Felix…
I’m glad I was at Safeco Field tonight.
Hickey’s list
Hickey talks to a “former GM” who came up with eight people… I’m not sure why, exactly, the former GM would do that, and you can take your guesses at who this mystery author is. Anyway:
Towers (also mentioned by Stone, covered in our previous post)
Cashman (also mentioned by Stone, covered in our previous post)
Kim Ng (check, check)
Jerry DiPoto (mentioned in passing in my post as part of the Diamondbacks-Red Sox contingent)
Tony Bernazard, Mets VP of PD (neither us nor Stone had him)
Chris Antonetti (on Stone’s list, ummm…. we may have written something about him)
Mike Rizzo, Nationals AGM (neither of us had him)
David Forst, A’s AGM (check and check)
The continuing rumor-mongering that Towers might get out is going to get me to write a many-thousand word essay on the topic.
Potential GM Candidates, a gigantic post
I’m trying not to focus too much on who might get hired and who won’t, or what criteria the M’s will look at. I’ll write about that separately. At the same time, I tried to write up a brief explanation of why the team might particularly go for them or not.
So if you think they’re not going to hire someone who understands VORP, there’s a whole class of candidates that rules out, but it’s not noted in each one, and if you think they value a person’s long history in baseball, that’s also not listed in the pros for those candidates.
Again — as much as I agree that the hiring process is important, and people are right to be concerned about having Armstrong/Lincoln making the decisions, the intent here is to talk about potential candidates. Process and who they might or will hire will follow. We promise.
Glossary
AGM = assistant GM
AtGM = assistant to the general manager (“Assistant Regional Manager” “Assistant *to* the Regional Manager”)
SVP = Senior Vice President
DPD = Director Player Development
DPP = Director Player Personnel
Internal Candidates
Lee Pelekoudas
Current job: Interim GM, VP and Associate GM
In 1988, Pelekoudas was Director of Baseball Administration. Then in 1996-7, Senior Director. Then VP of Baseball Admin until 2006.
Why they might be hired: he’s familiar, the M’s organization is comfortable with him, by all accounts he’s done a good job within his area.
Why they might be turned down: if they’re serious about going in a new direction, and Lee was as involved in personnel decisions as they’ve said, then his involvement with these disastrous teams will keep him from ascending.
Retreads: former and current GMs
Jim Beattie
Current job: ?
GM experience: Expos, Orioles (sort-of)
Why they might be hired: his time in Baltimore for Angelos proved he was willing to stay in a humiliating job sharing arrangement where a powerful and sometimes irrational owner frequently made things even worse, so he might be viewed as reliable and pliable
Why they might be turned down: uggghhh
Billy Beane
Current job: Athletics GM
Not going anywhere, he’s a part-owner of the A’s.
Brian Cashman
Current job: Yankees GM
Stone-mentioned. I don’t think he’ll go anywhere. It’s hard to separate Cashman’s performance from the Yankee organization as a whole, the owners, and all that fun stuff.
Paul DePodesta
Current job: Padres AtGM
GM experience: Dodgers, 04-05
I want to preface this by saying that I really like DePodesta. You can check out his blog for some good, direct DePodesta knowledge.
The problem is that his time in LA didn’t go well, and was dominated by attacks from the local media and an inability to get along with people within the organization. I’ve heard that he’s a great front-office guy who may never be well-suited for the top role, and I think that’s too dismissive: it assumes that he didn’t learn anything from his time in LA, and that he’s incapable of growth. I don’t think either of those things are true, and at some point, he’ll get his shot if he wants it.
Why they might be hired: he’s smart, he gets it, he’s exactly the kind of GM candidate who would be able to sift through the organization and start figuring out what’s working and what isn’t.
Why they might be turned down: as publicity-conscious and conservative about decision-making as the M’s are, it’s easy to see them passing just out of fear over the media reception and those relationships, and that the M’s org as a whole, which includes a lot of old-school long-timers, might reject him in the same way the Dodgers did.
Dan Duquette
Current job: ?
GM experience: Expos, Red Sox
I mention this because I feel like Gammons will float the idea at some point. Rested! Ready!
