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Fangraphs: GMs’ View: Picking a Direction and Staying the Course


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http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/gms-view-picking-a-direction-and-staying-the-course/

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[E]very team has a Plan A in the offseason, and the commonality is that they never actually get executed. Some player that you wanted to pursue gets way more money, or there’s a trade target you’re after and the team says, ‘We’re not trading that guy.’ Circumstance dictates so much of your opportunities. Saying, ‘I have this five-year plan and this is how it’s going to unfold’… the real world just doesn’t work that way.”

 

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“You almost have to be… that window opens when you have a worse record at the major-league level. It gives you the bigger draft pick. It gives you the bigger international signing-bonus pools. And it gives you an opportunity to trade stars. If you’re not doing one of those three, the only way to do it is free agency, which is prohibitive. So to open those windows, teams have gone through tough times at the big-league level.”

 

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You’re constantly evaluating that situation. A lot of what we’ll learn over the next couple of months about our players will tell us about how far along we are. At the end of the day, so much is dependent on player performance.

 

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“A philosophy is essential for any front office. I think if we’ve learned anything from watching successful organizations, it is that they have a philosophy, they have a strategy, and they stick to that strategy. The consistently successful organizations, regardless of market size, are incredibly disciplined. They believe in their strategy and stick to it "

 

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...like how the Cubs and the Astros did.

“A total rebuild in that style is really hard for an organization. Losing 100 games three years in a row is not an easy thing on a fan base, it’s not easy on an ownership group. Like I said, it’s not something we’ve ever been interested in doing. Ultimately, we’d like to get to a new park where our resources change and we don’t have to take that step."

 

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“There are significant expectations from the fan base, your revenue streams, your television deal. As a general manager, you’re not on an island. You’ve been entrusted with the baseball operations of the franchise by your ownership, but there has to be that strong clarity with the course you’re setting. Our clarity is longstanding — we’ve been working together for a long time — so it’s pretty well understood, year in, year out, what our goals are.”

 

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“ ...I will say this: having gone through rebuilds with two different franchises — once as a player, and then as an executive — it isn’t very comfortable. It’s an exciting time to be a scout, and sometimes it’s enjoyable to be in player development, but it’s hard to rebuild. It’s hard to put the fan base through that. "

 

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