Another GM walks away
Dave · October 15, 2007 at 5:33 pm · Filed Under Mariners
Following in the heels of Terry Ryan and John Schuerholz, Angels GM Bill Stoneman has decided to give up his post. Three successful, respected men voluntarily walk away from jobs running winning organizations in the same winter – I can’t recall this ever happening before.
DMZ – I can’t pull up the articles from October, 2003. I can pull up the entries from November, 2003 just fine. Am I doing something wrong or was there some format change that happened during this time? Thanks.
DMZ – I got it now. Sorry about that.
Yeah, so here’s the problem: many older entries don’t have headlines… so in WordPress’ results, they don’t have a clickable link to the article… and you’re in trouble.
If they’re important enough to have been referred to since then, I may have taken the time to go back and fix it — if you search for “Kim Ng” as you go back you’ll see (for instance) the “resume” post and some others have been re-headlind.
DMZ – I reread the resume piece. Are you still as high on her as you were four years ago or are there many other candidates since then that you think have surpassed her? Would you be more concerned about her lack of experience with scouting now than you were four years ago when you wrote this? Thanks.
I can see that many GMs like Stoneman are stepping down of their own accord.
Makes me wonder how many of them were actually in danger of being Fired despite their success and long tenure.
Ownership want a fresh approach or maybe afraid of a possible failure in near future and want to try to avoid it.
Could be any number of reasons but I feel the M’s are bucking the trend in sticking once again with Bavasi.
His record alone with the number of player busts and bad trades way otustripping any successes and the M’s winning record was achieved in spite of Bavasi as opposed as to because of him.
Hopefully if the trend of GMs stepping down or being released or how ever they chose top put it results in the availability of GM the FO and ownership CAN’T resist hiring and Bavasi ends up the odd man out.
@55
“Makes me wonder how many of them were actually in danger of being Fired”
Stoneman and Schuerholtz weren’t in danger of being fired. Likely ditto for Ryan.
Makes me wonder how many of them were actually in danger of being Fired despite their success and long tenure.
I don’t think very many, at least not the big three.
If the organizations were to go in a radically different direction with their replacements I might feel differently, but Atlanta promoted Schuerholz and gave the GM’s job to his top lieutenant, so I don’t sense any dissatisfaction there. Stoneman is being replaced by the team’s Director of Player Development. Minnesota replaced Ryan with its assistant GM. None of the organizations have really gone outside of the box in finding replacements.
Agreed but I still wonder if there was more to it or if there was some kind of agreed to time limit for their tenures.
At this point you step down to allow your inhouse successor take the job on to prevent burnout.
The point I’m trying to make is there’s a air of prearrangement to it all.
w/r/t Ng: Antonetti’s my clear favorite these days. Ng’s stock has… it’s kind of stalled, for lack of a better word: you still hear that she’s competent, she has the same strengths, but her organizations haven’t done that well and there isn’t anything you can point to and say “she’s done really well making them stronger in x”.
Sooooo, yeah. Antonetti’s the best candidate out there.
I agree with the principle, but Washington’s baseball attendance has dropped from 2.7 million two years ago to fewer than 2 million this year — and that’s after 33 years without a team at all.
The Nats have gone from 81 wins (and a first half where they won 52 games and led their division) to being nowhere near contention, and they were playing in an interim home (RFK) that’s one of the last of the multipurpose stadiums left in MLB (and not a particularly nice or modern one, either). Gee, what a shock, the attendance crashed.
Now that they are moving into their new stadium
Bermanator, what is the address to your blog? You are chock full of reasoned analysis…seems a shame to have you here simply commenting on the opinions of others when you could light a whole ‘nother sky with your many glowing firmaments.
Does anyone have any idea why Stoneman stepped down? Is Moreno a control freak? I would think his willingness to spend would make the GM position there very attractive. I half expect them to pursue Alex if he opts out of his Yankoncract.
The Nats have gone from 81 wins (and a first half where they won 52 games and led their division) to being nowhere near contention, and they were playing in an interim home (RFK) that’s one of the last of the multipurpose stadiums left in MLB (and not a particularly nice or modern one, either). Gee, what a shock, the attendance crashed.
A team’s attendance dropping off by 800,000 fans two years after returning to the city following a 33-year absence concerns me, because I’m guessing the current figures are closer to the actual fanbase than the 2.7 million that showed up for the initial season. I’m looking at the numbers for the expansion teams, and it seems like when the attendance “crashes” after that initial burst of enthusiasm, it doesn’t get back to that initial level unless the team really starts to win.
