DePodesta fired
LA Times, elsewhere.
The Dodgers didn’t have a great season, certainly. But what’s most interesting to me is the extent that the daily press in LA took him down. DePodesta was subject to almost constant criticism of his every move that often ranged freely into personal attacks on him (Jeff’s talked about this here only a few weeks ago). Dave and I both said that we thought the Dodgers had a horrible off-season (others disagreed), and the season turned out badly.
But does his on-the-job performance justify getting canned this early? It seems as if they’re reacting much more to the perception of his work, rather than what he actually has done since coming on, and have decided to bow to the meme-makers.
Sports columnists across the country must be breaking out the champagne. If you’re nasty enough and loud enough for long enough, and your ownership’s weak-willed, you can bring down a GM in two years.
Comments
101 Responses to “DePodesta fired”
Given the problem with public perception (if the fans think the GM’s an idiot, they’ll have less faith in the team when it struggles), it’s likely a sort of machiavellian job, where it’s better to appear competent than actually to be competent.
On the flip side, the LA columnists suddenly have nothing to write about.
DePodesta didn’t have a very good offseason, but he made some decent deadline moves the previous year. If I had to wager, I’d say he’ll be a GM somewhere else within two years.
2- hopefully in seattle.
Perhaps we just need to be nastier and louder then, however I indict ownership for our current state of disrepair far more than I do Bavasi. Depo was outed for being exactly what he was, a Billy Beane ultralight lackey, a stat head (God love ‘em, I’m one too) without a shred of leadership ability. Their very questionable offseason combined with the highly suspect (aside from Finley) moves they made down the stretch in 2004 (LoDuca, Encarnacion and Mota for Penny and Choi) showed Depo to be more Wonder Bread than Boy Wonder. When stars like Gagne are trying to get themselves traded as a last resort because they so despise the current regime, it’s probably far wiser to depose Depo than to continue the exodus of player talent. Still, more than a little surprising given the remaining three years on his contract. Must have felt a tad bit lonely for Depo when he wasn’t invited to the McCourt/Lasorda/Hershiser sitdown earlier in the week. It’ll be interesting to watch Orel in the dugout next year, The Bulldog is far more suited in a leadership role than DePodesta ever was…
“It has been said in many baseball circles that DePodesta is a wonderful front-office No. 2, and a hopelessly swamped No. 1.” – LA Times
Depodesta’s fatal error was bringing in Bradley(Gasoline) and Kent(an open flame)and downplaying the importance of a civil clubhouse. There is a large fan base that still is angry over trading LoDuca away for Brad Penny who got injured right away. I also think LA columnists couldn’t understand the timing of the big trade and Depo trading away Mota who was insurance for Gagne. And that’s exactly what happened to Gagne, he went down. Penny’s season last year should have justified the LoDuca trade, but the national televised embarassment of Kent vs Bradley proved too much. Fans and the media expect a champion and are not willing to wait 6 years for a GM to fix a team.
I hope this doesn’t encourage other cities to become MORE like the Boston and New York media.
This spells trouble for the Dodgers. If McCourt is so weak-willed that he will fire his GM after two years, then he is likely apt to make other quick, ill-fated decisions based upon the prevailing winds of blowhards like Plaschke. It is hard to imagine firing a GM after two years. How effectively can one judge the impact of trades, drafts, and the minor leagues? When GMs are hired, they need at least 3 to 4 years before it becomes clear whether or not they are having a positive, negative, or neutral effect. Maybe Depo would have had net negative effect, but that is not clear from his two years in charge. After all, the Dodgers won their division half the time Depo was running the organization.
Bavasi has been here 2 years, yet 90% of M’s fans are calling for his head.
Gillick has interviewed for the Phillie’s GM. I wonder if that would make Philly a more likely trade partner?
True Todd, but it’s not always a simplistic 50/50 proposition. Sometimes the horrificly bad (2005) can so outweigh the good (2004) that the future course can be pretty well ascertained given Depo’s obvious lack of leadership skills. Bill Plaske’s artful prose didn’t get Depo fired, Tommy Lasorda and Frank McCourt did…
While I was surprised to hear that DePodesta was let go, I don’t think we can necessarily conclude that two years is too soon to evaluate him. It’s enough time to judge his work based on results in the field. However, it could have been clear to those on the inside of Dodger management that DePodesta doesn’t have the management skills (or some other skill, say time pressured decision-making or negotiations) that is critical to success as a GM. I’m not saying that DePodesta doesn’t have those skills. I don’t know him and I’m certainly not an insider. However, I do not think it is accurate to state that there is no way to judge him based on two years’ performance. It really depends on why McCourt decided to fire him go.
General manager is a extraordinarily difficult job that requires a huge range of skills. Baseball analyis is one of the most visible of the required skills, and about the only one those of us in the public can judge a GM on, but being a hard-working smart baseball guy is not nearly enough.
It will be interesting to see where he lands. Based only on what I’ve read of him (Moneyball and interviews with him), I suspect that DePodesta will learn from his LA experience and be a terrific GM down the road. I hope so, but I’d urge caution in concluding that he was fired because of bad press. He might have been, but short of McCourt admitting as much, we won’t have much evidence unless a pattern develops.
My comment should have read: “it’s NOT enough time to judge his work based on results in the field.”
To have concluded that the LA media got DePo fired is not good analysis. They (and the DePo skeptics in the Dodger fanbase) hate the McCourts MORE afterall. (You’d be surprised how many unprintable Mcversions they have of the McCourts name on Dodger Blues.)
View this as a pattern of the McCourts regime. The McCourts (and DePo for that matter) have canned a lot of front office personnel and not just from the baseball side.
Yes, two years is not enough. But his next move was reportedly to add in Terry Collins into the Jeff Kent/Milton Bradley mix.
Smells likes a Lasorda/Bobby Valentine type coup.
If not, Vin Scully you’re next.
