With the offseason essentially over...

[Stotle]

I would be happy to agree with you if you would present specific examples of how things could be better. E.g. I would have loved to see a trade for Blanks and I don't see why a package from the list you presented wouldn't be sufficient. But the Pads won't trade Blanks because he's their insurance at 1B, when they trade AGonz. So I can't criticize AM for not making that deal. The same goes for long term SS. How do you make a trade for one without moving one of your top SP prospects. I would be happy to hear your ideas on that. But to say I think AM gets a D because he didn't pull a rabbit out of a hat is empty. I don't care about silly grades I'd like to know more about what is possible to acahieve in this market. I'm interested in ideas not posturing. I my business, the Theatre, there are two kinds of critics, the John Simon kind, and the Harold Clurman kind. The Simon type is amusing, snide, caustic, and personal, in pointing out failings, but offers nothing constructive. The Clurman type not only points out what didn't work, but make usefull suggestions as to how the work could have been improved.

What's wrong with the Blanks example? Who knows if it is or isn't possible? Most people wouldn't have expected Max Scherzer to be traded. Or Cliff Lee. Or Brandon Morrow. I have no idea how complex it would be for BAL to get the players they need to improve the overal vitality of the organization. Maybe it would have been extremely difficult in this off-season/market. Why does that preclude asking the question "Could it have been done"? And why does the default position based on absence of action HAVE to be "no moves are often the preferred moves"? Why can't it be left at "we don't know" and it's neither a positive or a negative (which is actually SG's point when you get down to it).

AM didn't screw anything up or blow it. It was simply an off-season that didn't produce much of anything, from the looks of it.

[Sports Guy]

I hope you're not referring to me in this. I find it hilarious that you and SG exaggerate people's reactions to your posts. It's simple disagreement. Lots of people aren't acting like you're saying AM stinks or you guys are disparaging our families like SG said.

I find it hilarious that people want to give AM credit for not being stupid...Guess that shows how low people's expectations are.

[byrdz]

He's got a masters in education. He's done some graduate work in sports psychology.

Just clarifying.

I'm curious if he's the most educated manager in the game right now.

[Sports Guy]

I would be happy to agree with you if you would present specific examples of how things could be better. E.g. I would have loved to see a trade for Blanks and I don't see why a package from the list you presented wouldn't be sufficient. But the Pads won't trade Blanks because he's their insurance at 1B, when they trade AGonz. So I can't criticize AM for not making that deal. The same goes for long term SS. How do you make a trade for one without moving one of your top SP prospects. I would be happy to hear your ideas on that. But to say I think AM gets a D because he didn't pull a rabbit out of a hat is empty. I don't care about silly grades I'd like to know more about what is possible to acahieve in this market. I'm interested in ideas not posturing. I my business, the Theatre, there are two kinds of critics, the John Simon kind, and the Harold Clurman kind. The Simon type is amusing, snide, caustic, and personal, in pointing out failings, but offers nothing constructive. The Clurman type not only points out what didn't work, but make usefull suggestions as to how the work could have been improved.

If you think that is why I gave him a D, then there is really no reason to further discussing anything with you because you obviously choose to ignore my whole argument and pick and choose what you want to discuss and what you want to hear.

[backwardsk]

I'm curious if he's the most educated manager in the game right now.

Doesn't LaRussa have a law degree?

[Sports Guy]

Doesn't LaRussa have a law degree?

So we know DT is ahead of LaRussa then!

[mweb]

It's not an overreaction. It's simply a reaction. The general response I'm referring to (not you in particular) is "We don't know what's out there so we can't say if a move should have been made." That's fine, but why is it incorrect for me to look at that statement and say "C" while someone else looks at it and says "B"?

No, I don't think you were being overly critical of any of my posts, but read through the thread again and tell me that for some reason it took a turn whereby people felt the need to defend AM's relative inaction. What for? Everyone basically agrees nothing significant was accomplished! The only dispute is that one group thinks that is "B"-range for grading purposes and others think it is "C"-range.

I'm not trying to convince the B's to change, and I pointed out I think it's a result of where you set your baseline (I think the B's are more likely to give B's in general for solid work, whereas I think C for solid work). So whether or not you agree with the way SG phrases it (or how I phrase it), the bottom line is that any improvement the ML team makes this year will be largely dependent on internal progress of players that were a part of the organization in October. Essentially, the 2010 team would not be drastically different if I ran the personnel side and simply decided to do nothing but sign a couple 1-year stop gaps.