Jim Duquette
Current job: ?
GM experience: Mets, briefly
Why they might be hired: As Stone points out, if they want to hire Valentine to manage, Duquette might help.
Why they might be turned down: what’s the compelling reason to hire him?
Dan Evans
Current job: agent
GM experience: Dodgers GM
Why they might be hired: The M’s almost hired him once before
Why they might be turned down: If they’re making a clean break with Bavasi, that may well preclude Evans from consideration, since Evans spent 2005-2007 with Seattle as an AtGM.
Pat Gillick
Current job: Phillies GM
Larry Stone mentioned this in his article, but I don’t see it happening. Gillick’s become something of a specialist GM, in that he takes jobs where a team’s close to contention, puts them in the playoffs a couple times, and then scampers off before the collapse. The 2009 Mariners aren’t the kind of team he’s chosen to pick up before. If Gillick wanted a challenge he’d have stayed on as Mariner GM.
Gerry Hunsicker
Current job: Rays SVP Baseball Operations
GM experience: Astros GM
Unlikely to be a candidate: he’s content in a nice job in an up-and-coming successful franchise.
Wayne Krivsky
Current job: ?
GM experience: Reds
Why they might be hired: he’s an old-school guy with a ton of experience, been around Griffey lately
Why they might be turned down: not a new approach, or particularly successful
Steve Phillips
Current job: well-compensated oxygen-to-carbon-dioxide converter for ESPN
GM experience: Mets
I’m sure this’ll be brought up eventually.
Why they might be hired: he almost signed Alex but then didn’t
Why they might be turned down: bad record
Kevin Towers
Current job: Padres GM
I hadn’t considered that he might be a possibility until Stone mentioned him. If he’s moving, he may be the best combination of “suitable for Lincoln and Howard” and “new school”. Towers is the only current GM who really bridges the perceived gap between old and new, and can live in both. He’s an experienced hand who just kept learning, he’s well-respected by both sides even as he’ll try and apply new tools and strategies.
I also really like Towers. If you’ve been to an event with him, you understand why.
Why they might be hired: he’s enough of an old-school trooper to ace the interviews
Why they might be turned down: may not be available, the Padres record is not great, so that might be an awkward conversation
Bob Watson
Current job: works for MLB
GM experience: Astros, Yankees
A Stone mention. I’m not sure why Larry threw his name out, but he has to have a good reason. Doesn’t he?
Why they might be hired: I don’t know.
Why they might be turned down: No special reason.
Current front office types
Ruben Amaro Jr.
Current job: Phillies AGM
Nope, he’s getting Gillick’s job when Gillick leaves.
Al Avila
Current job: Tigers AGM.
Why they might be hired: Did well the last time the M’s interviewed him. I don’t care about the Tigers fortunes this year, if there’s any way that Dombrowski’s magic rubbed off on Avila over the years, it’d be great.
Why they might be turned down: ?
Chris Antonetti
See here.
David Forst
Current job: A’s AGM
Why they might be hired: awesome
Why they might be turned down: Hiring someone from the A’s, who have year after year handed the M’s their ass on a fraction of the budget, might be too embarrassing for the higher-ups, an admission that all the scorn they’ve tried to heap on the A’s was misplaced.
Tony LaCava
Current job: Jays DPP
Regarded as a “rising star” and often mentioned in these conversations
Why they might be hired: he’s got the personal skills, he’s enough of a traditionalist to appeal to the M’s
Why they might be turned down: —
Kim Ng
Current job: Dodgers AGM
Why they might be hired: she’s sharp, she’s got a great resume, she’s respected, she’s been USSM-endorsed
Why they might be turned down: if they’re looking to really move forward and get one of the new uberGMs, the Antonetti/DePodesta/Forst candidates are more sabermetrically-inclined.
Bonus link: 2003 interview with friend-of-USSM Jonah Keri
Logan White
Current job: Dodgers AGM
Why they might be hired: comes from the scouting side
Why they might be turned down: not the huge break to new approach offered by other candidates
Bonus link 1, bonus link 2
Peter Woodfork
Current job: Diamondbacks AGM
There’s a whole Red Sox-Diamondbacks group that could go in here. Jerry DiPoto, AJ Hinch, Jed Hoyer, among others. I’m writing up Woodfork because he seems to be the most discussed among them.