Stay tuned.
Lord, if Vin ever leaves unnaturally it will be a sure sign of impending Armageddon on Planet Earth. I sat next to Terry Collins’ dad for a ST game at Tempe Diablo once, nice guy…
9- it would be amazing if gillick is actually infiltrating philadelphia only to trade ryan howard to seattle for a pittance.
Re: 5 – Mota was hurt last year as well, and was replaced by Todd Joens.
2 years isn’t long enough to evaluate a GM, unless it’s a total disaster that you can point to the GM (and before anyone thinks I’m implying Bavasi, the team’s farm system was a wreck with him coming in, and has had far more to do with the M’s sucking wind than anything else.).
rotoworld.com frowns on Depo dismissal:
http://www.rotoworld.com/content/playerpages/player_main.asp?sport=MLB&id=4826
Given the degree to which Bradley’s (before injury) and Kent’s strong play help prop up the rest of a sagging team, I’d say that their signings represent reasons to keep DePo. And the extent that the LoDuca trade is perceived as a negative one for LA and for DePo, that’s largely a mirage perpetuated by the (surprise!) LA press; LoDuca just didn’t have that great a season last year or this year, where Choi represents a potential star.
It bodes ill for the poor Dodgers that rather than being allowed to learn the skills he didn’t have coming into the job, DePodesta is being run out by an owner who worries too much about what the papers say and some of the most willfully stupid sports writers in the country.
#5
The Dodgers didn’t lose because of poor chemistry. They lost because of a massive number of injuries.
NBarnes, I think it’s the intangibles that you’re perhaps overlooking. LoDuca (never been his biggest fan) and his departure apparently left a vacuum in the clubhouse in regards to leadership. Despite good numbers, Logie is correct in that a Bradley/Kent marriage was doomed to fail if you looked even superficially at their individual personalities and character traits.
Which once again brings up the most cogent argument against Depo, that he’s so far deep in the statistical weeds that he becomes startlingly myopic when it comes to the strategic decisions he makes, or doesn’t make.
Choi a potential star? I respectfully disagree. In fact, it would surprise the hell out of me given that next year he’ll be a 27 year old 1B sporting only a career .786 OPS. Glorified platoon player would probably be more accurate IMHO.
Leadership is a skill that is probably more innate ability than learned behavior, especially when a strong leader like Lasorda who could prove to be both a valuable mentor and ally seems to have turned on you, apparently pretty much from the get-go…
Maybe we can get them to take Bavasi off our hands next. Since he is the “architect of the Championship Angels”. LOL
If I were Lincoln, I would be sending an updated Bavasi resume to the front office of the L.A. Dodgers along with a basket of muffins and some beluga caviar.
Choi is a career .151 hitter vs. LHP over the course of his five year MLB career…
While this is way too quick of a trigger on DePo — why sign someone to a five-year deal if you have so little faith in him — it’s a blessing for him.
The Dodgers situation is bad. The team has little to no grasp at how bad they are — there’s too much focus on close they were to the Padres until the last two weeks and little honesty about the fact that they are the second worst team in the NL, playing .400 ball for most of the season. Despite a huge revenue stream, the owners are unwilling to bump the payroll to the $100M level it will take to avoid a three-year rebuilding cycle.
Better for DePo and LA to start fresh now instead of waiting until after next year’s 75-80 win season. And someone else gets to deal with the Derek Lowe mess.
Quick! Quick! Fire Bavasi and hire DePodesta! Before it’s too late!
What makes DePodesta more attractive than Bavasi?
Didn’t Bavasi do exactly what we wanted last winter?
I live in LA. The team was BRUTAL this year. Yes, some of the injuries couldn’t be helped, but signing JD Drew was a horrible mistake. Drew is on the record saying he will only play at 100%, not 90%, not 95%. Dave and others went on record last year saying that Dep had one of the worst offseasons in 04.
He may be a good stats analyst, but he definitely showed this year that he doesn’t have the people skills necessary to be an effective GM. That is seen all the time in football, when someone is a good assistant, but a bad head coach.
I wanna see the stats that gave him the idea that Derek Lowe would be a good signing for that crazy number, that was his one move that shocked me.
I said last year that I would hold criticism of Bavasi until after the offseason was over. I think he had a very good offseason, and then dealt decisively and well with our midseason issues (Boone, Olivo) and opportunities (Villone, Winn). Also, from what I read here, the state of our minor leagues seems to be improving under his leadership.
Not everything he has done has worked out perfectly, but he seems to be making good, sound decisions.
Blaming Choi for poor results this season when he spend the entire season getting jerked around in unconscionable fashion by Jim Tracy is a tad unfair. And replacing Loduca’s .285 .339 .417 bat with Jeff Kent’s .289 .377 .512 bat ought to make up for a lot of clubhouse leadership. As has been said many times before, by people more steeped in baseball than I, there’s a word to describe the men in a clubhouse that can lead but cannot hit; we call them ‘coaches’.
#26: Bavasi didn’t do everything we wanted last winter. Yes, he did good in getting two top-drawer free agents in Richie Sexson and Adrian Beltre (maybe I’m alone in this, but I look at Beltre’s 2005 on its own merits and am not terribly unhappy with it  his glove bought back a lot of the runs he lost with his bat).
But he didn’t go out and get another starying pitcher, despite having the money to do so. He hung on to too many declining, overpriced and unproductive veterans, hoping for the best despite overwhelming objective analytical evidence that nothing good was likely to come from Boone, Spiezio, Hasegawa, etc. He made some poor personnel decisions (for example, Thornton over Sherrill, an evaluation that couldn’t possibly have been made by Hargrove/Price).
Most of all, I just don’t see evidence of a firm plan rooted in a credible philosophy.
I believe he works hard, tries hard and loves baseball. He seems to be good at building relationships. But that doesn’t add up to a general manager who knows how to create a winner.
