http://www.eastvalleytribune.com/story/128297

seems woodfork removed himself from consideration.
not liking what he heard at his interview…?

Ng: Bachelor’s degree in public policy from the University of Chicago

Ng just jumped to the top of my list. An econ degree from Chicago would be better, but I’ll take public policy.

If a team like Tampa can pluck what appears to be a talent like Friedman from outside of baseball, why do the M’s have 3 “baseball” guys in their final 4?

FWIW, it was Stuart Sternberg, Rays principal owner (and former Wall Street trader) who hired Friedman, who’d attended Tulane University on a baseball scholarship.

Zduriencik: Bachelor’s degree in education from California University of Pennsylvania; Masters degree in Physical Education from Austin Peay University

LaCava: Associates degree from Gulf Coast Community College; transferred to University of Pittsburgh, but left after two years to pursue a pro baseball career

DiPoto: Attended Virginia Commonwealth University before being drafted by the Cleveland Indians

Ng: Bachelor’s degree in public policy from the University of Chicago

However, in reading the articles and interviews about our 3 guy GM candidates I get the impression that they aren’t organization building guys. Instead they are being hired for their personal abilities to evaluate talent (their scouting backgrounds) and their interpersonal skills (get along with media).

I look at a baseball team like a corporation. I see the Lincoln and Armstrong as the CEO and Chairman of the board. Their job is to set the overall direction. I see the GM as the guy who builds the management team that manages down and drives the corporate objectives. Now, baseball is funny in that it’s a big revenue operation but you don’t have a lot of employees (relative to revenue).

I prefer my GM to spend his time driving his direct reports to meet their objectives (scouting director, contracts, minor leagues, technology, etc). I don’t think I want him playing the role of individual contributor. Sure, I want the GM to make the final decisions on personnel because he knows more about baseball than Armstrong or Lincoln but I don’t think I want him to be making the decision on drafting Strasburg because he watched him personally throw a wicked slider in March of 2008.

This is probably pretty muddled thinking and poorly communicated but it’s just my thoughts on the slate of candidates they’ve put together (outside Ng, who I think is an organization builder).

As far as my thoughts on candidates they should be looking at? The Rays sure look good for hiring Andrew Friedman who was an analyst at Bear Sterns and another firm before joining the Rays. If a team like Tampa can pluck what appears to be a talent like Friedman from outside of baseball, why do the M’s have 3 “baseball” guys in their final 4?

Yeah, that was McCarver, though Buck was chiming in to agree. I know, I was yelling at the TV too, about guys who trade away young talent and throw away draft picks (ie the opposite to how the Rays got built) and guys who know how to scorch-earth their farm system and then get out before the house catches fire.

I firmly believe that weak managers hire people just like them or less intelligent than they are to establish a position of superiority.

Weak managers fail in a variety of ways, and fail to hire the right people for a variety of reasons. The biggest problem I’ve seen is people who don’t have a accurate evaluation of themselves, making them unable to hire assistants who complement their abilities and shore up their weaknesses. This can be the result of insecurity, ego, or just a failure of introspection. These people tend to hire people just like them, or people who always defer to them (“yes men”) and so never get a real diversity of opinion or have their assumptions challenged. Which is fine if everything happens to be going their way, but results in the same mistakes being made over and over again when it isn’t. (Sound familiar?) Note that a middling-intelligence guy who realizes he’s of middling intelligence and isn’t afraid to hire smarter people who might not agree with him is often a better choice than a really smart guy who has never taken accurate stock of his limitations (or doesn’t think he has any).