Avila, Hart off the board
David Andriesen reports that the Tigers have denied permission to speak to Al Avila and that the M’s have not pursued permission to interview John Hart.
Avila, who has interviewed for at least three other general manager jobs, was a finalist five years ago when the Mariners hired Bill Bavasi. After the 2006 season, Tigers owner Mike Ilitch made an effort to lock up his top executives, including signing Avila to a new deal that runs through 2009.
Also Tuesday, it was confirmed that John Hart, the former general manager of the Cleveland Indians and Texas Rangers and a member of several lists of potential Mariners candidates, has not been contacted by the team. Hart is a senior adviser to the Rangers, and the Mariners would have had to seek permission from the Rangers to interview him. No such permission has been sought.
Experience isn’t everything
Geoff Baker is back from vacation and chimed in today with his thoughts on the GM search. While I agree with most of what he wrote, one sentence really left a bad taste in my mouth, as he seems to be writing off Woodfork because of a perceived lack of experience.
From here, one of those picks will get their shot. It may even be Woodfork, though, as I said, all else being equal, I don’t see why the M’s would take him when the other three candidates offer the same fresh look with added experience.
First of all, all else isn’t equal. The candidates have different educations, different backgrounds, different strengths and weaknesses, different philosophies, ideas and contacts. If all else were equal, there’d be no need for interviews.
Secondly, knocking Woodfork’s experience isn’t fair. LaCava and Ng have more experience than Woodfork, yes. But DiPoto’s basically a toss up. Woodfork has spent six years in major league front offices (three with Boston, three with Arizona) and another three years in MLB’s Labor Relations department. DiPoto played professionally from 1989 to 2000, then spent 2003 and 2004 in Boston’s front office, joined the Rockies front office in 2005 and has been with the Diamondbacks since 2006. I would argue that Woodfork’s time in the MLB office actually gives him the edge over DiPoto, experience-wise.
But that’s not the point. The point is that experience only counts for so much. Any idea how much front-office experience Theo Epstein had when he took over at general manager for the Red Sox? About six years. Billy Beane was an assistant GM for only five years before he was promoted to general manager in 1997. And how about Andrew Friedman? Just three years before he was GM for the Rays, laying the groundwork for one of the most well-run franchises in baseball, he was an investment analyst for Bear, Stearns & Co.
Experience is what got us in to this mess, remember? It’s time for change.
Woodfork in ’09.
WTF?
If you’re not reading UniWatch, you’re missing out on one of the best sports sites on the Internet. I actually don’t read it every day, but every time I go there I get lost for hours and ask myself, “Damn, why don’t I read this every day?” Anyway, I got lost in it again the other night and found this photo from the 1979 All Star Game…
Reggie Jackson is in the second row, second from the left … in a Mariners uniform. WTF?!? Anyone know the story behind this?
So, What Did I Miss?
I’m back, unpacked, and amazingly, didn’t receive a single toaster. Apparently, while I was away, the Cubs decided to throw away their season, the Rays and Red Sox proved that the 2008 AL East is the best division we’ve seen in a long, long time, and lots of people told the M’s “thanks but no thanks”. I know seeing good candidates turn away is frustrating, but despair not – the Pirates ran into this same thing last year, getting turned down by several of their top choices before settling on the other Cleveland Asst. GM, Neil Huntington. He clearly wasn’t their first choice, but since taking over, he’s completely reshaped the way the Pirates were run, even hiring Dan Fox to run their statistical analysis department.
To be honest, in catching up on what happened in the last 10 days, I’m encouraged. The list of people the M’s have wanted to interview reads like a who’s-who of USSM approved thinkers. The M’s didn’t even bother to talk to the guys who were holding the Forst-Hahn-Hoyer-Depo roles the last time around, but this time, an older school guy like Bernazard stands out as unique among the candidates. The M’s are clearly looking at the young analytical types as the group they’d like to hire from, and I don’t see how anyone can take that as a bad sign. Even though we’re not going to get Antonetti, it looks very unlikely that we’re going to get a guy who will continue the current practices of the organization. It’s quite probable that the M’s are going to hire a GM who is much more in tune with how baseball teams should be operating in the 21st century.
Of the guys we know they’ve interviewed (thanks to Larry Stone, who has done great work covering this so far), I’m throwing my hat behind Peter Woodfork. From talking with a couple friends who have interacted with Woodfork, the consensus seems to be that he knows his strengths and weaknesses well and is more interested in organization building than legacy building. Due to his time in labor relations with the commissioner’s office and his various duties in Boston and Arizona, he’s become quite proficient in the contract/arbitration/rules aspect of the game, and he has a good grasp on real analytical processes. His degree from Harvard is in Psychology, however, and his perceptions of players as people instead of numbers helps him in his interactions with scouts and player evaluation types.
