Around the Majors
Two hirings on the major league front today with very different overtones. A quick look:
1. The Arizona Diamondbacks hired Wally Backman to be their next manager. Think Larry Bowa; than take away logic, sanity, and strategical knowledge. Wally Backman is instantly the worst manager in MLB. Well done boys.
2. Gerry Hunsicker resigned as GM of the Houston Astros, announcing assistant GM Tim Purpura will immediately become his successor. We talked about Purpura a bit last year during the Mariners GM search, and he’s a pretty bright guy. Hunsicker never got the recognition he deserved for building quality teams in Houston, and I wouldn’t be surprised if he ended up taking a more high profile job in a few years.
Also, there’s some rumblings coming out of Atlanta that the Braves and Yankees are working on a deal that would send Kevin Brown, Kenny Lofton, and a truckload of cash to Atlanta for Andruw Jones. This would likely signal the end of any interest the Yankees have in Carlos Beltran.
Comments
55 Responses to “Around the Majors”
Getting around to Backman again for a minute: this sounds like Dave has some personal experience with Wally Backman. I’d be interested to know how he knows him so well.
Thanks to my location in North Carolina, which is home to three of the four full season affiliates for Chicago, I’ve spent more time with White Sox farmhands, coaches, and scouts than I could possibly have wished for. That goes double for Backman.
I hadn’t remembered that he’d worked down there.
The Jones to the Yankees synopsis makes so much sense, it just totally upgrades my already high regard for Cashman. Jones is as good offensively as what they’ve had in recent years out of Williams, and that’s enough given the rest of the team; his real asset is the glove, and he’d be a big bonus here. Jones has fewer years left on his deal, and will come in cheaper than the projected opening offer for Beltran. But this deal is realy about moving Brown and Lofton off the team, so even if the Yanks only save a little on that swing, they are still ahead of where they would be on $$$ if they signed Beltran while keeping Brown and Lofton.
For Atlanta, as mentioned above this is about a)dumping Jones’ contract, b) dumping Jones’ frequent mediocrity which they Braves have totally soured on (they were talking about moving him at the ’04 Break but couldn’t match up his contract with anyone), and c) clearing payroll to sign Drew which is a no-brainer as Drew is a much superior player. If Brown and/or Lofton actually do _anything_ for the Braves, that’s just icing on the cake—this is all dialing for $$$ here, but seems a great deal all the way around. And again great GMs sniff out the great deals; I don’t ever expect to see Bavasi put together a single deal the reads this well, ever. Although to talk out of the other side of my mouth, the Cirillo deal Bill B. put together was not a bad outcome and balanced like a miner’s years supplies on the back of a three foot burro, so.
Yeah, basically this deal would give the Yanks a flycatcher in CF with a good-enough bat and clear payroll room to rebuild the pitching staff. It’s an odd sort of deal, but it makes a lot of sense for both teams, I think.