While neither Bavasi or Looper were our candidates of choice, I think we can get lost in the negativity of them ignoring the sabermetrically friendly candidates. While I would have preferred a GM who understood the risks of developing high school players, made moves based on performance rather than potential, and had knowledge of freely available talent, it is possible for an “old-school” GM to be a good GM.
The main complaints about Gillick were:
1. He didn’t manage his budget well, spending lots of money on bad players.
2. He was not creative, choosing only to buy talent through free agency and ignoring other paths of acquisition.
3. He had a strong penchant for veteran players, choosing age over talent.
4. He was ridiculously stubborn, refusing to give an inch when it could gain him a foot.
These are things we will not know about Bavasi or Looper until he takes over. While neither would not have been my choice, they might turn out to exceed our expectations.
Might this be the day we get our new GM? The P-I is reporting that it’s either Benny Looper or Bill Bavasi, while Larry Stone over at the Times is reporting that it’s Bavasi all the way.
Some very minor transactional news; the M’s have inked 6 year minor league free agent OF Ryan Balfe and 1B Bucky Jacobsen. Balfe was in Montreal’s system last year, splitting time between three levels, and generally being a spare part 4th OF who can do a little of everything but nothing well. He turns 27 next week. Jacobsen spent the year in Double-A Tennessee with the Cardinals organization, mashing 31 HR’s, drawing walks, and tearing the league up. Unfortunately, he’s already turned 28, and is essentially the new version of A.J. Zapp.
Also, shortstop Ruben Castillo re-signed with the club.
All of these players will likely be assigned to Tacoma next year, so buy your season tickets now!
My question is this: If they were interested in talking to Billy Beane but denied permission by the A’s, why then did they not even attempt to contact his assistant, Paul DePodesta, whose contract expired on October 31st? To me, asking the A’s for permission on Beane is an indication that they think Oakland has a good thing going. Beane and DePodesta are different men, of course, but are more or less cut from the same cloth. If you can’t get the original, why not at least talk to the protege? Grr.
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This is what banging my head on my keyboard looks like:
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Thank you.
The Seattle Times reports that the GM search is down to three finalists; Benny Looper, Al Avila, and Bill Bavasi. Good candidates like Tim Purpura, Chris Antonetti, and Paul DePodesta were never interviewed. Instead, we get to recycle some old-boy-network scouts. Color me unimpressed.
I guess, at this point, we just hope they sign a short contract. Not surprising, but still disappointing. There will probably have to be a change at the very top before we can purge the organization of the current philosophies.
Rose watch: Pete Rose is bubbling over about his coming reinstatement.
You’ll recall that earlier this year, Baseball Prospectus broke the story that Rose had reached a deal with MLB for his reinstatement. Will Carroll broke it, we wrote it up after getting more confirmation, and MLB flatly denied it. Utterly fallacious, irresponsible journalism. Since then, more and more signs have pointed to it being entirely true, though even as Mike Schmidt denied it he seemed to confirm an agreement was in place.
Now hold that thought for a while, I’ll be back.
When I posted the other day about Ken Cloude signing with Tampa Bay, and that reuniting with Lou might not be the best move for his career, we got a few emails which said, basically, “Yeah, but he’ll be back with Chris Bosio and that’s a good thing.” And I’ll tell you, I was inclined to agree — it was a good point which I missed completely. Today, however, I came across this: “Rays’ Bosio resigns; Chuck Hernandez new pitching coach.” There aren’t really any details about why Bosio chose to resign, other than it was for personal reasons. The story on MLB.com includes this quote: “Right now my family needs me more than baseball does, so I have decided to step down.”
Pelooper — that’s priceless.
So this Edgar thing seems like a good deal, on the surface, but at the same time…
…aw, who am I kidding? I can’t say a single bad word about this. Edgar is the Mariners and the Mariners are Edgar, if that makes any sense at all. If he wants to play until he’s 50 that’s a-OK with me.
I’d like to nominate Edgar to be the first modern player-GM. He’s a DH, he’s got spare time, and even though we know nothing about his talent evaluation abilities, it’d be cool even if it didn’t work, whereas the Pelooper GM is more likely to be sad.