To me (I understand others disagree), not giving out bad contracts shouldn't be a check in the positive column. That would be equivalent to me saying my paralegals get positive feedback for not making spelling errors in the documents they prepare for me. There has to be some sort of competence threshhold, no? Every non-moronic move can't simply be viewed as a good move can it? Doesn't some of it have to be expected?

First off, saying people are acting like you're saying AM stinks and SG saying people are acting like you guys are disparaging our families is an overreaction.

I am saying the thing you put in quotes, I may have even been the first to mention that.

Concerning the nothing significant happening line, ok, but more happened with us than with most teams I think. Do you disagree?

So to you the qualifications for getting better than a C are doing something significant for the long-term (or short-term if we're talking about a contender) and having it be a smart move(s). Is that correct?

If that's the qualifications, I'd be interested to know how many teams meet those standards. Something tells me it would be less than half the teams, and likely not close. So in that case, your definition of average would be different than the reality of things.

Or would you classify trading a guy like Hernandez for a B- high A / AA talent as a significant move for the long-term?

I totally disagree with the last paragraph for reasons I stated earlier. Yes, it should be expected for a GM to not make totally moronic moves. But there are many moves made each off-season that fall in between a consensus of totally moronic and a 55-45 bad / good split. Many GM's make moves that I'd criticize. AM had opportunities to make moves or go an entire different direction than I feel he should have, and some GM's and various posters on here would have gone what I consider the wrong way.

So yes, to me, he should get some credit for that.

[Mackus]

Guthrie, Scott, Mickolio, Erbe, Snyder, JJ, DH, Berken

Pick three guys from that list and tell us what you think we could get for them?

Guthrie, Scott, and Johnson are average at best MLB players for their positions and Guthrie and Scott aren't exactly dirt cheap.

None of the prospects are on any top-100 lists except for Erbe and Snyder maybe making the fringes of a few.

I think we could get something useful for that, but when you say "very good but not elite" what does that mean exactly? Who do you think we could trade, lets say, Scott, Erbe, and Berken for?

[Sports Guy]

Pick three guys from that list and tell us what you think we could get for them?

Guthrie, Scott, and Johnson are average at best MLB players for their positions.

None of the prospects are on any top-100 lists except for Erbe and Snyder maybe making the fringes of a few.

I think we could get something useful for that, but when you say "very good but not elite" what does that mean exactly? Who do you think we could trade, lets say, Scott, Erbe, and Berken for?

I don't know...I haven't gone through teams, looked at their depth and gone from there.

It also doesn't have to be an established ML player yet either.

Do I think we could have put together a fair package for a guy like hardy? Absolutely.

Do I think we could have taken on a bad contract and gotten a very good young player(whether in the minors or not)? Yes I do.

Do I think we could put together a package for a player like an Andy LaRoche? Yes I do...I use LaRoche as an example off the top of my head...Someone who is young, cheap and has upside but has someone coming up behind him that his organization likely likes better. Other names could apply here as well.

Do I think AM tried any of those things? No, I do not.

[mweb]

I find it hilarious that people want to give AM credit for not being stupid...Guess that shows how low people's expectations are.

You apparently don't understand the point as it's not about him not being stupid or not. It's about him not doing something that I would think would be a poor move or going in a direction that I think would be a poor direction. Reasonable minds can and obviously have disagreed on here or in front offices regarding various moves, potential moves, and franchise directions. So going the other way than I or you would isn't necessarily stupid.

And it's not like I'm saying he should get an A for this, just that it is nice for our GM to follow a plan that I generally agree with.

[El Gordo]

What's wrong with the Blanks example? Who knows if it is or isn't possible? Most people wouldn't have expected Max Scherzer to be traded. Or Cliff Lee. Or Brandon Morrow. I have no idea how complex it would be for BAL to get the players they need to improve the overal vitality of the organization. Maybe it would have been extremely difficult in this off-season/market. Why does that preclude asking the question "Could it have been done"? And why does the default position based on absence of action HAVE to be "no moves are often the preferred moves"? Why can't it be left at "we don't know" and it's neither a positive or a negative (which is actually SG's point when you get down to it).

AM didn't screw anything up or blow it. It was simply an off-season that didn't produce much of anything, from the looks of it.