That being said, I think he’s made enough moves that have either worked or deserve more time to be evaluated, and for that, I support Bavasi being brought back for a third season.
DePo won’t be out of work long… if nothing else, he could hook back up with Beane & Co. in Oakland until another job comes up.
First of all, I don’t think you can say that there was overwhelming statistical evidence against the resurgence of Bret Boone, given that the authors of this very blog were torn on the subject. The same goes for Spiezio – a lot of us were looking for a rebound season, but it just didn’t happen. Bavasi dumped the former when it was clear that he had a substitute ready, and he dumped the latter when it was clear that he was totally out of gas. Hasegawa, meanwhile, got bumped to low-leverage mop-up work.
Bavasi has made his share of bad decisions, but it’s clear – at least to me – that this is a team on the rise, and that it has a guy running the show who’s willing to go out and bring in an impact player when the need is there. He’s far from perfect, but I don’t see any reason to fire him and hire someone else, given that there aren’t any obvious improvements who are currently unemployed. DePodesta certainly doesn’t look like one.
2 years may not be long enough to judge results on the field, but it may be entirely too long for results in other aspects of the organization. Morale, leadership, abillity to communicate effectively, ability to play nice with others, treating people with respect, being able to earn the respect of others, etc.
We don’t know any of this stuff, so really, assuming that McCourt made a bad decision in firing DePodesta, or assuming that anybody else (like us) would make a good decision by hiring him – based SOLELY on his characterization in Moneyball and a few interviews here or there, all focusing on stats-based analysis of players and not on other aspects of a GMs job is, well, kinda silly don’t you think? Is that not the equivalent of judging a pitcher solely on speed of fastball, and ignoring ERA or strike/ball ratio? Is it not the equivalent of judging a player solely on OBP and ignoring the defects of his glove?
#33: I think everybody was in agreement about the decline of Bret Boone in 2005  just not to the extent that it actually happened. Seems to me we all though he would be, at best, a replacement-level 2B. I don’t know that there was any reason other than wishcasting to expect a rebound from Spiezio.
The rest I agree with.
Dave: I don’t expect another massive slide for Boone, at least not this year. I think he’ll hit something like he did last year or maybe a slight improvement, say .260/.320/.440, which is still a pretty decent second baseman.
…
Actually, I think Lou Whittaker is a pretty decent comparison. Not
perfect, but decent. Boone doesn’t possess Whittaker’s ability to control the strike zone, but both were .270-.300 hitters with some pop despite not being over 6’0 tall. And though he couldn’t stay healthy at the end of his career, Whittaker was a pretty good hitter until the day he retired. So maybe I’m underestimating Boone a little bit.
Derek: I agree, though I also think there’s a bounce possible. Even the bad-hitting pre-Mariner Boone hit better than last year’s version.
Jeff: Once again, I am in concordance with what Dave and Derek have said. One small addendum: I think continued productivity by Jeff Kent (a player of similar vintage, and Boone’s top PECOTA comparison) indicates that a rebound is possible.
Jason: Assuming those problems are gone, we should see a small bounce back in his offensive numbers. I think we should look for something similar to his 2002 season  I’ll say he posts a .270/.340/.480 line.
Peter: (I’m not sure which part to quote, but he didn’t sound very pessimistic.)
Huh. Well, nothing like being wrong across the board … me included.
w/r/t Boone — I wouldn’t say optimism was blooming, though — the 2004 version or even a possible bounce to pre-Mariner bad Boone was still not worth his deal, but I’d characterize my feeling on that as “meh, they’re on the hook for this year, his value’s low, he shouldn’t be quite that bad, and moreover, there are other priorities where there aren’t huge contracts in place”
Baaaaaaaaaack to DePodesta: let’s say you believe a GM has to do a certain number of things, like
- construct a team
- build a front office
- build good relationships with other GMs
- be the public face of the front office
There’s no evidence that DePodesta was a horrible trade partner that other GMs dreaded talking to (ala Bowden, LaMar, the Orioles).
If you include handling the media as part of the PR, he certainly had issues there, and was never able to win over local coverage.
On constructing a team, though, the Dodgers were a mixed bag. DePodesta did a lot of good, and he also made some moves people like Dave and I hashed on him for (and other statheads defended, if that helps). He’s certainly not a horrible GM.
I wonder if DePodesta might not have been better served to start smaller as a GM, if that makes sense — if he took over in Tampa this year as his first GM gig, for instance, he’d be able to start from scratch, with a lot more latitude, and be able to slowly work through the things that hit him immediately in L.A. and tripped him up. Plus, any progress the organization makes is his to take credit for, while there’s cover for some initial fumbling and experimentation.
maybe his problem was not taking over as GM of the Red Sox….
I got the impression DePo had very little “public face” … and I half-wonder if that’s really what the press was punishing him for  not being a genial, schmoozy, reporter-accommodating figure.
On what DMZ said, if I were DePo, Tampa Bay is looking really good to me right now, assuming that I get the sense from the ownership that I’ll have the control I need to make the franchise go somewhere. And turning Tampa Bay around and getting recognized for it would be a good rebuttal to the way McCourt jerked me around in LA.
Frankly, I see a great deal of reason for pessimism for Dodgers fans. LA’s farm system is strong, but with McCourt essentially on record as having no patience, the next GM has some bad incentives to trade good young players for marquee ‘name’ players, and that ends in some very bad places.
If I was DePodesta, I don’t know that I would necessarily have Tampa at the top of my list. It seems like he’d be pretty clearly at odds with their current minor league talent evaluation process, which seems to be pretty clearly in the tools-only mold, rather than the tools and stats mold. Maybe that wouldn’t be such a big hurdle, though.
#43: That philosophy may have been the doing of the departed Chuck LaMar and Cam Bonifay.
