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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.
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How many are better than the M’s current GM?
Holy jeebies! I’m willing to guess this is as much a testament to how demanding the MLB GM job is as a whole as it is anything else.
I’m really hoping Antonetti doesn’t select a position this off-season and that we end up nabbing him post-2008 (as I feel our team will take a discernible back-step in overall record unless Bavasi pulls of a bit of a coup this off-season).
In either case, a new crop of GM’s are being inducted, and as the M’s continue to deny the value of a blend of stat and scouting-based analysis, they’re going to fall even further behind the curve. It’s a shame, too, because with their payroll the M’s should be competing handily in the AL West every single season.
Speaking of which…Antonetti just got a shout-out of sorts from Ken Rosenthal on Fox moments ago.
Man, people REALLY don’t want to deal with Scott Boras this winter…
Eek. Anaheim would seem to be an attractive place for Antonetti, though according to Rosenthal they are looking internal. He’s also could shouldered a few clubs. What sort of orginization do you suppose he wants to run? Must be nice to be in demand and choose your ideal job.
Ouch. He wouldn’t even agree to be interviewed by the Reds…
Antonetti’s already turned down interview requests from the Mets, Red Sox, Pirates, Reds, and D’Backs. To say he’s picky would be an understatement.
He’s basically waiting for a situation that knocks his socks off.
Are the M’s “denying” stat-and-scouting based analysis? It’s not as if Bavasi is Mr. Old School. Out of memory, do we know who else interviewed when we hired Bavasi? I wouldn’t be surprised if Bavasi was the best option presented, notwithstanding any overtures made to the ‘top’ guys.
Honestly, I still want Bob Whitsitt as GM.
by the by, while not inaccurate, Bavasi’s wikipedia entry doesn’t even approach objectivity.
Bob Whitsitt? Geez, we’re scrapin’ rock bottom here, aren’t we?
Dave, fair to guess Seattle wouldn’t knock his socks off? Has Antonetti ever hinted at a job he wanted?
I think Seattle is a job he’d consider, honestly. It’s actually a pretty attractive job within the game.
My guess is that he’s running either the Mariners or the Nationals twelve months from now.
What makes the Nationals a good choice?
A big market, the available resources should be plenty to work with, and the bonus that the expectations bar would be low to start out.
New ballpark, good ownership, rapidly growing fanbase, good young talent base, and a chance to come in and install an entirely new vision in the organization.
Thanks, all I knew was the market size and they seem to have that young talent.
ESPN’s amusing take: http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/news/story?id=3065414
Whitsitt? I just threw up in my mouth a little.
Dave, Red Sox and Mets must have been assistant-level interviews, right? Or am I overestimating how attached they are to their current GMs?
Whitsitt? I had to watch him run the Blazers. We still haven’t recovered. I stopped watching an entire sport because of him.
Glad to hear Stoneman’s leaving voluntarily. Doesn’t he have to follow Bavasi and move to Seattle next?
Doesn’t Jocketty make the total 4, not 3? Or was Jocketty forced out?
The other thing about running the Nationals is that with Angelos running his team into the ground in the same media market, you look like a genius just by showing up.
Bah, they fixed the spelling error. I thought “Stoneham” was pretty creative.
19: Yeah, if Whitsitt were GM, we’d be GETTING guys like Julio Mateo instead of getting rid of them (along with Brett Myers, Elijah Dukes, etc.).
Rusty,
Jocketty was indeed fired.
#8– Bavasi, Omar Minaya, Al Avila, Mike Port, Benny Looper, Lee Pelekoudas, David Wilder; they didn’t talk to Tim Purpura, Chris Antonetti, and Paul DePodesta.
it was said that: “The Mariners made a run at a couple of big names, but were rebuffed in their efforts to talk to Oakland’s Billy Beane and the Yankees’ Brian Cashman, both of whom are locked into contracts with their current teams. The Mariners also were denied the chance to talk with one of Cashman’s lieutenants, Mike Newman.”
That’s a lot of GM talent floating around. Is there any chance the M’s will come to their senses and say “Well we WERE going to keep Bavasi…but then (super genius GM X) became available and we had no choice.” I’d really like to unclench the cheeks as I anticipate Bavasi making a swap like Adam Jones for Barry Zito.
One of the things that bugged me about the Bavasi/Mac resigning (besides the obvious “it’s a stupid idea”) is that they were reupped before the end of the season. That says to me that they weren’t just rehired, but they were rehired with some amount of enthusiasm. Otherwise, the FO could have waited until the end of the season and made a routine announcement. I don’t see anybody else coming here before the end of 2008.
Neither Bavasi nor McLaran were “resigned”.
The Mariners performance triggered an automatic one year extension built into Bavasi’s contract and McLaren was inked to a two-year contract when he signed as bench coach last offseason.
I just wish our “talented” GM would walk away. . .
Though signed contracts mean nothing when the team wants to get rid of you. And the Mariners did say that during the season they wouldn’t talk about whether Bavasi and Mac were coming back. Along with the “hot seat” comment about this season, it’s clear that they made an affirmative move in retaining the two, even though they didn’t technically re-sign them.
