The St. Louis Cardinals’ GM isn’t considered by a Sports Illustrated writer to be among the top half in his field.
It takes a lot of guts to write an article ranking Major League Baseball’s general managers. Tim Marchman at Sports Illustrated apparently is not afraid of the inevitable criticism as he has undertaken such an endeavor.
Unfortunately without much of a defined process to seemingly guide him, what we get is Marchman’s assessment of potential more than anything that can be truly analyzed. Yet because of what it is and where it is, the article is bound to get a lot of attention as people like me all over cyberspace write about their concerns over ‘So-and-so GM being only ranked xxth.’
As a St. Louis Cardinals watcher, I am actually less concerned about where the club’s leader stacks up numerically as I am about some of those ahead of him.
Still, I have to admit that I was initially a bit surprised that John Mozeliak is considered a second-division player, sitting at #18 of 30. Mo seems to be shrugged off as riding the coattails of some combination of Albert Pujols, Tony La Russa and Walt Jocketty’s leftovers. No mention was made of the moves to lock up young talent like Adam Wainwright and Yadier Molina cheaply, for example.
Then again, realizing Mo has only two years in the job, one of which was a playoff miss and the other a quick exit, I guess I could see it. That seemingly obvious point was not made in the article, however.
That is, I thought I could accept it until I noticed Marchman placed Mo two spots lower than Jim Hendry of the Cubs! I guess Mo needs to make a boatload of bad signings like Alfonso Soriano, Kosuke Fukudome, Milton Bradley, etc. while blowing millions so he can move up the list.
There seems to be a major difference between us in how we gauge a top general manager. I am a believer in recognizing results, though Marchman seems more enamored with improving bad situations, giving credit for perceived progress.
He mentions his criteria include “success”, though not necessarily winning. Go figure. Other factors include “not doing stupid things”, “efficiency”, and “tenure”. He “spares” us by not sharing his formula, though he apparently at least has one for efficiency. Further, the period of time considered is not divulged.
I buy that progress is good, but no one should care if a team improves from last place to second to last, for example. Boatloads of prospects are only beneficial if they eventually deliver championships. After all, this isn’t a sport where style points are awarded for good form.
So many baseball wonks these days are in love with Jack Zduriencik in Seattle, including Marchman ranking him #5. Yet that team still hasn’t won anything. I guess they value paper improvement because one Jack Z. move never mentioned, the simple addition of the well-known hothead Bradley, could single-handedly destroy the Mariners this season before they break their eight-year playoff drought.
Whiz kids Jon Daniels of Texas (#7) and Arizona’s Josh Byrnes (#11) score points for talent collection and for supposedly showing progress. Daniels has neither won a division nor even made the playoffs as a wild card. The Diamondbacks struggled to a total of just 70 victories last season, a slide of a dozen wins from the year prior and 20 fewer than two years ago, while finishing in last place in the NL West in 2009. Now that’s success! (Edit: Count Baseball Prospectus among those unimpressed by the supposed level of talent assembled by Byrnes, as Arizona’s farm system was just ranked #29, only ahead of the Cardinals.)
Then there is Doug Melvin in Milwaukee at #6. #6? The guy is running a franchise that most recently finished in first place 27 years ago and has won a grand total of one playoff game in their only appearance since. His 2009 Brewers finished below .500 in a soft NL Central.
Saying Theo Epstein and the Red Sox (#2) “deserve more hype than they get” sounds like something read straight off an ESPN studio cue card. The Cardinals have made hay picking up a number of Theo’s mistakes in recent years, though I can’t argue with his pair of titles. At least he made much of the money spent pay off.
There are also what I think are good, underrated choices in the top ten like Larry Beinfest of Florida (#4) and Dan O’Dowd of Colorado (#7), GMs who have done quite a bit with less to work with.
Between #10 and #14, Marchman gives curtain calls to GMs that once were hot, but now are not. These rankings seem to be lifetime achievement awards for the likes of Oakland’s Billy Beane (#10), Andy MacPhail of Baltimore (#12), Dave Dombrowski of Detroit (#13) and our old friend, Cincinnati’s Jocketty (#14).
Other than the Tigers’ World Series run in 2006, the moves these teams have been making in recent years have yet to translate into anything tangible. Even Detroit has fallen on harder times since. Then we have Beane, with one playoff team in his last six and a last-place finish in 2009. I guess because he is a genius, he gets to stay in the top ten for old-times sake, because he sure hasn’t done anything lately to justify it.
I realize that spring is the time for baseball optimism, but I will take a winning GM every time over one living off past successes or a supposed up-and-comer who has yet to achieve anything but looks stylish in trying.