Surely that had something to do with it, but I just wonder how prevelant that philosophy is throughout the rest of the front office. A lot of people beyond the GM are involved in personnel decisions, especially at the lower levels of the organization, and it might be a pain to have to replace a lot of the staff. Then again, if he was given the freedom to appoint most of the staff, it might be a good kind of problem to have.
I think Depo’s 2004 deadline moves were great. The Drew deal was a bit of a head scratcher, Drew is a fantasic player, but I cannot see how they could justify that type of money with no injury out clause.
The whole Kent/Bradley thing was overplayed and overblown by the media (which had a personal vendetta against him from the start). The *real* reason the Dodgers failed? Injuries, plain and simple, they had over half the lineup on the DL for an extended period, plus Eric Gagne. I don’t know how anyone could expect the, to complete with half their lineup and their closer on the DL.
I don’t think he is the greatest GM, but he’s far from the worst. He’ll learn from his mistake he made in LA. I’d be thrilled if the M’s fired Bavasi and hired him.
…that said, he showed a real lack of leadership when he traded Lo Duca. They aren’t just Strato cards.
I do think its unfair that he’ll be dismissed while the next in ine (Hershiser)? will take the credit for the farm system he built.
Mat: Don’t think that I’m claiming to know for a fact that Tampa Bay would be a good place for DePodesta. I’m just saying maybe it represents an interesting opportunity and challenge for him. Of course we can’t know for certain, because we’re not in a position to really know the details of their operation (or of DePo’s mind, for that matter).
JI: What you said about Kent/Bradley being overblown. Chemistry comes from winning, not the other way around. Nobody would have cared if the Dodgers hadn’t had the awful injury problems they had this year and, as a result, sucked enough to have people making issues out of things that would have been overlooked on successful teams.
And, yes, the Drew deal with no injury out was a weird idea to think is good, even if Drew had a great 2004 and was on pace for a great 2005 before spontaneously combusting.
The Peter Principle – In a Hierarchy Every Employee Tends to Rise to His Level of Incompetence.
guess we know why McDowell isn’t the Ms pitching coach:
Braves name Roger McDowell pitching coach– ESPN.com
The Dodgers and the Angels are in a major media struggle for fanbase; Moreno understands that, and so does McCourt. DePodesta was loathed by the fans, and a terrible lightning rod for the media; he was a stone liability in that media struggle, therefore, and his firing was not only inevitable but essential. Of course, McCourt is even more intensely disliked, but he can mitigate _that_ factor by hiring a smoothie of a GM to stand out front while McC. himself hides own face until the team starts winning. This firing wasn’t really about DePodesta’s moves or analysis, then, to me.
Not that I’m sure by any means DePodesta deserved more time on the basis of those moves and analysis. He moved a lot of bodies, and bet a lot of money. The team still stinks, and there’s turmoil among key players. That’s, well, bad. I’m of the view, really, that two years is enough. That won’t get you deep into the playoffs, but should get a winning record. It is discussed on this blog, in many fine details, that there is a significant volume of free talent in the minors and on big league benches, to fill out a squad. A couple of big signings in the middle of that, and the record is positive, and all that while a farm system is put right. If a GM can’t bring it off, he’s second-tier or worse, usually worse. Why wait? Pressure? Goes with the pay grade, mates.
I doubt that DePo has the personality to _ever_ cut it as a successful GM. He’ll eventually get a chance to prove me wrong, if he can. I sincerely hope that it’s not with the Ms; no way. Grady Fuson, now: yes, in a minute. Cashman would have been great, but he likes the view where he is, so.
#51 Except one big thing. McCourt ain’t going into hiding. He’s got a ton of family members on the payroll including his wife.
Imagine if one of those know it all Red Sox fans actually owned a team. Well, it’s happened.
I think the competing with Moreno angle is true, but I suspect the LaSorda angle as well.
I can’t wait for McCourt to rename Dodger Stadium or fire Vin Scully.
I think management wouldn’t make so much money if Mark would quit eating 47 hot dogs at every home game at the Safe!
But really the question is what actually did the GM do and what could he have done better? The Dodgers seemed to have a myraid of issues whether they were injuries, ineffectiveness, clubhouse negativity, etc. The M’s debacle the past few years seems to be a little more simple. We just plain suck. Its not really from injuries or clubhouse dissention, we just blow hard and have too many players underachieving. Our FO really stepped in a big cow chip when we blew off Tejada for that last year he wanted in the contract. That to me really started to get things rolling down hill. The Guillen and Garcia trades netted us very little so far.
What am I doing? I don’t have time to list our personnel moves that bite without writing a novel that would rival War and Peace in length and depression.
The Garcia trade has netted us very little so far?
Ah … gotta love revisionist historians. Let me guess: “Jeremy Reed isn’t good enough to play every day and Mike Morse is a waste of roster space ….”
I didn’t know he was so hated. But is there any GM who people love so much? Maybe Bavasi, right?
And E-Coward: The M’s farm system was _not_ a wreck when Bavasi arrived. Felix, Soriano, Lopez, Snelling, A. Jones, Nageotte still, Blackley before he hurt his shoulder, Putz, Heaverlo’s come back, Atchison too, and T. Bohn for the bench. That’s the core of the team we will be watching for the next three-four years, minus injuries, yes, but we’re talking about Nov, ’03. It was the big league team that was a wreck. The farm system wasn’t great, no; the drafting was damned bad, and the system lacked an impact bat. But the cupboard was far from bare. In fact, Bavasi’s strategy last offseason was ‘buy two bats, and wait for the kids.’ Now Bill and Bob on their own account have bet big and won on YuBet, drafted Clement, picked up Sherrill, and hopefully Foppert, too. But ‘the kids’ by and large were here when the new FO team arrived.
Looking at Thornton and Dobbs has sustained the illusion that the Ms had no talent, but it’s still an illusion. And that illusion supports how LITTLE Bavasi has actually done in two years.