More than anything else, Woodfork has developed a reputation as a team guy – he’s not the Billy Beane from Moneyball, a one man show who does it all, but instead, he’s much more like Theo Epstein, who built a management group with perspectives varying from Bill James to Allard Baird. While Theo’s in charge, the Red Sox have a heavily involved ownership, not that different from the Mariners structure. Epstein has figured out how to leverage that involvement into a positive, building a team that can work well in such an environment, and that’s what’s needed in Seattle as well.
Woodfork has essentially grown up in baseball in two organizations that are running their teams the right way. He’s the mix of an analytical mind with the personality to integrate with Bob Engle and Bob Fontaine that the organization could really use. There need to be significant changes in how the baseball operations department is ran, but the amateur talent evaluators are a strength, not a weakness, and Woodfork’s ability to work with them is a real positive on his resume.
The Mariners need a GM that is willing to build a team of decision makers that focus on finding the right answer as often as possible, and Woodfork comes with the reputation of a guy who will do exactly that. For that reason, he’s my candidate, and the guy I’m hoping they hire.
Woodfork in ’09.
Hahn off the board
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.
Essential problems with the interview process
Whether or not a candidate understands the implications of DIPS theory and modern defensive analysis will make a huge difference in their ability to correctly value players, and they’ll be hired by people who think they understand baseball stats but have clearly demonstrated they know nothing.
A candidate will have to sell Armstrong and Lincoln on a course of action that does not offend or put them off, even though they apparently have returned to viewing the 2001 season and its surrounding years as the apex of the franchise, when previously fixating on what they thought were the lessons of those years proved disastrous.
Lincoln and Armstrong are supposedly asking candidates detailed questions about how they would rebuild the team, deal with certain situations, and so on. This is a huge improvement over the last go-round. But the interviewers have no ability to evaluate whether or not an answer is right — and from what we know of their baseball opinions, are often disastrously wrong. So we’re left to hope that they will pay attention to how the candidate solves the problem… except that Armstrong’s recently stated that what they really want to see is a return to consensus-building and consultation, which would mean that the candidate who says he’d rely on the good advice of his interviewers will meet the stated criteria to get a job in which relying on those people will result in extremely poor decision making.
An extremely brief GM recap
Every time I post the odds or anything, we get requests to add a ranking of who we’d prefer, or who’s the most stat-friendly, or whatnot.
So here’s an extremely short version of that.
LaCava’s an upgrade, and he and Woodfork are the two who would probably be able to come in and improve the franchise without a lot of turmoil. He’s well-regarded in the same way Bavasi was, and he’ll probably sail through the interviews. He’d get on great with the press.
Woodfork’s much the same – he’s definitely a step towards modern, savvy baseball management. And all accounts of his work with the Diamondbacks are good, and his time there may make him a good fit for trying to rework the Mariners. And he too would likely do well bringing the whole organization forward, forging relationships, and so on.
Rick Hahn’s sort of generically the same too: you got the leadership and get-along check box, plus we know he does things like figure out the value of a win and who contributes what to that (though not how, which could be troubling).
Call those “good hires” and I’ll talk about my reservations in a second.
Kim Ng’s more of a cipher. We know she’s really smart, likely to dramatically improve the team’s ability to work the margins of the roster and make great waiver pickups. She’s said to have come a long way in her player evaluation on the scouting side, but it’s hard to gauge that. I worry that given her career-long proclivity for dodging the press there’s the risk of a DePodesta-style rift with the local ink-stained wretches that could impair her ability to run the team. We also don’t know where she is on, say, advances in defense evaluation. That kind of thing can be sassed out in the interview process, but we don’t know.
Here I shrug. I don’t know. I was once a full Ng supporter and then the more I realized that we could throw our nominal cheering behind someone we knew was on the cutting edge of GM-dom, like Antonetti (or DePodesta, or…)
Tony Bernazard… it looks like Bavasi 2. That’s too mean, but there it is. Bad hire. If anyone wants to throw exculpatory evidence in here, I’d love to see it.
And I’m skipping DiPoto because I’m on a 1hr timer (seriously, there’s a window at the upper-left that reads “You can use Internet now!” with a ticking countdown).
Here’s my worry, though — take LaCava or Woodfork. They may be good, but is that enough? I don’t want to be disparaging, but the AL West already has a lot of good and well-funded competition. A GM who’s on the top of the traditional, good-interview, gets-along, knows everyone pile might keep the team’s head above water but that’s not going to win championships. What makes them potentially one of the best GMs in the game, not just now but in a few years when the next crop of super-hybrid GMs arise, along with the next batch of best-of-the-old ones?