Washington gets a second chance to win fans who just want to see something new because the stadium opens next year, but history doesn’t support the notion that Washington has a big fan base waiting to be wooed. Both editions of the Senators were below the AL average in attendance almost every year.
Sure, they were a bad team — but the Redskins are a mediocre, poorly-run team and have been for years, and even though fans complain on the radio the games still sell out and there’s still a waiting list for season tickets (though its smaller than it was). Listen to either of the two local sports talk radio stations on a random summer afternoon in June or July and you’re still likely to hear more talk about the Redskins than the Nats.
I live outside of the city, and everyone is happy to have the team here, but that doesn’t mean the Nats are going to get big crowds on a Wednesday night against the Marlins.
DMZ (59)–
Ng’s stock has… it’s kind of stalled, for lack of a better word: you still hear that she’s competent, she has the same strengths, but her organizations haven’t done that well and there isn’t anything you can point to and say “she’s done really well making them stronger in xâ€.
Do you think it’s at the point where she needs a change of scenery to get things kick-started, even if it’s a lateral move? Or is the chance that she’s the GM-in-waiting in Los Angeles high enough that staying there makes sense?
according to Stoneman, his contract was up, Moreno asked him to extend it, he decided that at 60-something he had less energy & wanted more free time, and that the franchise was in good hands if he instead moved over to consulting.
I don’t know. It may be, and obviously I’m veering off into speculation, that she doesn’t want to be a GM all that badly. She’s never courted the press, does interviews once a decade — maybe she looks at how stressful and terrifying it is to be a GM and weighs it against her current position, where she’s able to contribute, her strengths are appreciated, and she’s shielded from the massive constant storm of criticism, press requests, and general crap that a GM deals with.
There was a point a couple years ago where it looked like she was really going to try and gear up on scouting and player development, and now it seems like she was just making herself a little more well-rounded.
A point in support of this is that she’s infrequently mentioned in discussions for jobs: if she wanted, it would be easy for her to make sure her name came up in rumors, that she was mentioned as a GM-in-waiting, and so on. She hasn’t, though.
Hm…I thought that she DID make a lateral move. Could be that her game isn’t superlative enough to overcome the natural resistance (and it would HAVE to be top-rank, A-number one for a non-traditional candidate to get a job).
A team’s attendance dropping off by 800,000 fans two years after returning to the city following a 33-year absence concerns me…
I don’t think MLB has a great track record getting consistent attendance in “new” cities (let’s say a 33-year absence makes D.C. new) until the team has been there at least a decade. The last few expansions: Arizona, Colorado, Tampa Bay, Florida. Colorado has great attendence, but the other three are pretty weak, even with some championship teams. Before that, Seattle and Toronto. Well, both are doing okay, attendance wise, now but Seattle took a long time before there was a large fan base. Of course, terrible teams and an awful baseball venue will do that (let’s see, Kingdome, Tropicana Field, etc. But then even the BoB doesn’t do that well). It takes a long time to become a baseball town. I think Denver is the exception that proves the rule.
I think it’s a truism that it takes ANYTHING a long time for something to sink in (otherwise, the coverage is widespread, but the roots are shallow). One or two good seasons may help a little, but nothing goes like a sustained run of competitive teams…
DC is the ultimate bandwagon city — quite literally, everybody’s job depends on jumping on the latest bandwagon every 4 years or so (eg, getting the winning bumpersticker on your car after the election, no matter who you actually supported or voted for). Attaching yourself to winners, and distancing yourself from losers, is in the very DNA of the place. If they had a baseball team that started winning, everybody would want a piece of that (which, as you may recall, is exactly what happened when they were on a winning streak in that first season in DC).
The other factor is the way sports teams (particularly the Redskins) fit into the “business” climate of the place, and the business of DC is lobbying. Luxury suite seats are perk, bribe, and business opportunity all rolled into one. While some teams (including the M’s) have been cutting back on their luxury suites, the new Nats ballpark will have 1,112 seats in 78 luxury suites (out of 41,000 seats total). The more spartan (or at least less ostentatious) approach to perks that most corps adopted in the wake of Sarbanes-Oxley never touched K Street (in much the same way that congress rails against socialized medicine while enjoying it themselves). And the Nats owners obviously understand this. Eighty-one home games is eighty-one opportunities for 78 lobbyists to “treat” their clients. That’s a lot of business. And hey, if they win a few games, the plebs might show up too.