GM Rankings

by SwampBuck on Feb 18, 2008 2:55 PM CST Comment 15 comments

I don't know how everybody feels about Doug, but I was suprised not to even find his name mentioned on Jon Heyman's list of top GM's. Not even an honorable mention. His list just doesn't make sense to me. Big money won out on this one.

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2008/writers/jon_heyman/02/18/heyman.bestGMs/index.html

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Look who wrote the article

Any credibility for such a list in the first place goes out the window with the picture atop the article.

Obscure baseball records and more at my blog, Recondite Baseball.

by TheJay on Feb 18, 2008 3:32 PM CST reply actions

Heyman also ranked the Brewers offseason 20th

by Jordan M on Feb 18, 2008 3:37 PM CST reply actions

Melvin

So I am assuming you both would put DM in the top ten?

by SwampBuck on Feb 18, 2008 3:48 PM CST reply actions

Heyman again

Half of the article is a tongue bath for Theo. Its hard to pack that many adjectives into that small a space. Then the other half is mostly high payroll teams with a couple NL non-East coast teams tossed in. Yeah, how about those d-backs and those Rox have a good system for developing young talent. Hmmmmm...

And Billy Beane is two? Just goes to show the value of PR. Where is Nick Swisher these days?

So it goes...

by ol Pete on Feb 18, 2008 3:58 PM CST reply actions

Theo

Isn't it ironic how this writer isn't a big fan of Gagne for the brewers but doesn't say too much about Theo's trade for Gagne last year. It just seems to be hypocritical.

by brewfan2 on Feb 18, 2008 4:22 PM CST up reply actions

Well

Not sure I'd put him in the top ten, but he deserves a mention in the Honorable Mention.

Just not a fan of the article in general. Doesn't seem to be very legitimate.

by Jordan M on Feb 18, 2008 7:51 PM CST reply actions

mlbtraderumors.com...

Says this in response to the article...

"I haven't given a ton of thought to my own top ten, but I'd probably have Beane, Gillick, and Cashman lower with Byrnes and Towers higher and Doug Melvin in there."

TED IS TO NED WHAT CHENEY IS TO BUSH.

by CATALYST on Feb 18, 2008 8:27 PM CST reply actions

And thats

a Cubs fan.

by ol Pete on Feb 18, 2008 8:33 PM CST up reply actions

huge oversight

Truthfully, aside from the top few and big name GMs, I'm not too knowledgeable about GMs around the league; but looking at how far the Brewers have come since DM has taken over, it's pretty ridiculous he's not on there. I can understand guys like theo, dombrowski, byrnes and o'dowd, but leaving melvin out of the top ten is outlandish

by SunglassesAtNight on Feb 18, 2008 9:39 PM CST reply actions

Pretty lame

I like one of the commenters, saying Doug shouldn't be included because of the Brewers' high draft picks. Yet there's no squawking about Theo Epstein despite the Red Sox's payroll being double that of the Brewers. I imagine it's a lot easier being a GM when you can get pretty much any free agent you want.

"I will agree that the attitude [at BCB] is ridiculous and they have done so much to instigate animosity and then block us from responding. Real mature!"

by roguejim on Feb 19, 2008 9:02 AM CST reply actions

There's a point there

But couldn't you make an argument Melvin should be similarly penalized for having more to work with than, say, the GMs in Florida, Tampa Bay, Arizona, Colorado, and San Diego?

Obscure baseball records and more at my blog, Recondite Baseball.

by TheJay on Feb 19, 2008 9:36 AM CST up reply actions

More to work with?

I'm not sure what that means. Are you talking payroll?

I'd guess so. In any event, I imagine it'd be hard to come up with a standard for ranking GMs, other than wins and losses. The playing field is pretty uneven, not only in terms of salary, but in difficulty of the division and(if we're talking attracting players) even climate of the home city. Nothing new, I suppose.

"I will agree that the attitude [at BCB] is ridiculous and they have done so much to instigate animosity and then block us from responding. Real mature!"

by roguejim on Feb 19, 2008 11:02 AM CST up reply actions

Yeah, I meant payroll

I should've been more clear. Even just wins and losses is fallible when ranking GMs - should Dave Dombrowski's time with the Marlins prior to (and after) 1997 count against him since he took over an expansion team and was told to get rid of a large chunk of the team? Ditto his first couple years in Detroit. I'm guessing the fact the Brewers have only one winning season under Melvin factored into Heyman not ranking him, but that's probably not fair. Who knows - it's kind of pointless to put together that sort of list in the first place.

Obscure baseball records and more at my blog, Recondite Baseball.

by TheJay on Feb 19, 2008 12:19 PM CST up reply actions

Organizational Efficency

The book The Baseball Economist actually has an interesting way of measuring how effective a baseball team is taking into account their records and payroll. The data went through 2004 and put the Brewers up near the top, alongside teams like Florida and Minnesota.

by drezdn on Feb 19, 2008 12:35 PM CST reply actions

Seems to me that there's two things at work here:

Heyman's a putz.
The Jack Z. effect. Jack won Executive of the Year this year, without being a GM, and got some GM job buzz this offseason (thank God the Rats were too stupid to snag him), so he's absorbed most of the credit for the core of the 2007-2008 team. That makes it easier for kool-aid drinkers like Heyman to write off Melvin. If you operate off the assumption that Melvin's just plucking names off the list of gems Jack is handing him evey June, then you're stuck evaluating his trades and free agent moves. Perception is that he hasn't really hit big on a trade since the Cordero deal, and the Sexson deal that much of the media fell in love with Melvin over is pretty far in the rear view mirror at this point. Personally I don't think Melvin gets enough credit for finding reclamation projects and sleepers like T-bow or Podsednik, but those sorts of meat and potatoes moves aren't going to land you on a top 10 list when a guy like Heyman is making the evaluations.

Sometimes Heyman reminds me of an 9 year old who's really more of a football fan than a baseball fan. His offseason evals and this list are good examples: if there wasn't a huge name involved in your offseason, his perception is that the team got worse instead of better. He could turn out to be right about the Brewers offseason, I guess, but I don't think that would be the product of any unique insight on his part rather than a function of the likelihood that you're going to get something right when you throw out evals of all 32 teams.

by Ted Simmons Speed Camp on Feb 19, 2008 10:02 PM CST reply actions

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