And I second Jim Thomsen above: last season the FO did _not_ do what I wanted. The team needed a substantial roster overhaul, and it didn’t get done, despite the FO leak to this blog a year ago that “by spring training 60% of these guys will be gone.” Didn’t happen. Bavasi signed two bats, which turned out to be one-and-a-half, got some bottom of the lineup D which snapped a rubber band, and some back of the rotation fill which crumbled. And waited for the kids, most of whom were already here. That was last year’s offseason. I fully expect that this year’s offseason will be ‘sign two arms, and punt.’ I’d like to be wrong, so much more could be accomplished. But I’ve seen two years of Bill B., so that’s my call.
Oh, and let’s not forget that since Nov, ’04 the Ms rotation has effectively collapsed. There was a significant probability going into last year’s offseason that this was going to happen; nothing of relevance was done to address that possibility last year. The only surprise is that Moyer was the one who held up while Madritsch snapped a drivebelt. Hoping for the best is _not_ a viable strategy, and in this instance it didn’t work, either. In evaluating Bavasi’s strategy, I count this one.
No one is a miracle worker, nor are budgets infinite. Still, I prefer a working strategy that isn’t faith-based.
From KABC in Los Angeles:
The leading candidate to replace Depo is *drumroll* Standing Pat Gillick.
56,57- i agree completely. every veteran signing that has gone down in this regime and the one preceeding it (2002-pesent) was an attempt to play it safe and hope for the best possible outcome rather than get down to the root of the problem(s) and aggressively fix things. i see the same thing happening with the catcher situation now- trade for 35 backup catchers and wait for clement to emerge, ignoring the fact that he may not even emerge as a catcher, but as a dh or 1b, (or not at all) and also pretend that the gaping hole at the position that the team will endure over the next 1.5-2 years does not matter. i wont go into betancourt again, but i have similar feelings about him.
same problem with the rotation over the last 3 years- could the team really have been ignorant of the fact that their starters looked alot better than they really were because of safeco? as a contrast to the wait and hope “strategy” oakland has assembled an incredibly cheap and promising rotation, albeit with better chips than the mariners have had on hand. but thats not the point- the point is where is the creativity and proactive nature that are requisites of a team that does not have a nearly unlimited revenue stream (yankees)?
every veteran signing that has gone down in this regime and the one preceeding it (2002-pesent) was an attempt to play it safe and hope for the best possible outcome rather than get down to the root of the problem(s) and aggressively fix things.
Umm… no.
I’d have to agree with #53 as opposed to #54. On the bright side, Rich Aurilia is a free agent again as of today! Don’t even think it…
59. Every veteran signing only fills 1/25th of your roster, and at best either 1/9th of your batting lineup (1/8th in the NL) or 1/5th of your starting rotation. There is only so much you can do within the confines of your own budget, especially with the money free agents command these days. If the ‘regime’ (seriously, do the M’s have to turn and give Bavasi the Nazi Salute before every home game?) was playing it safe they would not have spent $65 million to get Beltre and $50 million to get Sexson. They would have spent $800k a head on hair-above-replacement-level veterans if they were playing it safe, i.e. Pokey Reeses at every position.
When you can’t plug all 10-15 holes at once, you do what you can, and you have to hope for the best with every roster move. That’s a silly thing to decry; every GM not named Brian Cashman does this because it’s all they can do. We’re not the Yankees, where we can buy truckloads of expensive high-end veterans to plug our every hole. Steinbrenner’s going to fund the acquisition of of the best 3-4 starting pitchers and best CF available this offseason. Not every team can do that.
They were certainly playing it safe in 04 when they signed Aurilia instead of Tejada, and/or Ibanez/Winn instead of going and risking a long term deal on an MVP type player. Frankly, IMHO, trading Guillen to sign Aurilia, and then the attempt to make Spiezio into a 3B was some of the stupidest offseason manuvering I have ever seen. Remember, the 2004 Mariners were actually supposed to be a .500 team. Face it, Bavasi isn’t all that creative or clever, he is in love with the status quo. If the M’s don’t show significant improvement in 06, his giant bald head should be on the block.
#63– just to be accurate, Tejada was signed by Baltimore (at ‘stupid money’, to quote one writer) in 2003.
The M’s offered 5/$45. To quote Tom Boswell: “That left the Orioles fighting with the Mariners and pathetic Tigers for Tejada. The Orioles made a low-ball bid. Seattle and Detroit topped them — but, in the process — showed their cards. Then, on Sunday, the Orioles bought the pot, made the offer that can’t be refused. The Orioles smacked down $72 million to a 27-year-old who may, in reality, be 30.” The Ms re-signed Guillen that year.
The next year the Gillick group decided to be rid of Guillen, tried to get Omar, went with Aurilia.
They didn’t ‘try’ to make Spiezio a 3B– just the year before he’d split 1st & 3rd, with about 50+ games at 3rd; in 2004 he did the same, and played third about 60 games.
Actually, he re-signed GUillen and traded him shortly their after. Mariners fans were then stuck with Big Fat Rich Aurilia as theur SS. Before he came to the Mariners, Spiezio had never started more than 50 games in a season as a thirdbaseman.
Miguel Tejada @ 33 will still in his prime. Power hitting shortstops who are GG qualtiy fielders son’t exactly grow on trees. Within the course of one offseason Bavasi punted away the two best shortstops in baseball in 2004. I would have much rather spent the Beltre money on Tejada the previous year.
Hell if we’d had Guillen at third, and Tejada at short we may have actually score some rums the last few years…
BTW, 5/45 is an insultingly low offer for a player of Tejada’s caliber. Just another example of the M’s trying to lowball one of the best players in baseball. It makes me sick that they’ve lost A-Rod (unavoidable, even though they did lowball him), gave away Guillen, and weren’t serious about Tejada.
