And I should mention that Derek’s article on Edgar today was the best writing I’ve read in quite some time. If you haven’t followed our copious amounts of links to it yet, do so.
Lots of questions about Omar Minaya and Grady Fuson rolling in. Derek will have more on Minaya, so I’ll make it brief, but we’re not fans of his. Fuson is still in line to take over the GM job in Texas after this coming season. John Hart has one more year left on his contract, and then will become a consultant with Fuson hand-picked to take the job. I think Fuson is going to make an excellent GM, but I don’t see him wanting to come here, or Texas offering to let him out of his contract.
Also, let me reiterate Derek’s point about Beane being totally unrealistic. The Red Sox gig is a far better one than the Mariners gig, and he stayed in Oakland last year. I’d be stunned if he even had any interest in coming here.
And hey, the Arizona Fall League kicked off yesterday. Follow all the fun as Matt Thornton gets beat like he stole something. God bless the AFL and their wacky stats. Jaime Bubela just might hit .450, but he still won’t be a prospect.
I should mention my article on Edgar’s last game that ran today at Baseball Prospectus is free — you don’t have be a subscriber (though that’s a good idea).
Hey, lot of email about Beane as a possible GM, following Larry Stone (“Official Seattle Baseball Print Writer of the U.S.S. Mariner Even Though He Sometimes Does Stuff Like Repeat the Mariners Lie About the $92 Million Payroll”) suggesting it in the Seattle Times (“Paper of Quality”).
Not going to happen and, I don’t really want it to happen. I’d rather have either of the two candidates we’ve discussed already, Kim Ng (endorsed by me) or Chris Antonetti (endorsed by Dave) (which is not to say our endorsements are mutually exclusive, as I like Antonetti too), than Beane (and as a side note: I was entirely serious about taking suggestions about possible GMs. If you’re curious about a name, drop us a line).
Beane’s one of the best GMs in baseball, and he’s massively overrated at the same time. He’s smart and personable and I really like him, but he’s not without flaws. Beane’s a guy who can see the value in picking up the Scott Hattebergs and taking a flyer on them, but when he gets attached to these guys, he doesn’t think “Hey, I found one of these guys in a pile for $.99, I can just go buy another one,” he spends a ton of money on the one he knows and likes. He’s into the numbers, but if the numbers don’t tell him a guy he likes is good as he thinks, he ignores the numbers. He doesn’t get along with a bunch of other GMs. I think his dedication to overthrowing the system has gone too far, and I agree with Dave that there’s a time to draft high school players (carefully, with caveats we’ve talked about elsewhere here), but Beane’s out to not only win, but to make a point while winning.
None of that is really important — Beane’s still one of the best. The deal-breaker is that I don’t think he’d get along at all with the ownership and particularly Lincoln (Larry Stone touches on this in his piece). Steve Schott’s a Scrooge McDuck owner, but he says “Beane! Run this thing with a payroll of $1” and pretty much leaves him alone, and if Beane can convince him there’s a good money-saving move that costs more now (even if this move is dumb), Schott will assent. The kind of problems our last two GMs have had (“I want to trade x for y, and it’s under your payroll constraints.” Long pause. “No.”) would drive Beane insane.
Which brings up another point. If you’ve read Thiel’s book on the M’s, or (and) followed the team for a while, you know that Lincoln’s got to go, and this team needs to hire someone to run the baseball team and let them do their thing: screw up, succeed, but have the freedom to make the moves that their talents and experience tells them to make. Certainly the M’s ownership is going to have some say in these things: the Japanese connection, for instance, means it makes perfect sense for someone to come in and say “You’re authorized to spend whatever you have to to get Matsui” and there’s always the occasional “Al Martin’s not the kind of guy we want on the team” standard ownership has every right to impose… but the team’s ownership, if they’re going to be ruthless profiteers, should at least set the conditions for operation and then let the right people do their jobs.
Kim Ng for GM.
My newest column on Baseball Prospectus is about Edgar’s last day. Check it out. (Kim Ng for GM!)
Kim Ng’s resume
One of my favorite candidates who likely won’t be considered is Kim Ng. Ng (say ‘Ang’, the name’s Chinese) was the Assistant GM for the Yankees a couple years ago and is now the Assistant General Manager for the Dodgers. She’s 34, which isn’t as young as DePodesta but probably too young for the Mariners. She’s huge on the contracts and negotiations, she did something in MLB offices for a while before the Yankees hired her and knows stuff like the waiver rules and related trickery cold. The’s supposedly a math/stats “genius” though I’m not sure what that entails, exactly.
Resume:
B of A, Public Policy, University of Chicago
White Sox: 90, started as an intern in contract and arbitration, 91 promoted to “Special Projects Analyst”. 95, Assistant Director of Baseball Operations
MLB: 97-98 Director of Waivers and Player Records
Yankees: 98-01, Assistant General Manager
left the Yankees, chilled, then–
Dodgers: Assistant General Manager
We complain about Gillick spending his budget wisely, and Dave cites this as a good reason to pursue Chris Antonetti. In addition to the other stuff, Ng’s supposedly huge on figuring out player value and where they belong in the market. Brian Cashman loves her. She beat Scott Boras in an arbitration hearing, which is almost unheard of.
“Baseball executive in US breaks mold,” Taipei Times 5/12/2002 (includes this photo)
“GM: A distaff position?” Boston Globe, 8/31/2003
… and many others. She seems good-natured about being featured in a lot of these dumb articles.
Only real problem, she grew up in New Jersey as a Yankee fan. Actually, it’s that she doesn’t have the kind of scouting background someone like, say, Dave, would want to see. And to that, I’d say: pah. As if the M’s don’t need scouting expertise at the top, they need someone who can put together a bad-ass roster, and she can do that.