Why they might be hired: personable, offers the Antonetti/Forst sales pitch without the baggage
Why they might be turned down: —
Not really that much of a bonus bonus link
Jack Zduriencik
Current job: Brewers AtGM, Director of Amateur Scouting
Why they might be hired: long scouting experience, awesome last name
Why they might be turned down: again, if they’re looking to break with the scouting/old school player dev approach, it’s a tough sell
Game 71, Marlins at Mariners
Olsen v Felix.
Day 2 of the Pelekoudas Era/Strasburg Hypothesis.
Bavasi and the Randolph firing
One of the things Dave mentioned in the post on Bavasi’s firing was that as much as we disagreed with Bavasi, we’ve always had a lot of respect for the way he did his job and treated people. It showed up in ways that we saw as fans — for instance, they agonized about how best to move away from Bret Boone when Boone was clearly done as a player, going so far as to give him to Minnesota where he’d have a shot at playing time. And it showed up in ways many fans didn’t see — under Bavasi, the M’s were an organization where if you were a AAAA player and there was a chance to get some major league service time with another organization due to injuries or whatnot, they’d release you from your deal and let you go sign somewhere else, with their best wishes.
Bavasi deserves credit for facing the press after his firing (in which he does fire some spicy parting salvos at the players, but he also admitted the towel thing was a bad idea) but moreover, I wanted to point out that in his time here, the M’s never had the kind of issue that other teams have — releases conveyed by text message, coaches fired through intermediaries, all of that. The kind of thing that just happened to Willie Randolph, where he and the coaching staff were sent on a road trip not knowing if Randolph would be managing the next game or if any of them would have jobs in a week, only to be fired… that’s an awful thing to do to someone, no matter what they thought of Randolph’s performance, and it isn’t something I can even imagine happening in the last few years, no matter how bad things got.
I don’t know how much that’s worth to everyone, but it’s worth something.
Stone runs down GM Candidates
While Dave and I were busy emailing ~20 names back and forth (Dave complaining at one point that we might as well put every AGM on the list since I’d included ~ten), Larry Stone wrote up and ran an article on Pelekoudas and other potential GM candidates which includes many of the people on our list and then some.
It’s a nice article, check it out. We’ll be commenting in more depth on the list, and our list, later.
Ibanez in left
If the org recognizes that Ibanez is terrible defensively, as some people like to argue (Baker particularly among the local press), why isn’t he in the DH mix to at least keep his aching legs marginally fresher, and particularly, why doesn’t the team send out defensive subs in late-inning situations where the game is close and he’s just batted? If they recognize that he’s a huge defensive liability out there, they haven’t taken any action on it all season.
They’re tanking
They’re sending Balentien down to see if he can play center after being bad defensively in right. To do so, they’re moving Ichiro back to right, creating a hole in center they’d fill with Reed, who is the only other player on the roster who can defend in center. But they’ve also been working him out at first, to replace Sexson, who they’ve turned from a three-outcome power threat into a taller, fitter clone of 2007 Vidro who still can’t play defense.
The roster spot opened up by sending Balentien down will be filled by Jeff Clement, one of the best hitters in the organization, sent down after a 50-PA trial didn’t work out (and replaced by the shorter and one year regressed designated hitter version of the singles-hitting first baseman). Clement is a catcher, but he can’t play catcher because the team already has two, one of which was just signed to a lucrative three-year extension and who hasn’t hit so far this year. They could play him at designated hitter, but that would displace the designated hitter they already have who isn’t hitting.
The could also solve the team’s outfield defense problem by putting the team’s outfield defense problem at designated hitter, so he needs to remain a designated hitter who stands in the outfield and lets balls drop around him and never gets a defensive sub.
A possible solution is to play Clement at catcher and move the recently-signed catcher to first, where they’re also thinking about playing the good defensive center fielder.
The M’s position players, for your amusement
DFA Vidro: DH
DFA Sexson: ?
