

by Matthew on Oct 8, 2008 10:53 AM PDT   0 recs

I haven't really heard the names of too many bad resolutions

Ng, Woodfork, LaCava, whoever – they all seem like improvements, and while the degree of the improvement would differ with each candidate, what’s important is that it’s progress.

by Jeff on Oct 8, 2008 4:07 PM PDT to parent up   0 recs

Oh, that was a joke.

I’m actually pretty happy about the candidate list. Woo failing differently.

by eponymous_coward on Oct 8, 2008 11:36 AM PDT to parent up   0 recs

Can we assume these are their five top choices?

If so, that looks pretty promising. At least compared with what the pessimistic side of me was expecting.

I guess there might be a candidate currently working for one of the four organizations that are still playing.

by Teej on Oct 8, 2008 10:58 AM PDT   0 recs

They moved the timeline back from the last time I checked

They had originally hoped to announce right before the WS

by Robert on Oct 8, 2008 11:07 AM PDT to parent up   0 recs

That's my bet

I am just about willing to place any amount of money on Ng getting the job

by Robert on Oct 8, 2008 11:08 AM PDT to parent up   0 recs

I am shocked, terribly shocked that would be said about a woman.

I mean, really, the ultimate old boys club intimating a woman who’d been working in MLB for that long not being ready? Next we’ll be hearing about how blacks may not have some of the necessities to be, let’s say, a field manager, or, perhaps, a general manager from some Dodgers executive or something.

Say, come to think of it, can’t we hire another one of Buzzy Bavasi’s kids?

by eponymous_coward on Oct 8, 2008 11:40 AM PDT to parent up   0 recs

As opposed to the retreads that are?

Look, if you’re not “ready” for a promotion after 10+ years of working in your chosen field, you’re basically saying the person is Bill Bavasi, and it’s not a matter of being “ready”, any more than Willie Bloomquist isn’t “ready” to hit 50 home runs in a season- it’s a matter of “can’t do the job and they’ve hit their ceiling”. (Bill’s problem was people seem quite willing to let him prove the Peter Principle’s applicability to MLB.)

Given that MLB executives have given any number of bad GMs multiple bites at the apple, I’m really skeptical that we should judge who’s “ready” and who isn’t based on whispered scuttlebutt- especially since baseball has a history of being old-boys-networked, insular, and resistant to change.

by eponymous_coward on Oct 8, 2008 12:26 PM PDT to parent up   0 recs

I'm pretty sure there'd be Negro Leagues if people always took that attitude.

Sometimes, you need to tell the baseball old boys network to perform the anatomically impossible when it comes to their ways of thinking. Thank God Billy Beane’s always been wiling to do that as necessary.

by eponymous_coward on Oct 8, 2008 12:39 PM PDT to parent up   0 recs

And this team isn't seriously looking a retreads

In fact Kim Ng has been around Baseball for the longest of all these names.

by Robert on Oct 8, 2008 12:53 PM PDT to parent up   0 recs

A lot of people like her

I’m trying to remember why.

I can’t imagine that “Ng will likely be the first woman GM in baseball history and here’s why she won’t be good at it” would be a very popular opinion, but has anyone ever tried it?

by Jeff on Oct 8, 2008 3:42 PM PDT to parent up   0 recs

Ng and LaCava are my favorite picks of the bunch.

Here’s a Baseball Prospectus interview conducted almost 5 years ago. Her top strengths include agents, players, and other club executives. Unless her opinions have changed in the last few years her ideal team to build would be more like how the Yankees are built. BUT she’s definitely aware that it’s going to differ from club to club. She’s aware of ballpark factors. She would put emphasis on scouting an player evaluation and acquire a manager who’s good with young players and is a great strategist.

It’s tough to say whether she’s on top of the latest statistical tools. She believed that stats don’t tell everything but she’s also an analytical person.

I think she would be a surprisingly good fit here.

by ThundaPC on Oct 8, 2008 3:47 PM PDT to parent up   0 recs

I had forgotten about that interview.

Thanks for the link reminder.

I can say that I am a proponent of being strong up the middle offensively.

Bad news, Yuni.

by Jeff on Oct 8, 2008 4:03 PM PDT to parent up   0 recs

What does she mean by "Yankees?"

Post 2000’s roster construction like Silva, Wright, Pavano signings; or the build-from-within Jeter, Williams core? This is important. I’m assuming it’s the latter because I can’t imagine her being stupid after what I’ve read about her.

by Double06 on Oct 8, 2008 5:11 PM PDT to parent up   0 recs

Realistically?

If you’re using ME as a touchstone to judge the caliber of MLB front office employees, you should be fired. So I won’t presume to judge her qualifications per se outside of what I’ve heard in the press making her a plausible candidate.

My observation is simply that “ready” has a high likelihood of being a cop-out that covers other reasons (ala “resigned to spend time with family” and other corporate-speak), plus considering who the average MLB senior executive thinks is “ready” for the job, it’s not altogether certain THEY know what they are doing that well, either.

by eponymous_coward on Oct 9, 2008 2:38 AM PDT to parent up   0 recs

Does the Ready Fairy just show up one day and sprinkle Magic Ready Dust, then?

Seriously, she’s been an assistant GM for 10 years. Do you seriously think you can do a job for ten years, and not be “ready” for a promotion, and that actually stand for anything other than a code word for “she’s maxed out her usefulness to a MLB front office, and does not have what it takes to be deserve a promotion”?

Or, to put it another way- Kim Ng has been an AGM for as long as Billy Beane’s been a GM. 10 years before Billy Beane was a GM, he was playing baseball for the Minnesota Twins, let alone actually being in a front office.

Basically, if she isn’t “ready” after 10 years, it’s hard to see what makes her “ready”.

by eponymous_coward on Oct 9, 2008 2:33 AM PDT to parent up   0 recs

Pronounced as Ing I think it is

Pronounced as Ang I think is Chinese

Determined, Jonesing Commentor | Proud proprietor of Washingtonhighways.org

by I'm NOT Corco on Oct 9, 2008 9:08 AM PDT to parent up   0 recs

From Stones article on Friday
John Hart, who built the Indians’ powerhouse of the 1990s, could emerge as a candidate, as well as former San Diego and Detroit GM Randy Smith, currently the Padres’ director of international scouting.

Another potential candidate with strong credentials is former Dodgers GM Dan Evans, who left a Mariners advisory position after last season to become president and CEO of West Coast Sports Management, a Southern California firm that represents pro baseball players.

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/mariners/2008224010_mari03.html

by Robert on Oct 8, 2008 11:03 AM PDT   0 recs