Bavasi and McLaren haven’t been retained yet either. The team has done nothing but make a PR statement that they will be back next year. Whoopdy do. While I think the chance either one is canned this offseason is minuscule, there’s absolutely nothing preventing the ownership from doing so.
-Bavasi and Mac are under contract through 2008 and have been all year (essentially).
-The team issued a statement that when you strip the PR language out of it basically stated: “Bavasi and Mac are under contract next season.”
-The Mariners have canned front office personnel before.
The only thing I don’t agree with on Dave’s Nationals post is the fan base … next year will bring an attendance boost because of the new stadium, but Washington is first and foremost a football city even when the Redskins are bad. A losing baseball team is going to be kicked off the local radar every August once training camp opens up.
But I otherwise agree that the Nats will get a lot of interest if/when they get rid of Jim Bowden after next season, because it’s a nice opportunity to shape an organization without much in the way of bad contracts to deal with or organizational disfunction to correct. Brian Cashman is the usual rumor around town, but I don’t think that’s based on anything.
That’s a lot of GM talent floating around. Is there any chance the M’s will come to their senses and say “Well we WERE going to keep Bavasi…but then (super genius GM X) became available and we had no choice.”
I’d guess it would have more of an impact after next season (assuming Anaheim does stay in house). You’d have the established GMs coming off an off year to refresh and recharge their batteries, plus Antonetti, Ng, and the other up-and-comers who are still on the market. There will be a big talent pool to consider.
Y’know…if Ng were already here, I could see the team considering her.
But as an outsider? The corporate manager mindset of the current front office probably would reject her out of hand. I just don’t see them being that flexible as hiring a decidedly non-traditional candidate. We ALREADY know that being able to do the job is not enough for these clowns….and that competency is not job one….
I don’t think there’s any way to know that Washington is a football city and not a baseball city until you have a winning baseball team there. Seattle was a basketball and football city until the Mariners started winning, and then suddenly there was a fanbase. The team nearly moved before that happened.
I don’t think there’s any way to know that Washington is a football city and not a baseball city until you have a winning baseball team there. Seattle was a basketball and football city until the Mariners started winning, and then suddenly there was a fanbase. The team nearly moved before that happened.
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.
A winning team might make it a baseball city, and the new stadium will boost attendance and interest in the short term, but it’s still a work in progress at best.
perhaps this should go under the ’stupidity’ thread … but Larue this morning sez re: the coaching staff:
“There are other candidates, but these are the frontrunners:
• Jim Riggleman, bench coach.
• Mel Stottlemyre, pitching coach.
• Larry Bowa, third base coach.
• Norm Charlton, bullpen coach.
• Eddie Rodriguez, first base coach
And that might make it attractive to Antonetti, if he sees that he can get the free hand to shape that work in progress.
“Stoneman, the architect of the lone World Series championship team in club history, is expected to invoke a clause in his contract enabling him to become a team consultant. Tony Reagins, the Angels’ director of player development, is expected to replace Stoneman as general manager.”–LA Times
And that might make it attractive to Antonetti, if he sees that he can get the free hand to shape that work in progress.
Of course — I said that in my earlier post.
D’oh.
(Need more caffeine. Coffee. Cola. Jolt….)
http://blogs.thenewstribune.com/mariners/2007/10/15/looking_for_coaches_with_attitude
From the TNT, re: coach search
I would love to know how attractive coaches consider a job on the current Seattle staff. On the one hand, there aren’t a lot of those positions available for most candidates to be too picky. On the other, there’s a pretty good chance somebody else will be in charge next year and they’ll be looking for work again.
You wonder if some of those guys will secretly be thinking that if they take a job in Seattle, they might be the next interim manager if the Mariners struggle out of the gate.
Dave, any idea the specifics of why Stoneman is walking away?
the press conference is on mlb.com right now …
Would some of the people who are on the Ng bandwagon explain why you think she is a good candidate?
#43– per Stoneman, time to step aside as he doesn’t have the required energy for the job, and more time to have a real life. He will instead be a direct consultant for Moreno, who tried to talk him into an extension. They both wanted to stay in-house to keep the “Angels Way” going forward.
#45– well, DMZ said back in ‘03– “Kim Ng is my number one choice [to replace Gillick]. It’s a gutsy, sharp move, which means the M’s won’t even think about it. She’s way smarter than Gillick, she’s worked with M’s-style budgets, we’re after Matsui, she’s handled large contract negotiations for foreign players, she’s a geek about exactly the stuff Gillick sucks at and have crippled the team the last couple of years.”
There’s a search box on the upper-right you could use to search for articles with “Kim Ng” in them.
Downside….she’s not as sharp at player evaluation as other GMs…
Upside, she KNOWS she’s not as sharp and she’d work hard to improve it or get someone who’d be better.
Downside…she IS a woman and wouldn’t interact with other GMs as smoothly as a known Old Boy Network member….
Upside…as a woman, it’s thinking outside the box, while keeping one foot in traditions. That’s how to get an edge in a competitive, yet limited market.
Thanks MSB. I remember that post now that you mention it. I’m looking for it now.
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 x”.
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.