“The Orioles smacked down $72 million to a 27-year-old who may, in reality, be 30.†-MSB
In post 9-11 it’s not possible. You are incorrect in your stereo-type of a great Latino player like Tejada. Stick to the facts. Let’s not make-up stuff to support your defense of the M’s front office incompetence in trying to sign Tejada.
67 calm down. You are misattributing the quote.
jeez.
If Guardado is lost in free agency this winter with nothing in return, I guess we can’t blame Bavasi who neglected to trade him at the deadline for value. Afterall we need to give out GM 5-6 years before we can properly evaluate him. Maybe the Guillen for Santiago and Garcia for Olivo-Reed-Morse, and back-to-back 90+ loss seasons will look better in time.
“The Orioles smacked down $72 million to a 27-year-old who may, in reality, be 30.†-MSB
Uh, that would be “Washington Post baseball columnist Tom Boswell”, as quoted directly by msb. You may argue with the accuracy of Boswell’s characterization of the situation, but that’s what he said at the time. And I don’t think he cared whether it made the M’s front office look good or not.
Let’s not forget that “Garcia for Olivo-Reed-Morse” is really “Garcia for Olivo-Reed-Morse and no requirement to pay Garcia umpteen million dollars in arbitration or to sign him for umpteen million dollars a year for X years”.
Either that or it’s “Two months of Garcia for three really cheap years (give or take) of Olivo-Reed-Morse”.
Just to be clear…
btw, in an interview last year with Shannon Drayer Bavasi himself said that their last offer to Tejada was 5 times 11(55 mil over 5 years, to do the math).
Thats not a low-ball offer and comparable to what they ended up paying for Beltre, especially considering how much less you had to pay for marquis players that year (Vlad Geurrero signed for 14 a year, as opposed to Sammy Sosa, Manny, Bonds, et all, all making close to 20, and Beltran signing for 17/year the year after that).
Baltimore just took a risk and decided to blow every one else away, and probably overpayed more than they needed to. There’s four more years on that contract, so its anyone’s guess at this point whether it will work out for the O’s or not.
and I think Bavasi would have been happy to have come into a GM situation with Tejada at short– that wasn’t what he got, though. He has never tried to claim that the Guillen move was a good one.
#65–”he came to the Mariners, Spiezio had never started more than 50 games in a season as a thirdbaseman.”
he came to the big leagues as a 3rd baseman. Oakland made him a 2nd baseman, the Angels had him play 1st, and fill in at third. He wasn’t a bad 3rd baseman, he was a crap hitter.
and FWIW, I would have been happy to have kept Guillen at short– he has hit very well there when he has been in the line-up.
71- but could something better have been had for garcia? based on the track record of this gm, i have very little faith that even his passable moves were the best ways to go about things. obviously none of us know what conversations went on at the deadline, but i cannot help but feel that something much better was passed over or not even explored. for example- could mccarthy have been had for garcia? how about haren? i do not have research to back this up, but it seems to me that in the current market free agent pitching is overpriced, while position players can generally be easier and more efficient finds on the free agent market. this depends on the specific situation of course, but to some extent this must be historically true because of obvious scarcity- everyone always needs pitching. so wouldnt building pitching through trades for young or undervalued arms be the most efficient way to get pitching in most cases? does anyone disagree with this or have anything to back it up or refute it?
and in response to 60 and others- obviously there was a partial change in procedure last year with the sexson and beltre signings, but i am left feeling again that there were better ways to improve the team, both short term and long term.
what exactly is the path the team is on? they appear to want to project a win now image without the substance to back it up, while having very little hope (currently) for winning in the future. when i say winning, i mean being the best team in baseball, not having a winning season or just making the playoffs- this seems like a realistic goal to me for a team with the revenue stream of the mariners. teams like oakland and tampa bay i can see stating a strategy to be good enough to make a run at the playoffs and seeing what happens once they get there. the mariners have an enormous economic advantage over these teams- it seems ridiculous to waste your resources so inefficiently simply because they exist while others make due or compete with less than half of your resources.
and as far as the guillen deal goes- i dont think that the problem is that they traded guillen. they knew that guillen had the ability to be a very good player, their concerns for him were about his health. they were right to move him, but getting nothing in return is absolutely obscene. when you factor in that they basically had to move him because they signed rich aurilia it just gets pornographic. i would have taken bloomquist over aurilia and spent the money elsewhere.
#75: At the time the trade was made, it was almost universally felt that the M’s got more than could have been reasonably expected for Freddy. Let’s not forget:
 That Freddy wasn’t having a great ’04 and was coming off an ’03 season that saw his value plunge dramatically.
 That the M’s reasonably anticipated they were going to lose him at season’s end to free agency for much more than would have been reasonable to spend  and that none of us would have dreamed in the middle of ’04 of signing Freddy to another three years at $27 million.
 That Jeremy Reed was a hot-shit prospect (if, in retrospect, overvalued by some in the stathead community … but far more of a canny acquisition than the alternative the Sox wanted to stick us with with in Joe “Whiff-a-riffic” Borchard), that Miguel Olivo was hitting .270 with pop and that Mike Morse was a pretty damn good hitter in long-season A ball.
This is the absolute wrong time to cast final judgment on this deal. A year ago, it looked pretty damn good for the M’s  Reed coming off a .400-hitting September audition and Olivo, despite his struggles, still looking like the team’s catcher of the future.
Now, it looks like a bad deal: Freddy wins the World Series finale, while Reed scuffled to a .254 finish with disappointing peripheral numbers (even though he was much better defensively than most expected, which makes up for a lot). And, of course, Olivo’s Seattle flameout.
But this deal still has life left to it. Is Freddy really as good as he looked in the playoffs? Probably not. Is Jeremy Reed as bad as he looked at times? Probably not? Is MIke Morse a non-entity? Probably not, if his 2005 is any indication (okay, he isn’t much, but let’s face it  nobody thought he would be ready to contribute anything in ’05, if ever).
