The General Managers thread

[Frobby]

4 hours ago, SteveA said:

Are the Astro owner and former GM really both named James Click?  

Quite the coincidence.

I guess they really clicked.  (Oh snap!)

[Just Regular]

A Braves lieutenant gets the Houston gig.     He has a few weeks before camps to trade us one of Luis Garcia, Jose Urquidy or Hunter Brown.

 

[SteveA]

13 minutes ago, Just Regular said:

A Braves lieutenant gets the Houston gig.     He has a few weeks before camps to trade us one of Luis Garcia, Jose Urquidy or Hunter Brown.

 

Background in scouting, not analytics.   Kind of interesting.

[Just Regular]

7 minutes ago, SteveA said:

Background in scouting, not analytics.   Kind of interesting.

Yep - just saw the MLB Now report.    With WAS around Harper-Strasburg time, was ATL Scouting Director at time of recent Harris-Strider successes.     And played NCAA with Craig Biggio back in the day, which couldn't have hurt.

[CharmCityHokie]

22 hours ago, SteveA said:

Background in scouting, not analytics.   Kind of interesting.

I'm purely speculating, but background might have less to do with hiring then acceptance of the power dynamic. When I saw Mike Hill remove himself from being a candidate, I do wonder if Crane was basically telling these guys how heavily he'd be involved in the decision making (and after Hill's years with Loria, he might have been like eff that). Again, just my speculation, I have nothing to back that up.

[Just Regular]

James Click chilling in Toronto like David Stearns in Milwaukee like Grayson Rodriguez in a AAA rotation.     That gives Toronto Goldstein-Click to our Elias-Sig-Eve among ex-Astros.

 

[Just Regular]

Passan has the long expected news the Mets are making David Stearns their President of Baseball Operations.

[Just Regular]

Red Sox President/CEO Sam Kennedy says he anticipates a broad search that could take a while.     He did rule out Theo Epstein in response to a precise gaggle question, but demurred on another one probing the possibility Alex Cora might be interested in the front office.

Brian Kenny the other day wondered if the White Sox opening was leverage for Chicago native Mike Rizzo to get his recent extension done.     Mike Elias grew up around here but went to college up there....I think I'd rate him ahead of John Angelos at fluency with the concept of leverage.

[Jim'sKid26]

18 minutes ago, Just Regular said:

Red Sox President/CEO Sam Kennedy says he anticipates a broad search that could take a while.     He did rule out Theo Epstein in response to a precise gaggle question, but demurred on another one probing the possibility Alex Cora might be interested in the front office.

Brian Kenny the other day wondered if the White Sox opening was leverage for Chicago native Mike Rizzo to get his recent extension done.     Mike Elias grew up around here but went to college up there....I think I'd rate him ahead of John Angelos at fluency with the concept of leverage.

I think Elias will want to win something before he jumps ship. Not sure the "Red Sox Nation," would tolerate a scorched earth type of tear down. But living in Boston would be appealing...

[Number5]

18 minutes ago, Jim'sKid26 said:

But living in Boston would be appealing

Really?  Been there numerous times.  Not a fan.  Miserable weather.  Terrible traffic.  Rude people.  Much rather live in Maryland.

[Jim'sKid26]

45 minutes ago, Number5 said:

Really?  Been there numerous times.  Not a fan.  Miserable weather.  Terrible traffic.  Rude people.  Much rather live in Maryland.

I wasn't referring to you, personally. 

[ThomasTomasz]

18 hours ago, Jim'sKid26 said:

I think Elias will want to win something before he jumps ship. Not sure the "Red Sox Nation," would tolerate a scorched earth type of tear down. But living in Boston would be appealing...

Not sure they need to do that.  Bloom did a great job on the farm system, and made a lot of smart low-risk/high reward deals that worked well in FA especially lineup related.  Pitching wise, those moves haven’t worked out.  

But the two big curious moves- the Mookie Betts trade and the fiasco around handling Boegarts- has always seemed to come out that it was an owners edict.  John Henry was floated as a possibility to buy the Commanders, and someone published an article digging into him during the sale process and it seems he’s very hands-on despite not appearing to be that way to the mainstream fan.  

The only other big move, Trevor Story, doesn’t seem to tie back into Henry, but it could possibly as well. 

I’d have no problem hiring Bloom as a GM somewhere.  I think he would’ve done a great job with the White Sox, but then again, you have another meddling owner in Reinsdorf there.  

[Jim'sKid26]

2 hours ago, ThomasTomasz said:

Not sure they need to do that.  Bloom did a great job on the farm system, and made a lot of smart low-risk/high reward deals that worked well in FA especially lineup related.  Pitching wise, those moves haven’t worked out.  