Still, all of this is easy to write on the outside. The M’s, if they’re asking the right questions and there’s no reason to believe they will, could easily figure out whether or not the things we don’t see on their resumes adds up to something more than we know.
Forst off the board
Hickey reported this morning that the Mariners received permission from Oakland to interview assistant GM David Forst. But Buster Olney just reported that Forst said, “Thanks, but no thanks.”
Strasburg Alternative No. 1: Grant Green
Stephen Strasburg is the consensus No. 1 pick in next year’s draft. Now, as Dave mentioned in the comments here, history shows that the top guy heading into the season rarely ends up being drafted first overall. Still, the Nationals face a PR nightmare if they don’t draft the player *perceived* to be the best after failing to sign the ninth-overall pick this year, Aaron Crow. So, let’s begin to take a look at some of the alternatives to Strasburg that could be an option for the Mariners with the second-overall pick. In part one of this series, we’ll start with Grant Green…
Southern California shortstop Grant Green has been on the prospect radar for a long time.Â
He grew up in Anaheim Hills, Calif. and went to Canyon High School. In the fall of 2004, he began playing in wood-bat showcases and the summer after his junior year of high school he played for Team USA’s Junior National Team that also included Clayton Kershaw, Brett Anderson, Lars Anderson and Adrian Cardenas, among others. During his senior season, he was one of the top high school prospects in the country and Baseball America projected him to be a third-round pick in 2006. However, signability concerns caused him to slip and the Padres took a chance on him in the 14th round. He reportedly wanted $1.4 million to sign, which the Padres wouldn’t give him, so he headed to USC where he became the Trojans’ first true freshman to start at shortstop since Seth Davidson in 1998.
Bonus stadium guidelines
Here are some interesting/funny things I found while scouring every team’s stadium guidelines for my previous post…
• The Blue Jays host an annual sleepover that includes dinner at night, breakfast in the morning, autographs from the players and baseball movies on the big screen. I think the White Sox have done this too and this is another idea I would fully endorse in Seattle.
• The Blue Jays specifically prohibit gang colors.
In cooperation with the Toronto Police Service, guests wearing known gang clothing and/or colours will not be permitted into Rogers Centre. Guests will be automatically asked to leave the premises, as noted on signs posted at gate entrances.
• The Brewers don’t allow “tube chip cans” in the stadium. However, at Coors Field, “potato chip or nut cardboard cans with metal tops or bottoms†are specifically permitted.
• Costumes are not allowed at Wrigley Field
• The Yankees don’t allow laptops in the stadium.
• Phillies banner/sign restrictions are hilarious…
a. Recognizing that Citizens Bank Park is a baseball ballpark and not a forum for public discussion, messages on banners and signs may relate solely to one or more of the following subjects, without any unrelated collateral content whatsoever: (i) the game and institution of major league baseball; (ii) a major league baseball team; (iii) the on-field activities and performance of a major league baseball player, coach or manager; (iv) the acts or omissions of the management and other non-player employees of a major league baseball organization, but only to the extent that such acts or omissions may relate to or affect its team’s on- field activities and performance; (v) the entity broadcasting a baseball game played at the ballpark and the acts or omissions of the announcers in doing so; and (vi) fans’ birthday, engagement, wedding, anniversary, get well, welcome home, congratulations or like messages.
b. Additionally, banners and signs may not bear a message that (i) is slanderous, (ii) is obscene, vulgar or indecent and inappropriate for viewing by children, (iii) contains “fighting words” likely to provoke a breach of the peace, (iv) contains commercial advertising or commercial product or service identification, or (v) contains derogatory matter relating to race, color, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, religion, national origin, ancestry, physical handicap, marital status, or age.
Fighting words? Ha!
• Also, the Phillies ballgirls have their own Web site and blog.
• When a Pirate hits a home run at PNC Park, fans have the option to return the ball to an usher in exchange for an autographed baseball (mailed to them) signed by the Pirate that hit the home run.
• The Pirates laid out the guidelines for in-game replays:
Major League Baseball rules the following may not be shown: pitched balls not put into play (called balls and strikes), force plays at second base, “bean” balls and fights/arguments. Close plays may be shown once and only at regular speed.
• I’ll take “Things I Never Would Have Guessed†for $1,000, Alex.
Ebbets Field was an influence for Tropicana Field. The ballpark’s grand, eight-story-high rotunda entrance is designed from the very blueprints used for the rotunda at Ebbets Field, built in 1913.