And you can’t look at it just as Garcia vs. Reed-Morse anyway … you have to match salaries. Garcia cost $9 million in ’05, Reed and Morse cost about $700,000 together.
Would Freddy have taken the M’s to the World Series? I hope I don’t have to insult anybody here by actually answering that question.
There’s a lot of reasons to criticize Bill Bavasi, but the Freddy trade isn’t one of them. If you thought it was good a year ago, you can’t say it’s bad now. Why not wait to see what you think by the end of 2006?
Forget Depodesta for GM…the M’s should fire Bavasi and hire me!!!!!
Speaking of Aurilia…..he’s a free agent….the M’s couldve done worse than signing him last season and sticking him at 2nd (he considers himself a 2ber now)… he went .280 with 14 hrs last year and batted nearly .340 with guys in scoring position. Im NOT actually lobbying for him but wouldnt those numbers have been nice in the black hole that was the M’s bottom of the order last season?
The M’s should sign Paul Byrd (currently listed as a FA)or Moyer, Millwood and that japanese arm about to be posted. Then they should sign Polanco for 2b and D. Young to DH while sticking Raul into LF. Meche goes to the bullpen and Pineiro is the new #5 who hopefully has a TOR type year without the pressure of having to have one.
If youre in the mood for a trade, the Reds will shop one of their outfielders for arms this offseason. They need a 4th AND a 5th starter AND a closer. The M’s should wrap up Franklin and offer him and an arm from the pen (maybe Thorton but more likely a proven one) for Wily Mo Pena. Franklin, Soriono, and one of the ten thousand shortstops in the M’s system as a throwin would probably get that deal done in an instant. Dunn would be much much more expensive and the M’s dont have the biceps for that kind of power upgrade.
Lineup:
Ichiro
Polanco
Raul
Sexson
Young/or via trade Pena
Beltre
Reed
Catcher by Committee
Bettie
Rotation:
Millwood
Felix
Japanese Guy
Moyer or Byrd
Pineiro
I will graciously accept the GM of the year award but only after the M’s finish their playoff run next year…..
I gotta tell ya losing can change perspective….
I remeber feeling jipped in ’02, and ’03 when the FO did nothing to help during the stretch run…. “winning and making the playoffs isnt enough!!!!!”
Man, what I wouldnt give to have the last game of the season actually mean something now even if it meant the WS wasnt going to happen.
the Jays have already started courting AJ with his former pitching coach and homeboy Glendon Rusch is about to get an extension in Chi
Terry,
Your post has no basing in reality.
A) Matsuzaka was not posted.
B) The Mariners don’t have arms to give up. Their minor league arms are a craptastic group. The Mariners can’t even put together a 5 man rotation.
C) Why should the Mariners sign Polanco? They’ll get better production from Lopez at a fraction of the cost.
D) Millwood will probably cost 1/2 the FA budget if we sign him. We still need another arm and a bat.
E) If by Young, you mean Dmitri Young, he’s league average at best. They could probably get similar production by running Morse out there on a daily basis.
F) Paul Byrd would be a horrible mistake for the Mariners. He’s going to be overpriced and that money could be much better spent elsewhere.
In order for you to institute your plan, it would cost (estimating) 40M, when the Mariners probably have more like 25M to spend. Sure, it would be great if we traded for Manny and George Steinbrenner bought the M’s and I won the Lotto and we found the cure for AIDS and there was peace in the Middle East.
No offense to you personally, but I think your plan was terrible.
Jeremy…definately not taken personally but also no threat to my new job as the M’s GM:
Polanco (2005): .331 ave, OPS=.830 had 9 hr and 56 rbi in 129 games. He could reasonably be expected to hit about 15 dingers in a full season and probably 70 rbis. He has gotten better offensively as his career has progressed.
Lopez’s production (2005): .247 ave, OPS of about .650 (OUCH!!!!) and only 2 hrs in 54 games (projects to 6 if he had played a full season). While its true Lopez can be had at a fraction of the cost of Polanco, suggesting Lopez will equal Polanco’s production (or even come close to it) is a HUGE leap of faith. Factor in Polanco’s solid glove and great clubhouse presence and its pretty easy to see why the M’s would sign Polanco. In short, the M’s would sign Polanco because he is a MAJOR upgrade at second base.
Here’s a comparison between Morse and D. Young.
Young (2005): 126 g .272 ave, 21 hr, 72 rbi OPS=.800. He’s a switch hitter whose power is from the LEFT side. While not the big bopper M’s fans dream of, Young is an a cost effective option for adding lefty pop. Besides there are no 30+ homer lefty power hitters available.
Morse (2005): no power, declining average, no position.
Its absolutely incorrect to suggest Morse would be a better option for the M’s next year then Young. Young is a guaranteed 20 hrs. Morse is a complete unknown entity whose 2004 performance doesnt suggest anything close to Young’s 2005 production.
Concerning arms, well ANY arm signed this off season will be overpriced. Thats not a reason to pooh pooh an option. Who should they sign? Just exactly how could the money be better spent? Im tired of hearing that just thrown out there as a reason a FA shouldnt be signed. If signing an upgrade at a needs position is a waste of money, I guess I dont understand how money should be spent.
Its interesting to suggest the M’s are too desperate for arms to trade some that obviously dont fit in their plans (Franklin, Thorton etc) in order to fill a need for power at the DH position and then to also suggest that the M’s should NOT try to sign FA pitching because their money could be better spent somewhere else. Talk about no basis in reality…..
Alot of people seem to think some cheap top of the rotation arm is going to fall out of the sky and a lefty power hitter is going to materialize. Fact is, this offseason will be spend big for arms and patchwork your lineup in a less optimal but best way you can fashion.
Polanco dramatically upgrades a needs position and D. Young offers a viable upgrade to DH. Signing those guys would give the M’s LEGIMATE players at those positions rather than guys best described as developing minor leaguers.
