Anyone still want to make a compelling argument against rebuilding?

[RShack]

There are several people on this board with harder jobs than being a GM.

Like what? I'm not trying to be argumentative, it's just that I don't understand what jobs would be way harder. Many jobs are hard, and some are very hard. But few jobs that I know of feature such a short list of people who truly excel.

Now, I agree that there are lots of cases of crappy GM's. But to me it seems that there are very few who truly excel.

[Sports Guy]

Like what? I'm not trying to be argumentative, it's just that I don't understand what jobs would be way harder. Many jobs are hard, and some are very hard. But few jobs that I know of feature such a short list of people who truly excel.

Now, I agree that there are lots of cases of crappy GM's. But to me it seems that there are very few who truly excel.

Teachers, doctors, lawyers and engineers....What Tony does puts these guys to shame.

Hell, even some of the higher up financial jobs are difficult.

[NewMarketSean]

95% the people on these boards could put together a 70 win team.

50% of them could probably put together a winning team based on the things they discuss here on the boards. The approaches they talk when evaluating players, etc...

What the GM's do is not that hard and the quality of the job they are doing is appalling.

[DrungoHazewood]

Teachers, doctors, lawyers and engineers....What Tony does puts these guys to shame.

Hell, even some of the higher up financial jobs are difficult.

I guess you don't agree with this part of Nate Silver's column about Tim Purpura, the recently-dismissed Astros' GM (especially the 2nd paragraph):

We don’t do a lot of point-counterpoint here at Baseball Prospectus, but I wanted to take a view moments to muse on yesterday’s firing of Tim Purpura, because my reaction is generally much less sympathetic that what I’ve seen elsewhere in the independent media, including Joe Sheehan’s column today. The main difference of opinion, I think, stems from the fact that I tend to regard a general manager as guilty until proven innocent. There are 30 general manager jobs throughout baseball, and probably at least two or three times as many executives working in the game today who nominally have the resumes to fill those positions — that is before considering the “outside-the-box” candidates outside the close circle of the industry. However, like the field manager’s job, or perhaps the quarterback position in the NFL, it is generally much easier to eliminate patently unqualified candidates than to determine which of the credentialed lot are really going to add value when they step into the office every day. Under those circumstances – when there are people like David Forst and Chris Antonetti and Kim Ng sitting around waiting for the musical chairs to rotate – you need to perform.

Make no mistake: the general manager’s job is exceptionally difficult. Unless you have an exceptionally strong infrastructure around you, you need to have formidable skills in both player development and performance analysis, a formal and informal aptitude for the economics of the talent market, and the people skills to appeal to a wide diversity of constituents (the media, your manager, your owner, your players, the 29 other general managers, and your junior staff). You need to be exceptionally good at multitasking, and you need to work exceptionally long hours under high-stress conditions, probably for much less compensation than you could make in the business world. I keep repeating this world “exceptional”, but that is exactly what the general manager needs to be; it is extremely unusual to find this set of aptitudes within one person.

Moreover, the general manager’s job is to a large extent a zero-sum position. You can be the 25th best general manager in baseball, and you’re still losing ground relative to your peers, just like the 9th best poker player in the world will lose money if the eight better players are sitting at the table with him. What you want, ideally, is for your general manager to be within the top half of the active GMs in baseball, or to have the potential to join that group with a moderate amount of additional experience. From the available evidence, Tim Purpura was not among the top half of baseball GMs today, and, I don’t know that he has more potential to become so than someone like Antonetti or Ng.

[wildcard]

Here is what I am for:

1) Reimold getting a good test in Sept and maybe being the starting leftfielder in 2008

2) Fixing the bullpen by seeing which young pitchers - Olson, Liz, Johnson, Penn, Hoey are ready to help. Also adding a pitcher(s) as required through trade or FA.

3)Adding another bat.

4) Realizing that certain bad contracts can't be traded and putting those players in backup positions.

Fix the pen and improve the offense. That has a better chance of working then blow it up IMO.

