Hahn off the board
Conor · October 12, 2008 at 10:23 am · Filed Under Mariners
Larry Stone reports we can cross another name off the list of potential GMs: White Sox assistant Rick Hahn.Â
There may be more preliminary interviews next week before a handful of candidates are brought back for a second round.
According to baseball sources, the M’s were denied permission by the White Sox to interview Rick Hahn, their assistant general manager.
How rude.
Derek or Conor (or Dave if he sneaks a peak during his honeymoon: j/k) – Stone reports the M’s may consider Bob Engle, any thoughts on him?
Yeah, unusually rude if true.
Has to be something in his contract – or he was promised to take over for Ken Williams soon.
I don’t like the direction is headed. I fear we’re going to end up with another organizational yes-man a la when Bill Plummer was hired as manager in 1992. That was different owners but the principle’s the same: Let’s hire somebody we know and are comfortable with who will do whatever we say due either to personality or circumstance.
Wabbles,
If that’s the case, Lee P. will keep his job.
Geez, at this rate how long until talented assistants are ‘developed’ and/or even ‘traded’?
“I’ll give you Hahn for Clement and an intern-to-be-named-later…”
Tough to say. He’s obviously a great talent evaluator, but that is only one piece of the puzzle for being a quality GM. We don’t really know what kind of GM he would be, but he would certainly be tough to replace as the international scouting director. So, I certainly want him to remain with the organization, but I think he’s more valuable in the position he’s currently in…
mlbtraderumors.com reports that Buster Olney says DiPoto is among the front-runners to get the Seattle job, and if he does land it, this will increase the likelihood that Pat Gillick winds up serving as some kind of consultant for the Mariners. What connection does Dipoto have with Gillick?
Another rejection: Boston Herald reports the Mariners asked Jed Hoyer to interview and he refused. For “personal and professional reasons.”
The GM candidates are dropping like flies. So much for Seattle being a nice job opportunity.
It’s still a nice opportunity, but under any circumstances there will be some people you can’t get a shot at. You focus on getting the best available, just like they won’t pass on drafting the best player available just because the Nationals take Strasburg (I hope; please ignore the fact that they drafted Josh Fields).
We knew that of the original list, some would get dropped off and some would winnow themselves out. Those identified so far include Antonetti, DePodesta, Forst, Hahn, Hoyer, and Towers. That would match up pretty well with an original plan for 10-15 interviews scaling back to more like 7-10. It’s just that most of those initially identified as appealing have been crossed off.
The thing is, Hoyer really had no explicit reason to decline even a preliminary interview. DePodesta, Hahn, and Towers were denied permission to interview by their teams, and Antonetti and Forst are gearing up for internal promotions. Hoyer was not denied permission by the Red Sox, and with Epstein re-upping, he’s hit a ceiling in Boston as far as internal advancement. So he must really just not have wanted to. I suspect knowing that his good friend was also in the mix (Peter Woodfork and he used to be roommates) made the decision even easier, but to not even want the interview experience? Bit of a downer for the M’s, I think.
I’m just happy that they are actually asking the people that teams want to hold on to….