But the two big curious moves- the Mookie Betts trade and the fiasco around handling Boegarts- has always seemed to come out that it was an owners edict.  John Henry was floated as a possibility to buy the Commanders, and someone published an article digging into him during the sale process and it seems he’s very hands-on despite not appearing to be that way to the mainstream fan.  

The only other big move, Trevor Story, doesn’t seem to tie back into Henry, but it could possibly as well. 

I’d have no problem hiring Bloom as a GM somewhere.  I think he would’ve done a great job with the White Sox, but then again, you have another meddling owner in Reinsdorf there.  

I think the decision to award Devers with his contract is a complete head scratcher. It reminds me of the Ryan Howard deal that the Phillies did a few years ago or the Chris Davis deal the O's did.  These are not good moves, not by a long shot. Checkout Devers defensive metrics at 3B and tell me that contract is reasonable.  Maybe you can blame it on John Henry if you want. But Chaim was the GM who negotiated it. 

[ThomasTomasz]

18 minutes ago, Jim'sKid26 said:

I think the decision to award Devers with his contract is a complete head scratcher. It reminds me of the Ryan Howard deal that the Phillies did a few years ago or the Chris Davis deal the O's did.  These are not good moves, not by a long shot. Checkout Devers defensive metrics at 3B and tell me that contract is reasonable.  Maybe you can blame it on John Henry if you want. But Chaim was the GM who negotiated it. 

You’ve got ownership that tells you to go trade Betts to get under the luxury tax, or to negotiate an extension, after looking terrible with the optics on Boegarts……….you’re operating under ownership directive.  

[btdart20]

2 hours ago, ThomasTomasz said:

Not sure they need to do that.  Bloom did a great job on the farm system, and made a lot of smart low-risk/high reward deals that worked well in FA especially lineup related.  Pitching wise, those moves haven’t worked out.  

But the two big curious moves- the Mookie Betts trade and the fiasco around handling Boegarts- has always seemed to come out that it was an owners edict.  John Henry was floated as a possibility to buy the Commanders, and someone published an article digging into him during the sale process and it seems he’s very hands-on despite not appearing to be that way to the mainstream fan.  

The only other big move, Trevor Story, doesn’t seem to tie back into Henry, but it could possibly as well. 

I’d have no problem hiring Bloom as a GM somewhere.  I think he would’ve done a great job with the White Sox, but then again, you have another meddling owner in Reinsdorf there.  

Bloom did fine straddling the fence of competing and trying to build a pipeline.  It's tough to do both at the same time.  He did a much better job with a tighter budget than Cashman at least (and isn't that the ultimate yardstick in Boston?).  

* Even considering that Betts was likely going to test the FA waters, Bloom didn't get the return that you'd hope.  You win some, you lose some.  But when the jewel of the trade (Jeter Downs) was DFA'd in short order, that's poor scouting and an executive miss.

* The MLBTR article said the comp picks for Eovaldi and Bogaerts could have been much higher (around pick 75) but instead the team was over the luxury tax threshold from subsequent deals which lowered the compensation picks to between the 4th and 5th rounds. 

* Then when he couldn't resign Bogaerts, he seemingly became desperate with the bad Story signing.  Now they've got $23+m sunk into an aging, health-risk MI who looks like he's not going to age well.  

I'll give somewhat of a pass on the Betts return because that type of thing happens.  But the other two are executive misses IMO when trying to thread the needle he was tasked with.  

All that said:  The low cost/high reward signings have generally worked out well (Duvall, Turner, Martin, Pivetta).  Yoshida was a good signing (though not quite low cost).  Some didn't work out (Kluber, Paxton).  Devers is still the anchor, but there is some young talent around him now too (Rafaela, Casas, Bello, Crawford).  And some solid prospects not too far away (Mayer, Teel, Abreu, Yorke).

 

I'd say there are worse GM's than Bloom.  Certainly, feels like there is more to this story...

 

5 minutes ago, Jim'sKid26 said:

I think the decision to award Devers with his contract is a complete head scratcher. It reminds me of the Ryan Howard deal that the Phillies did a few years ago or the Chris Davis deal the O's did.  These are not good moves, not by a long shot. Checkout Devers defensive metrics at 3B and tell me that contract is reasonable.  Maybe you can blame it on John Henry if you want. But Chaim was the GM who negotiated it. 

In general, the ROI on a $30+m contract for a 30+ y/o player.  So, yeah from that front.  But that's the cost of business for a larger market team.  I hear you on the defense, but Devers is a bit like what JoRam means to Cleveland.  Story's deal is much more of an issue for me.