2B Lopez: 2B
SS Betancourt: SS
3B Beltre: 3B
DH Ibanez: LF
CF/RF Ichiro: RF
UT Bloomquist: CF/UT
UT Cairo: UT
OF Reed: 1B/OF
C Johjima: C/1B
C Burke: C
There’s no rational explanation for what the M’s have done with their lineup this year, or their promotion decisions, their playing time decisions — and yet we all know they’re savvy baseball people who’ve been around the game forever. There must be a reason.
Stephen Strasburg
This is the best-executed plan we’ve seen from the Mariners since they bid for Ichiro.
Resume: Chris Antonetti
For those of you tuning in, wondering who that button over there is for and why you should care, I was going to write a long post laying out the resume of Chris Antonetti for the Mariners GM job. Then, I looked over the post I wrote a year and a half ago and realized that it’s all still true, so I’m copying and pasting, with minor edits and additions. If you missed it the first time around, here you go.
You may have noticed over on the left sidebar that there’s an image that looks an awful lot like a political button. In a sense, it is a political button, though for an election that isn’t run by democracy. Due to the way the offseason is unfolding, it is becoming apparent to us that, barring an unforseen miracle, the Mariners
aren’t going to beweren’t contenders in 2007. Even in a best case scenario, where the young core takes a step forward and the aging veterans stave off decline, this is still an inferior team to that of the Angels, Rangers, and Athletics.Given a public ultimatum to win or lose their jobs, the Mariners current baseball operations department will begin the year as underdogs, and it’s a distinction they’ve earned with moves like the Horacio Ramirez acquisition. Simpy put, this regime couldn’t afford to have a bad offseason following the Jarrod Washburn and Carl Everett debacles of last year, and while we have yet to see a disaster along the lines of those two signings, it’s fairly evident that the Mariners are not going to be able to sufficiently upgrade the team this winter in order to expect to challenge for the division crown next year.
So, we believe that a change in management is inevitable. While we will be the first to say that Bill Bavasi is a good person, and he’s been kind enough to spend time talking with us the past couple of years, we’re endorsing Chris Antonetti as his replacement. Like any good grass roots campaign, you can never start too soon, and this is a cause worthy of your support.
So, without further ado, an introduction to the man we hope is the next General Manager of the Seattle Mariners.
Who is Chris Antonetti?
He is currently the Vice President of Baseball Operations for the Cleveland Indians and the annointed successor to Mark Shapiro as the next Cleveland GM. He was Shapiro’s go to guy on contract negotiations and evaluative analysis before being promoted and given a large raise (now, he’s just Shapiro’s go to guy for everything), as well as spear-heading most of the initiatives to create new programs that give the Indians a competitive edge on their opponents. The Indians have been the leader in using technology to their advantage for years, and they’ve leveraged their intellectual knowledge of systems into a sustained advantage on the field. Antonetti has been the man responsible for overseeing these areas and pushing for their use throughout the organization. A lot of the things that make the Cleveland Indians the best run organization in baseball are in place due to the work of Chris Antonetti.
Why is he qualified to be a major league GM?
Antonetti is going to be labeled as a “Moneyball” executive by the media, as he did not play professional baseball and has advanced degrees from elite universities. He got a bachelors in business administration from Georgetown and a masters in sports management from Massachusets, learning the academic side of how to be a successful manager. From there, he took a low level job with the Montreal Expos in their minor league operations department before joining the Indians organization in 1999 as, essentially, an intern. From 1999 until now, he has worked his way from the title of Assistant, Baseball Operations to Assistant GM (a position he earned in 2002) to his current VP of Baseball Ops and has held numerous roles during that time. The Indians have had him work in both administrative and player development positions, and he’s spent thousands of hours working with both scouts and statistical analysts.
No one understands how to use both subjective scouting information and quantifiable statistical data together as well as the Indians (Okay, maybe the Rays have caught up), and Antonetti has been successful in both sides of the baseball operations department. Under the leadership of John Hart and now Mark Shapiro, the Indians have become baseball’s most well-oiled machine. Antonetti has been a vital cog in that machine for the past nine years.
What are his unique strengths?