[DrungoHazewood]

95% the people on these boards could put together a 70 win team.

50% of them could probably put together a winning team based on the things they discuss here on the boards. The approaches they talk when evaluating players, etc...

What the GM's do is not that hard and the quality of the job they are doing is appalling.

95% of the people on these boards could fill the role Paul DePodesta did with the A's - background analyst and number cruncher, who let the hyperactive, socially aggressive Billy Beane do all of the interaction with people and non-analysis kind of work.

I think most of us here would have a lot more difficulty with the almost 24-7 hours, the constant political bickering with other GMs and owners and players and fans, the constant criticism, working in a situation where one poor judgment call gets you fired, etc.

[RShack]

Teachers, doctors, lawyers and engineers....What Tony does puts these guys to shame.

Hell, even some of the higher up financial jobs are difficult.

I'm in no position to comment about what Tony does, mainly because I don't know what it is, and because I've never been around people who were trying to kill me. I wouldn't wanna change places with him, I know that for sure.

But I have done jobs like teacher, doctor, and engineer, and often at the top level of difficulty. I think the big diff there is that those jobs are not primarily about competition. Some of the jobs I had were very hard, but I didn't have to deal with crazy finances, predicting talent, balancing near-and-long-term competitive performance, and 29 organizations trying to outsmart me. I just had to deal (at various times) with students, crazy people, medical staff, and complicated software. I'm not trying to say that other jobs are easy. I'm only saying that I can't see why anybody would think that being an excellent ML GM is anything-but-hard.

[Sports Guy]

I guess you don't agree with this part of Nate Silver's column about Tim Purpura, the recently-dismissed Astros' GM (especially the 2nd paragraph):

The hardest part of a GMs job is the hours, stress and time away from family IMO.

[nadecir]

Here is what I am for:

1) Reimold getting a good test in Sept and maybe being the starting leftfielder in 2008

2) Fixing the bullpen by seeing which young pitchers - Olson, Liz, Johnson, Penn, Hoey are ready to help. Also adding a pitcher(s) as required through trade or FA.

3)Adding another bat.

4) Realizing that certain bad contracts can't be traded and putting those players in backup positions.

Fix the pen and improve the offense. That has a better chance of working then blow it up IMO.

The funny thing is that if you replace the names in this quote, a similar quote will have been made many times in the past ten years.

And if we are going to put all the Orioles players with bad contracts in backup positions, we are going to have to petition major league baseball to increase the team's 25 man roster size.

[ColumbiaOriole]

If you work with the known or proven you have a much better chance of success. Roberts is proven. Bedard is proven. Miggy is proven but needs to show he will continue on a productive track over the next month.

You're right, we should stick with veteran mediocrity solely because it is proven. It shocks me that an O's fan can say this after the last decade. Clearly, we are not close to contention. Keeping all of our players and adding one or two will not make us a legitimate contender. Sure, if everything went our way, we could possibly compete for the wildcard the next two years but doesn't it make much more sense to trade off what few valuable commodities we have and get more young talent? If we traded those three, we would get back a plethora of young talent. Obviously not all of it would pan out but at least we'd be able to compete legitimately in a couple years by having young players who aren't declining like most of our current offense. At that point, you add a Teixiera. I don't see why this couldn't be a championship-caliber team if we made these moves properly.

[Sports Guy]

I've been an engineer at several different times. I've been a fairly high level manager twice. I've owned a business. AM's job is much tougher to do well than any of the jobs I've had. He has many more variables to manage, much less control over "acts of God" such as injuries, higher visibility, more strenuous competition (30 teams after a finite number of players with talent)...

You're too funny sometimes. If AM trades all the guys you want traded this offseason it would go something like this in all likelihood (I'm going to ignore the guys who won't bring much and focus on the cream you want to trade):

1) Tejada for one great prospect or two good prospects

2) Roberts for one great and one good prospect or three good prospects

3) Bedard for two great prospects or one great and two good prospects.