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“AL East grabs top three spots…”. Of course they do. He could have just given Epsein and Cashman the top two spots, but sliding the Ray’s guy into the top spot adds legitimacy and proves that the ranking is thoughtful. Brilliant.
I noticed that as to both Jockety and Mo, a factor against ranking them higher was that the success of the Cardinals is probably due largely to Pujols, TLR and Duncan. As to Jockety it makes no sense since he presided when those guys where acquired.
What a strange article. He gives Tony Reagins of the Angels props because “he declined to overpay for homegrown ace John Lackey and beloved leadoff man Chone Figgins.”
But the GMs who did “overpay” for those two studs both rank way ahead of Reagins.
And if “not doing stupid things counts most,” you’d think Mo would rank higher. He had a pretty big post-Jocketty mess to clean up (bad contracts, disgruntled manager), and hardly any payroll flexibility to clean it up with. The closest thing to a disaster on his watch was the series of trades ’09 for a chance to win it all. But unlike Milwaukee, which tried the same thing and came away equally empty in the postseason, Mo actually managed to retain the guy he wiped out the farm system to acquire.
And yet, the GM whose example Mo didn’t follow was ranked 12 spots ahead of him. For comic relief, Doug Melvin seems to have been given bonus points for trading Prince Fielder for “enough young talent to drive another serious run at the pennant” … a trade that exists only in the writer’s imagination.
Ranking GM’s sounds less accurate than ranking farm systems , which in my mind isn’t all that
accurate either .
If Mo was in the East or in Chicago he would have been ranked higher (I think Marchman is NY based). Anyone ranking Hendry and Jocketty above Mo is just plain silly and makes me question the legitimacy of the list.
I wonder where WC is? Albert and AJ went to an NBA game last night with Joe Mather and Brendan Ryan. I was hoping to learn the deep significance of that.
They’ve been having student protests out here. No way I can miss that. Tell me what teams were playing before I kill a goat or throw the bones. Sounds allot like there may have been some rather tallish beings involved. A short one to I’d guess. ……………..I do have a fascinating take on the Twins exhibition games I’ll share eventually.
I wish I had seen today’s game. There are some expected trends there according to the box score. You may well see Lopez or Rasmus pushing Ludwick to 6th by May.
I’m sure A.J. just wanted to hang with Joey Bombs and The Boog. Who wouldn’t.
I’ll bet that Lance guy is the only pitcher not eating that health crap they’re making them have for breakfast. Steak and eggs for him.
WC thinks that was a good article. Completely tongue and cheeky all the way…..and he makes that very clear. Mo is just a puppet on a string. BD should have been listed for only spending 90 million again. He is good.
Jack Zduriencik took over from one of the worst bums of all time. He would have been 1# in my book.
An example of Mo/BD’s work……………. they except exhibition games in Minnesota for a pretty piece of change. All they need do is play Pujols and Holiday in both games for an agreed number of innings, and use regular rotation guys. Ask Mo how much income he is generating from those moves. 4 and 5th starters were guaranteed. Lohse is the in the mix as 4th for reasons other than projected talent. It makes for a good gate in bad weather with TV contracts of interest. The underlying factor is really about risk. If its a nice day it will be 40 degrees. Because of career health issues, Lohse is likely heavily insured. Penny probably not at all. …………………. Bottom line out weighs common sense. They should of had AAA arms in both those games …………..Cash is king…………………Pray for rain.
These kind of annual comparisons are impacted by the popularity of major league level transactions and the public profile of a GM. Mo is unlikely to be a high profile GM. TLR is the guy reporters go to for quotes. Mo is probably happy to be low profile. It was Mo who drafted Jose Pujols in 1999, but now he may be under-estimated as an undeserving beneficiary of Pujols.
Baseball is a long-scale business, with long development time between amateurs to the majors. The Cards seem to have strengthened some aspects of their business in recent years. But teams watch one another and adopt good ideas they see others pursuing. So the competition never ends and you have to keep striving to improve just to maintain your position.
It was good the Cards went above slot to sign Shelby Miller, selectively choosing to invest in higher ceiling. It was also good recently to sign a bunch of younger Latin amateurs, because some diamond in the rough might emerge. There are a lot of different ways to find talent, yet the more likely they are, the more costly they will be. Unless one spends the way the Yankees have, its hard to be a consistent winner.
Supposed GM #11, Arizona’s Josh Byrnes, was fired today.
GM #5, Seattle’s Jack Z has a last place team with only two more wins than Arizona.
These rankings look even worse now than they did in March and I thought they were awful then.
Has Mo’s stock gone up or down I wonder.