Antonetti has many things going for him, but a few notable traits set him apart. He’s brilliant, without a doubt, but there a lot of people in baseball who are extremely smart, and most of them would make terrible general managers. The most important responsibility a General Manager holds is to gain the respect of those who work for him and motivate them to do good work. In this respect, Antonetti is set apart from other executives with an academic background. He commands the respect of his employees, but also exudes humility with his soft-spoken manner. While he has his own set of convictions about truths as they apply to baseball, he seeks input from a variety of sources and seeks to find knowledge wherever it may lie, whether with new statistical research or old scouting truisms.
Antonetti isn’t the most outgoing person on earth, and he’s not the charasmatic figure that Billy Beane or even Bill Bavasi is, but he combines respect, humility, and intelligence in a package that makes him one of the best leaders of people in baseball.
Why do you want him to be the next GM of the Mariners?
The Mariners are an organization in transition and are looking for an identity. During the Pat Gillick era, the team focused heavily on the present success of the major league club at the expense of the farm system, and while they experienced short term gains on the field, the price was paid during the Bill Bavasi era, where the major league club was sacrficed in an effort to replenish the organization with young talent, both through trades and amateur acquisitions, and then built up again in a terrible manner that resulted in disaster.
Chris Antonetti understands player valuation at the major league level extremely well, and has had a hand in many of the Indians numerous good acquisitions over the years. While the Indians have shared the Mariners strong desire to build through the farm system, they’ve also been able to acquire quality players in trades and on the free agent market to put around their home grown talent, allowing them to contend in a competitive division despite restraints on their payroll.
The Mariners need a better philosophy of major leauge player acquisition. They need to do a better job of selecting pitchers, getting away from ideas of value based on not-useful statistics such as W-L record and ERA and moving towards a more realistic understanding of how to project pitching ability. They need to stop collecting athletes with impressive skills and start collecting ballplayers who contribute runs on the field.
Most importantly, however, they need a philosophy that permeates the organization, from the parent club through the minor leagues. They need cohesiveness in what is being taught to their players as well as what is valued in terms of abilities. They need to establish a foundation to work from and a strong identity in what being a Seattle Mariner is all about.
The Indians have refined organizational cohesiveness, and while no one is perfect, they do it better than anyone.
Well, if he’s so great, then why does he need a grassroots campaign to get the job?
Chris Antonetti is 33-years-old, is unheard of by almost everyone who doesn’t cover baseball for a living, and has no experience as a professional ballplayer. In the eyes of most of the media, this will make him just another laptop-toting seamhead who focuses on what their computer tells them and has no respect for the establishment. For every Theo Epstein, who gained a modicum of respect after building a World Series champion, we see scathing rebukes written by local scribes when teams have hired guys with similar backgrounds, such as Paul DePodesta, Josh Byrnes, Jon Daniels, Andrew Friedman, or J.P. Ricciardi. In a city where Pat Gillick and his traditional ways are honored with the highest esteem, it’s going to be a very tough sell to get the Mariners to change directions and hire someone too young to be elected president.
He’s also strongly committed to the Indians organization. In the past several years, he has turned down the chance to run the St. Louis Cardinals and Pittsburgh Pirates, as well as declining to be interviewed for numerous other GM positions because of his satisfaction with his role in Cleveland. In order to keep him away from St. Louis, the Indians gave him a defined role of succession where he was essentially guaranteed the role of GM of the Indians when Mark Shapiro steps down. However, that timetable is still up in the air, and it is possible that if presented with an offer that is simply too good to walk away from, Antonetti would relinquish his role as GM-In-Waiting for a chance to run his own club. It is, at the minimum, worth having that conversation.
In a division where Arte Moreno is willing to spend lavish amounts of money to leverage the Los Angeles market, Oakland is taking their highly efficient development strategy to a new ballpark, and Tom Hicks’ huge dollars in Texas are now being managed by a team of executives led by Jon Daniels, the Mariners cannot afford to be behind the eight ball in terms of player evaluation.
The Mariners have the revenue streams and talent in place to build a contending baseball club. Chris Antonetti has the skills it takes to transform this club from a rebuilding process into perennial contender.
Antonetti in ’09. Spread the word.