You've now traded your best hitter (Tejada), best overall player (Roberts), and #1 starter (Bedard) for anywhere from 5 - 8 players. You have also created large holes at SS, 2B and #1 starter to be filled. If just fifty percent of those prospects don't pan out, you come out no better and possibly worse than you are today. Injuries, lack of ability to adjust to the majors, lack of maturity, lack of discipline, lots of things can derail a prospect. Look at Penn, Riley, Hammonds, etc... for examples of great prospects that either never came close to fulfilling their promise or haven't yet. It happens all the time.

If AM wants to do this, I won't second guess him, but he has one shot at that apple. Once you've traded 3 of your 4 most marketable players, you can't get them back if it doesn't work out. If it doesn't work, he is screwed and will be fired. And it may not work through absolutely no fault of his (like Ainsworth, Moss, & Hannaman for Ponson). Yeh, his job is a piece of cake.

You don't have a clue as to who i want traded.

If he keeps things as is, he will get fired too.

But i am sure fans like you will keep making excuses for him and say he is great.

[NewMarketSean]

You're just completely wrong about this. completely.

Just because you make a trade on this board, doesn't mean it can happen in real life. What I see on this board are a lot of people who overestimate their ability to propose rational scenarios.

I'm not talking about trades. I'm talking about using the right stats to go after the right players. It seems like the Orioles look at a name first and then baseball card stats (AVG, HR, RBI) second. It's a total wrongheaded approach to take in this day and age, especially when considering the three teams we have ahead of us.

No one on these boards would have signed Payton or Bako when we had Knott and House.

People were critical of Baez when he was signed.

That right there tells me all I need to know.

[PaulFolk]

You don't have a clue as to who i want traded.

If he keeps things as is, he will get fired too.

But i am sure fans like you will keep making excuses for him and say he is great.

Come on, you can't expect to make a statement like "being a GM is an easy job" and not get called out for it. This isn't Strat-O-Matic. It's not as simple as saying "This trade would help us out, so let's do it."

[wildcard]

The funny thing is that if you replace the names in this quote, a similar quote will have been made many times in the past ten years.

And if we are going to put all the Orioles players with bad contracts in backup positions, we are going to have to petition major league baseball to increase the team's 25 man roster size.

No really. Payton is a 4th OF, Gibbons is a bench guy. Huff may turn out to worth his contract if they now know him better and can get him on track earlier next year.

Mora with the right amount of rest is still productive and the regular 3b.

Baez is the 7th guy in the pen.

[wildcard]

I've been an engineer at several different times. I've been a fairly high level manager twice. I've owned a business. AM's job is much tougher to do well than any of the jobs I've had. He has many more variables to manage, much less control over "acts of God" such as injuries, higher visibility, more strenuous competition (30 teams after a finite number of players with talent)...

You're too funny sometimes. If AM trades all the guys you want traded this offseason it would go something like this in all likelihood (I'm going to ignore the guys who won't bring much and focus on the cream you want to trade):

1) Tejada for one great prospect or two good prospects

2) Roberts for one great and one good prospect or three good prospects

3) Bedard for two great prospects or one great and two good prospects.

You've now traded your best hitter (Tejada), best overall player (Roberts), and #1 starter (Bedard) for anywhere from 5 - 8 players. You have also created large holes at SS, 2B and #1 starter to be filled. If just fifty percent of those prospects don't pan out, you come out no better and possibly worse than you are today. Injuries, lack of ability to adjust to the majors, lack of maturity, lack of discipline, lots of things can derail a prospect. Look at Penn, Riley, Hammonds, etc... for examples of great prospects that either never came close to fulfilling their promise or haven't yet. It happens all the time.

If AM wants to do this, I won't second guess him, but he has one shot at that apple. Once you've traded 3 of your 4 most marketable players, you can't get them back if it doesn't work out. If it doesn't work, he is screwed and will be fired. And it may not work through absolutely no fault of his (like Ainsworth, Moss, & Hannaman for Ponson). Yeh, his job is a piece of cake.

Now here is the voice of reason.