#82: Your comparisons are incomplete until you factor in salaries and team salary distribution strategy.
77- i am in no way saying that the garcia trade was a bad one- i think it was one of bavasi’s best moves. that being said, i am skeptical that it was the best possible option, and i believe that it would have been more efficient to trade for young pitching rather than position players with the one remaining chip the mariners had left. also, freddy was having one of the best years of his career in 2004, he had accumulated 4.4 warp already when he was dealt. despite his losing record, i would think that that fact would have been obvious to most general managers, and probably was because williams gave up good prospects for him.
[ot]
One of the problems of the LA market is that there is no football to suck away some of the media coverage. And with the Angels doing relatively well, the Dodgers became everyone’s favorite punching bag for the summer and fall (when the NBA lies fallow).
I haven’t seen anyone mention this possibility yet but how about DePo as an M’s assistant GM? Seems like he has some marked success in that role.
Polanco isn’t a FA, he signed a long term deal with the Tigers. Why would they want to pay us back for Guillen?
And D-Young? puh-lezze. He’s a poor man’s Raul Ibanez. (And he’s fat too, I’d like to see him chase down a smokin’ rope in Safeco Canyon).
Anyone taking that lineup/rotation post by Terry seriously is expending far too much energy.
For what it’s worth, I’d be in favor of deleting every post that hijacks a thread into “my offseason roster construction plan”. This is a good thread about DePo, which takes a slight tangent into fire Bavasi and hire DePo and a review of how/what Bavasi has done. Then #78 is a blantant hijack. By itself not so bad, but it seems like start of a trend based on what happened last year.
Your board, you guys make the rules, but I think you’ve hinted at this before and you have my support.
#87:
If Dan Evans or Pat Gillick gets the job as Dodgers GM, that opens up a spot for DePo in our org. Dan Evans is special assistant and Gillick is special consultant to Bill. I think I’ve heard both names as candidates for the Dodgers GM spot.
#87: Works for me. Somehow I don’t think it works for the FO, though.
#82 (Terry): Placido Polanco is not a free agent. Detroit signed him to a multiyear contract extension after acquiring him last season. Dmitri Young is also not a free agent.
w/r/t Adam’s comments:
Yes.
I still don’t see how Bradley and Kent had anything to do with the Dodgers doing poorly this year. Kent was something like the third or fourth best 2B in the league this year, and Bradley posted a .290 EQA, and even with limited playing time was in the same range of value as Aaron Rowand, Torii Hunter, and Mark Kotsay. It would’ve been nice if Milton could have found a way to stay healthy, but even in 300 or so PAs, he put up a WARP of about 4, which ain’t bad for a guy making $2.5M on a one-year deal. Also, if we’re judging by chemistry using the media’s portrayal of character, I don’t see how putting Bradley and Kent in the same clubhouse is any worse than putting A.J. Pierzynski and Frank Thomas in the same clubhouse, but it worked out awfully well for the White Sox.
And in light of the revolving GM door, the Drew and Lowe signings make a little more sense. If the owner wants results this year, it doesn’t do you much good at all to hold your money and let everyone else get all the free agents. Maybe in the long term, the Dodgers would have been better off not giving out a bunch of money to those guys, but if you’re fighting for your job this year, you’ve got to take some risks. So, DePo figured that maybe Drew would stay healthy and Lowe would benefit from Dodger Stadium. It didn’t work out, but it wasn’t nearly as crazy as it was made out to be in the media after the fact. I think there’s a lot of good to be had from giving your GM real long-term job security.
With regard to several commentators suggesting that the signing of Lowe didn’t work out: Note that he pitched about 220 innings with a 3.61 ERA. I’d say that’s not bad. The Mariners would be happy to have that production from a starter next year.
Bruce (#92), the M’s Front Office does not have the luxury of being picky over who they feel comfortable working with at this point. If DePo is deemed as someone who might contribute to overall wins with his work and advice, I don’t see how Lincoln or Bavasi can look away, especially Bavasi. He could get fired after next year if this team doesn’t improve significantly.
Now if the M’s Front Office is clueless about DePo’s skills as an Assistant GM, well then we have a problem.
Yes, the M’s front office doesn’t have the luxury of being picky over who tbey feel comfortable with. The problem is that A) they don’t realize it, and B) they ARE clueless about skills important to a GM (otherwise, why are they so stupid about what it takes to build a winning baseball team).
I think DePo would be fine for an asst GM here, though I’m not sure he has the people skills needed for the job. It’s not his analytic skills that are a problem (which may be a mirror of the situation here).
Lowe had a better than expected (in my mind) year, but his ERA is a bad way to measure it (extreme pitchers’ park and all). Lowe gave up 24 unearned runs. His RA is 4.58. His DIPS is 4.27. Either of those numbers excite you?
He’s basically a league average pitcher. Indeed the Mariners would be happy to have three of those, just not at $9M/year each.
Lowe was also a huge distraction for his off-the-field antics. I’m not sure how widely that’s been reported outside of LA and don’t know that DePo could have seen that coming.
My take is that DePo wasn’t a good fit for whatever reason with ownership there. It happens. Even to good people. I don’t see a vast old-cronies-in-the-media conspiracy there. If he indeed is good, DePo will eventually succeed somewhere else (the M’s, I hope). So might the Dodgers, if they can find someone who knows what he’s doing and fits that situation.
Depo’s major acquisitions, by 2005 vorp (and I’m sure I’m missing some):
kent/60.5
drew/31
perez/8.7
lowe/25.3
bradley/24
penny/31.2
cruz jr/17.6
choi/14.0
weaver/28.5
…and, for comparison, beltre/15.1
…and lo duca/21.4
(He was harshly criticized for letting those last two guys go). This simply could not have been a baseball decision. Depo must have done some things to anger ownership, personally, because his track record of decisions is actually very good.