Nothing wrong with asking that question. It's a great question, but not to offer any possible answers is lazy IMO. That's an interesting discussion. The grades business is puerile. I don't like the Atkins signing because I can see no good reasons for not signing LaRoche. Maybe there are some, but I don't know them. But LaRoche is a valid alternative IMO. What valid alternatives were there to Millwood, that would accomplish the ojectives AM had for a veterin SP. Like wise what SS could you trade for using SG's list of non core pieces? I think it's important to take things in the context of AM's chosen direction, of keeping a core intact and building around SP. If you discount that, there are plenty of reasons to grade the off season poorly. JTrea's position would be much more valid in that context.

[Sports Guy]

You apparently don't understand the point as it's not about him not being stupid or not. It's about him not doing something that I would think would be a poor move or going in a direction that I think would be a poor direction. Reasonable minds can and obviously have disagreed on here or in front offices regarding various moves, potential moves, and franchise directions. So going the other way than I or you would isn't necessarily stupid.

And it's not like I'm saying he should get an A for this, just that it is nice for our GM to follow a plan that I generally agree with.

That's all fine and good...Plenty of people in this thread have said, we are glad he didn't do something to hurt the team. To me, that says, I am glad he didn't do something stupid.

And I am NOT giving him credit for that when doing a "grading evaluation"...It has no bearing on how I would grade him, which is the purpose of this thread.

[hoosiers]

Other than doing nothing, AM did nothing this offseason to help our future teams out against Boston and NY and really, shouldn't he always be doing that?

I mean, I am glad he didn't do foolish things but I also think sensible things were out there that he didn't take advantage of either.

This is the core of it, no, and it's a good discussion, IMO.

Whether AM could conjure up a Felix Pie for Garrett Olson again if someone else had a roster crunch. Or find a salary dump of a quality player - which he kind of did in Millwood. Or a player taking a massive pay cut - which he did with Tejada.

I'm not jumping up and down in glee that AM made no major moves, but as long as we are not competing this year, it makes the most sense to avoid any major mistakes this offseason and let the kids develop next year - including calling up Snyder and Bell and seeing what DHernandez and Mickolio and LeBron can do in the bp. IMO, if you are not prepared to trade two of Bell, Arrieta and Britton, you are not going to be able to obtain a quality major leaguer. Why deal for a Heath Bell (which I wanted to do) before giving DHernandez and Mickolio a shot to be plus bp arms?

Avoiding mistakes sounds easy, but this organization has thought in the past that guys like Mike Fontenot, John Maine, Kevin Hart, etc, were far enough down the depth chart to be worthy of trades only to see those moves backfire.

[Mackus]

I don't know...I haven't gone through teams, looked at their depth and gone from there.

It also doesn't have to be an established ML player yet either.

Do I think we could have put together a fair package for a guy like hardy? Absolutely.

Do I think we could have taken on a bad contract and gotten a very good young player(whether in the minors or not)? Yes I do.

Do I think we could put together a package for a player like an Andy LaRoche? Yes I do...I use LaRoche as an example off the top of my head...Someone who is young, cheap and has upside but has someone coming up behind him that his organization likely likes better. Other names could apply here as well.

Do I think AM tried any of those things? No, I do not.

Aside from the "take a contract and get a good prospect along with it" move, which I don't think is a likely possibility in practice, why don't you think that Andy was looking into doing any of those things you mentioned? Why automatically assume that he just didn't look rather than leave open the possibility that he looked into some of those type of moves but nothing made sense.

We had the reports earlier that he was speaking to KC about a Pie deal, even if he was asking for way too much initially, that would seem to support the idea that he was at least looking into these sorts of deals.

[mweb]

Flat out disagree.

Guthrie, Scott, Mickolio, Erbe, Snyder, JJ, DH, Berken, etc...Lots of other guys could be involved as well..Pie? Reimold?

In other words, where we have depth.

I have no doubt that a package of players like that could fetch us something very good. Perhaps not elite but I never said that, so whatever.

If you don't think that, then I guess you think our future sucks because none of those guys are any good.

But whatever..We don't know what was out there, blah blah blah.

Yeah, if you include Reimold and to a lesser degree Pie along with Britton, you can get something really good. Would it make sense, who knows?

Your next to last line makes no sense at all.

I'm saying we would get something back similiar in talent to those young guys. So that doesn't help us unless our talent evaluation is superior and has better foresight compared to the team we trade with. That's possible of course. But more than likely it wouldn't improve us much, at least not in our franchise outlook unless a good young SS was brought in. It would basically be one B prospect for another, or two B prospects for a B+ or whatever.

So how is that saying the guys aren't good?

BTW, as I said throughout the off-season, I would have explored a trade involving Jones. I doubt that was explored, which is a little disappointing to me, but I can understand why.