Are there people on OH you feel could do a better job than AM or other members of the O's brass?

[Stotle]

You may be entirely correct that I'm misunderstanding the traditional job description of a General Manager. If that's the case I apologize.

But I look at guys like Beane, Epstein or Daryl Morey with the NBA Rockets and I don't see a person who is successful because of extensive professional sports experience - I see guys who understand fundamental business, mathmatical and economic principles and aggressively applied them to running a pro sports team. If anything, their lack of a "traditional sports background" has helped them break out of old, archaic ways of running sports teams and find a better way of doing things.

I'm not saying that you can be a successful GM with absolutely no understanding of scouting or player development. Nor am I saying that experience as a player or scout is irrelevant. What I'm saying is that it is not essential to be an expert scout or player evaluator with years of professional sports experience as a player or scout to be a competent GM. It would help, sure - but its not required.

I agree with all of this, with the lone qualifier that you need SOME experience in the industry to be successful in the position of GM. Maybe all it takes is a couple years in a made up position so you can observe the organization and industry (like Friedman did), but you need some sort of time frame in which you learn the basics about the industry and how the baseball side of things are run, in general.

I absolutely agree with you that the right person, exposed to the industry in the right way, could be an effective GM. And that could be a former player or not, someone with or without previous baseball experience, or someone who has never even heard of the game of baseball but is excellent at ever non-baseball talent a GM applies. In each of those cases, there is going to be a learning curve, and for non-baseball people that is going to include learning baseball and the ins and outs of the industry (inside and out of your organization).

[Stotle]

I agree. Valid point. The GM has to ultimately make the player personnel decisions. That's the job.

Do you think this is something AM is good at? Do you think he has good enough people and systems in place to give him the information he needs to do that?

I was generally on board until this past off-season. Disagreed with certain moves, but thought things were generally headed in the right direction. I think the organization has been steadily losing steam over the past two years. Without knowing how much leeway Mr. MacPhail has, I can't comment about his general ability to make good decisions. Assuming he generally runs things as he pleases, I think he's a solid GM in any division but the AL East, but doesn't stick out as an innovater and I think it's clear he's a pro-business GM as opposed to a pro-winning GM. Not to say he doesn't want to win, but I think his ties to ownership in general (historically and familialy (<-- word?)) limit the scope of his vision for how an org should be run.

That's pure speculation, admittedly.

[bluedog]

I agree with all of this, with the lone qualifier that you need SOME experience in the industry to be successful in the position of GM. Maybe all it takes is a couple years in a made up position so you can observe the organization and industry (like Friedman did), but you need some sort of time frame in which you learn the basics about the industry and how the baseball side of things are run, in general.

I absolutely agree with you that the right person, exposed to the industry in the right way, could be an effective GM. And that could be a former player or not, someone with or without previous baseball experience, or someone who has never even heard of the game of baseball but is excellent at ever non-baseball talent a GM applies. In each of those cases, there is going to be a learning curve, and for non-baseball people that is going to include learning baseball and the ins and outs of the industry (inside and out of your organization).

Absolutely agree with everything you say here. I'll add my own qualifier:

I think someone with a strong business background and 20 years experience as a fan who's familiar with statistical analysis methods and all of the baseball related information available on the web today would get up to speed far faster than a 28 year old part time outfielder with no college degree (Beane). I really think there are people on OH (not me) who are extraordinarily well versed in the statistical component of player evaluation and scouting because they've been doing it longer than many of the baseball execs who are just recently adopting statistics as a viable method of analysis.

Many of the stat heads on OH are doing the exact same work as analysts who are employed by major league teams, they simply aren't getting paid for it! If that's not an effective starting point for stepping into making player decisions, I'm not sure what is.

[Flosman]

Ok bluedog here is where I think you are wrong. While I understand many different types post on here and there are people that are very qualified to be executives or professionals on here. Like you I think I am one of those. I have been a successful exec myself. What I see as a real difference in the baseball industry is the fact that it is a zero sum game and the resources are highly perishable, extremely rare and unpredictable. I think you can do everything right and still have limited success to show for it. In the world outside of baseball you have the ability to adapt and have success outside of a industries normal. In sports you win or you don't and there are only so many games, if the other guy wins you fail. I think the skills you have would be common among the best GMs in baseball. But the years of learning the industry can't be shortcut, IMO. The guys everyone point to, even in this thread did their time learning. Sure the guys that think outside the traditional box can and do find better methods. But that does not mean that they did not develop those methods during years of learning the industry.

I would agree that if there was a qualified poster on here willing to toil away in a ML baseball club for 7-10 years they very well might be able to consistently do better than AM at GM. The point made about the distinction between GM and CEO is very big in this situation.

[Stotle]

Absolutely agree with everything you say here. I'll add my own qualifier:

I think someone with a strong business background and 20 years experience as a fan who's familiar with statistical analysis methods and all of the baseball related information available on the web today would get up to speed far faster than a 28 year old part time outfielder with no college degree (Beane). I really think there are people on OH (not me) who are extraordinarily well versed in the statistical component of player evaluation and scouting because they've been doing it longer than many of the baseball execs who are just recently adopting statistics as a viable method of analysis.

Many of the stat heads on OH are doing the exact same work as analysts who are employed by major league teams, they simply aren't getting paid for it! If that's not an effective starting point for stepping into making player decisions, I'm not sure what is.

The problem with that thinking, however, is that the proprietary analysis within ML orgs outweighs what OH stat heads are doing. I think there are one or two posters creating their own analysis systems, which is more in line with forward thunking ML stat depts. I have no doubt a number of posters would be useful to ML orgs and could be brought in, caught up with the advanced stuff the org is working on, and then put into action. But, again, that qualifies them to be part of a stat dept, not run the entire organization.