Kim Ng is my number one choice. It’s a gutsy, sharp move, which means the M’s won’t even think about it. She’s way smarter than Gillick, she’s worked with M’s-style budgets, we’re after Matsui, she’s handled large contract negotiations for foreign players, she’s a geek about exactly the stuff Gillick sucks at and have crippled the team the last couple of years.
Here is a little more background on Pelekoudas, who was the frontrunner for the position, though that may have changed:
His current job title is Vice President of Baseball Administration. He has been the economic/contract guy under Gillick’s reign. Roger Jongewaard, who most likely will not be back next year either, was the player development/evaluation guy. Pelekoudas just finished his 24th season with the Mariners, and has served in a variety of roles. He has held his current position since 1997. In essence, he has been the financial right arm of Pat Gillick. And if Pat Gillick had a weakness, it was certainly in his budgeting. Most early signs pointed to Pelekoudas as the guy, but conflicting reports put that to question.
You can cross Paul DePodesta off the list. The Mariners won’t consider him, and I doubt he would take this job if offered to him.
My number one choice is Chris Antonetti, currently the Assistant General Manager for the Cleveland Indians, having been promoted from director of major league operations last year. Antonetti will be classified with the Billy Beane/J.P. Ricciardi/Theo Epstein grouping, but there are some important differences. Antonetti never played professional baseball, instead being educated at Georgetown and then receiving his MBA at the University of Massachusets. He interned with the Montreal Expos before working his way up the ladder in Cleveland. He has a strong knowledge of statistical analysis and has been in charge of overseeing the transformation of the Indians into an organization that makes use of historical information. However, he has also worked closely with the player development side, which the Indians excel at, and is not a revolutionary who will come in and fire all the scouts. He is a well spoken man who can articulate his thoughts, avoiding the worry of a Dan Duquette-like mutiny. The Indians have built a player development machine under the Shapiro/Antonetti/Huntington regime, and it is only a matter of time before the trainees of Mark Shapiro begin to branch out much like the underlings of John Hart have made their way across baseball.
While he is my choice for the job, it is unlikely that he will be interviewed for the position. He is not a well traveled scout who has spent 20 years in the business. He is just 29 years of age, and there is little question that the M’s will hold that against him. In comparison, Pelekoudas has been with the team since Antonetti was 5. In an organization that so strongly favors loyalty, it will be difficult for someone with as little experience as Antonetti to break through. However, I believe he would implement a much-needed view of the game that this organization lacks with the current front office. Maximization of expenditures isn’t just a wise thing for low-revenue clubs. The Mariners have not done a good job at maximizing their alotted budget by making poor assessments on low-quality players. A new face is needed, one who can make the tough calls and reallocate resources wisely without stripping the farm system barren. Whether it be Antonetti or someone like Tim Purpura (Asst. GM for the Astros), let us hope the Mariners are willing to take a risk on an unexperienced but promising GM like they were with Bob Melvin.
Wheel of GM Candidates! Everyone can play! Mail us your profile request!
I’ll start with the guy I think will get the job, because he’s an organization man and Gillick gets to help choose the next GM, Lee Pelekoudas, and another guy I see in the email queue a lot, Paul DePodesta.
Lee Pelekoudas is a generic GM. I don’t know that much about him except from hearing about trades he’s tried to negotiate, which all seemed… kind of dumb, like many of the Gillick deals that got rumored, where the team (for instance) doesn’t manage to get Aaron Boone because the other guys wouldn’t give on wanting Aaron Taylor or something. He’s an organization man, when he’s talked to the press he hasn’t said anything terrible or insightful. I know that’s a lot of no-insight, but there you go. I think he’d be a generic GM.
Paul DePodesta is another name thrown around a lot, but he’s comfortable in Oakland and he and Beane know they’re a much better team than either of them would be if they had to go it alone. DePodesta’s going to wait for a dream job, and stepping into the M’s job with our ownership issues and Lincoln around is not that job. He’s a real stat dude, into drafting more college guys (which the M’s as an organization don’t like at all), and bright. No chance.
Coming up: Kim Ng, Oscar Minaya, and much, much more.
We have received word that Pat Gillick has stepped away from his post as General Manger. I will reserve my glee until I hear that he is not in charge of picking his own replacement, as is currently rumored.
The M’s fired hitting coach Lamar Johnson today. Or rather “Johnson and the Mariners reached a mutual agreement on Monday for Johnson not to return next season.”
You may recall we pointed out he sucked on this very site and wondered why he wasn’t getting any blame for the team’s offensive woes. I guess it just took a while.
Why does everyone seem to think Soriano’s a born closer, anyway? He’s got a couple pitches, he was a great starter this year in the minors, he’s been starting for a while now, he can work more than one inning… why waste him in closer situations? If you can bring him in in the 7th with the game tied and have him hold the game down for two, three innings, that’s worth more than three outs when you’re three runs up. This whole notion of closer is dumb, it’s a role grown up around a dumb stat.
The DS (Disastrous Scheduling) games for this week:
Tuesday: Twins @ Yankees, 10:06 am, Marlins @ Giants, 1:06pm, Cubs @ Braves, 5:18pm
Wednesday: Marlins @ Giants, 1:06pm, Cubs @ Braves, 4:06pm, Red Sox @ Athletics, 7:06 pm
Thursday: Red Sox @ Athletcis, 1:06pm, Twins @ Yakees, 5:18 pm
Friday: Giants @ Marlins, 1:06pm, Braves @ Chicago
Saturday: Yankees @ Twins, Athletics @ Red Sox, TBD
Yeah, that’s uh…. uneven. Note the Twins-Yankees go 1-off-2, while the Red Sox and A’s play two games in 24 hours. Crazy.