[Satyr3206]

If the current Front Office had half the passion of the posters in this thread I think the Franchise would be in much better shape.

[Flosman]

Nice strawman.

You really think it works that way and AM and many of his minions are some of the best baseball minds in the industry? Or is it more about politics and connections?

Yes I think this is true. Of course there might be exceptions but they quickly get weeded out IMO. AM might have been left behind by the cutting edge GMs in the industries, but that still makes him better than all but a very few candidates on the planet.

[CA-ORIOLE]

The problem with that thinking, however, is that the proprietary analysis within ML orgs outweighs what OH stat heads are doing. I think there are one or two posters creating their own analysis systems, which is more in line with forward thunking ML stat depts. I have no doubt a number of posters would be useful to ML orgs and could be brought in, caught up with the advanced stuff the org is working on, and then put into action. But, again, that qualifies them to be part of a stat dept, not run the entire organization.

There are probably plenty of companies you can hire and give you almost any stat information you can imagine. BIS, Bill James and others don't make all there money providing stats to Fangraphs and other publications, they probably make a significant amount of money by providing tailored data and analysis to ML Teams. I don't think we're precluded from engaging in that, but my guess is we're not engaged. Instead we have GM who doesn't understand UZR means as compared to his GM counterpart who hired an expert to provide a propretary defenseive system refining the flaws in the UZR system. Because novices don't have the means to collect the information isn't a slight on them and doesn't mean they are all only qualified to work in the stat department.

[Ommaculate]

Sportsguy should have Macphails job. I think he could do better.

[Flosman]

There are probably plenty of companies you can hire and give you almost any stat information you can imagine. BIS, Bill James and others don't make all there money providing stats to Fangraphs and other publications, they probably make a significant amount of money by providing tailored data and analysis to ML Teams. I don't think we're precluded from engaging in that, but my guess is we're not engaged. Instead we have GM who doesn't understand UZR means as compared to his GM counterpart who hired an expert to provide a propretary defenseive system refining the flaws in the UZR system. Because novices don't have the means to collect the information isn't a slight on them and doesn't mean they are all only qualified to work in the stat department.

Just to let you know Bill James works for the Red Soxs, so I would imagine the O's would have a hard time getting his real cutting edge data mining.

[CA-ORIOLE]

Yes I think this is true. Of course there might be exceptions but they quickly get weeded out IMO. AM might have been left behind by the cutting edge GMs in the industries, but that still makes him better than all but a very few candidates on the planet.

Yeah I don't. Part of the problem is Baseball is hard to compare to a real business. You can argue they compete with other entertainment venues and that's fine, but baseball is unique and is in high demand because it's desired and ingrained in our culture. There really isn't a competitive marketplace. The Orioles may have more competion as most with the Nats, but even considering that, there is no way ownership can really lose money unless they're completely incompetent. It's almost impossible to run yourself into Bankruptcy, and even in those rare cases, the Bankruptcy will almost always come out well. As such, there really isn't a need to improve effeciency and baseball is largely a Political network of cronies and associates. Failures routinely find themselves easily in other organizations pretty quickly, if not back in their own organizations. That doesn't happen nearly as easily in business. I'd say there are lots of better candidates without the "connections".

[CA-ORIOLE]

Just to let you know Bill James works for the Red Soxs, so I would imagine the O's would have a hard time getting his real cutting edge data mining.

Yeah, I've mentioned it several times in the thread that Theo hired him. I don't think that means that others can't hire him to do things, as I assume he's a consultant not an employee. Even if it did, there are plenty of other resources available. Companies can provide the data and you can hire consultants to interpret and utilize the data. Bill James isn't the only smart guy out there. Systems like UZR and Plus-Minus aren't nearly as complicated as people would think. They can be expanded and the data inputs improved with more precise inputs replacing anecdotal inputs. Something field fx will probably provide to us peons at some point, but which is no doubt available to ML baseball teams if they wanted it. James also talked a lot about defensive misplays. Basically, subjective evaluations complementing objective ones. I assume that's part of his system. His defensive system may be proprietary, but it's not hard to figure out what it probably encompasses. It's not rocket science.

[Brady9Fan]

I say just get a voodoo priestess, or a voodoo worshipping player like Pedro Cerrano.

[CA-ORIOLE]

I say just get a voodoo priestess, or a voodoo worshipping player like Pedro Cerrano.

What we have might not be that far off.

[Stotle]

There are probably plenty of companies you can hire and give you almost any stat information you can imagine. BIS, Bill James and others don't make all there money providing stats to Fangraphs and other publications, they probably make a significant amount of money by providing tailored data and analysis to ML Teams. I don't think we're precluded from engaging in that, but my guess is we're not engaged. Instead we have GM who doesn't understand UZR means as compared to his GM counterpart who hired an expert to provide a propretary defenseive system refining the flaws in the UZR system. Because novices don't have the means to collect the information isn't a slight on them and doesn't mean they are all only qualified to work in the stat department.

Baltimore works with contractors -- I have seen lists from certain companies that provide various services to ML clubs involving stats and streamlining data transfer across an organization.

Why did you take my "stat" department as a knock? Drungo is awesome at laying out stats, explaining them, sifting through the noise, and presenting useful analysis of those stats. That's a real skill. I'd also think he'd agree that his comfort with that area of analysis doesn't mean he'd be a qualified candidate to run an entire baseball organization.