SI ranks MacPhail the 12th best GM in MLB (but 4th in AL East)

[Frobby]

12. Andy MacPhail, Baltimore Orioles

He's baseball royalty and a possible future commissioner who has built first-rate clubs in Minnesota and Chicago, so the surprise of MacPhail's work in Baltimore is that he's there at all, given the Orioles' notoriously headache-inducing ownership. It's not a surprise that he's doing the job the right way. This is a lousy team, but that's because under MacPhail's stewardship they're actually rebuilding properly rather than burning money in a futile bid for 80 wins. In any other division they'd be a comer.

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2010/writers/tim_marchman/03/03/gm.rankings/index.html

Friedman, Epstein and Cashman ranked 1, 2 and 3.

[NewMarketSean]

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2010/writers/tim_marchman/03/03/gm.rankings/index.html

Friedman, Epstein and Cashman ranked 1, 2 and 3.

Sounds about right. No matter how much good AM does in roster movement, until he actually puts together a team that wins, he'll always be middle or back of the pack.

[Birds08]

What a joke. I have no respect for any rankings that put Cashman in the Top 15. He has the easiest job in sports, with a basically unlimited payroll. The Yankees have more bad signings than almost any other team.

[Dr. FLK]

At least we aren't last in our division...take that Canada!

[Hank Scorpio]

LOL Cashman.

[Pedro Cerrano]

Why does everyone love Cashman? The amount of awful contracts he has given out over the years is masked by the fact that the Yankees can actually afford those mistakes. Can you imagine what the Carl Pavano deal would have done to a team like Pittsburgh?

He's not a great evaluator of talent, hence holding on to guys like Ian Kennedy for far too long when there was actually a market for him.

Esptein isn't all that better, IMO. Awful deals for JD Drew and trading away Hanley Ramirez are the tip of the iceberg.

[waroriole]

Hard to take seriously any ranking that has Cashman as #3 and Beane at #10. While Beane's teams have struggled lately, he has absolutely no money to work with, while Cashman has the federal reserve at his disposal. I would think AM should be higher, but I'm biased and don't know enough about other GM's to really say. Also, Jays GM Anthopoulos seems rated pretty low at #24.

[Frobby]

I don't agree with those who are trashing Cashman. The guy has averaged 96.5 wins over the last decade. I don't care how much money you have, it's hard to stay on top all the time. Just look at the mess the Mets have made of it.

Now, could be be a successful GM of a team with a < $100 mm budget? I don't know because he hasn't been faced with those circumstances.

[Pedro Cerrano]

I don't agree with those who are trashing Cashman. The guy has averaged 96.5 wins over the last decade. I don't care how much money you have, it's hard to stay on top all the time. Just look at the mess the Mets have made of it.

Now, could be be a successful GM of a team with a < $100 mm budget? I don't know because he hasn't been faced with those circumstances.

Frobby, let's be realistic. No team, not even the Mets, enjoys the luxuries that Cashman does. He's made some really bad mistakes over the years, like signing Pavano, signing Jaret Wright, trading for Javier Vazquez who is a tire fire in the AL (and might be again this year).

He's able to stay above the 96.5 win total because he essentially has the right of first refusal to EVERY big name FA out there. Hell, Carlos Beltran (who is on the Mets now who you cite as an example) was willing to take LESS to go play there.

[mikezpen]

Ridiculous ranking. I could be the best GM in the game, too, if they gave me a quarter of a billion dollars a year to buy players.

This article isn't worth reading.

[DrungoHazewood]

I don't agree with those who are trashing Cashman. The guy has averaged 96.5 wins over the last decade. I don't care how much money you have, it's hard to stay on top all the time. Just look at the mess the Mets have made of it.

Now, could be be a successful GM of a team with a < $100 mm budget? I don't know because he hasn't been faced with those circumstances.

Yes, this. I can't believe the people who constantly bash Cashman, as if any monkey could win 100+ games a year with his payroll, so he's less than a monkey because he only wins 97.

You simply can't judge Cashman on the failure of guys like Carl Pavano. He signed Pavano, and bunch of other high-risk, high-reward players, with the knowledge that they might fail. But since he has that crazy payroll, that was ok. Cashman knows that the Yanks' money lets him take risks and absorb failures that no other team could, and he uses that to his advantage.

You're crazy if you think a guy is a failure or a joke or just plain mediocre if the absolute nadir of his tenure is 87 wins. No matter what the payroll.

We have no idea how he'd run the Royals. But we also don't know that the guys in charge of the A's or Twins or Rays wouldn't end up being Omar Minaya II if they were given $150M a year to work with.

If Cashman and Epstein are mediocre at best then we live in some kind of anti-Lake Wobegon where everyone is below average.

[ShaneDawg85]

I think a debate can be had, and clearly is going on, that MacPhail should be ranked above Cashman. But I do believe that Friedman and Epstein are better in the division, and overall, than MacPhail because both have built and sustained farm systems to aid and sustain the success of the team. MacPhail is doing that, but we're not there yet. Once we see that the farm system is able to sustain the success of the team, I think the debate will change.

I do like the dig at the 80 wins though.

[Pedro Cerrano]

Yes, this. I can't believe the people who constantly bash Cashman, as if any monkey could win 100+ games a year with his payroll, so he's less than a monkey because he only wins 97.

You simply can't judge Cashman on the failure of guys like Carl Pavano. He signed Pavano, and bunch of other high-risk, high-reward players, with the knowledge that they might fail. But since he has that crazy payroll, that was ok. Cashman knows that the Yanks' money lets him take risks and absorb failures that no other team could, and he uses that to his advantage.

You're crazy if you think a guy is a failure or a joke or just plain mediocre if the absolute nadir of his tenure is 87 wins. No matter what the payroll.

We have no idea how he'd run the Royals. But we also don't know that the guys in charge of the A's or Twins or Rays wouldn't end up being Omar Minaya II if they were given $150M a year to work with.

If Cashman and Epstein are mediocre at best then we live in some kind of anti-Lake Wobegon where everyone is below average.

Yes, and the fact that they failed is a testament to his abilities as a GM.

Again, he gets away with this stuff because his team is successful. And his team is successful, in my humble opinion, because he has the luxury of working in an environment where anything less than 90 wins is a catastrophe and therefore resources know no maximum.

[DrungoHazewood]

Frobby, let's be realistic. No team, not even the Mets, enjoys the luxuries that Cashman does. He's made some really bad mistakes over the years, like signing Pavano, signing Jaret Wright, trading for Javier Vazquez who is a tire fire in the AL (and might be again this year).

He's able to stay above the 96.5 win total because he essentially has the right of first refusal to EVERY big name FA out there. Hell, Carlos Beltran (who is on the Mets now who you cite as an example) was willing to take LESS to go play there.

So what level of success would be necessary for Cashman to be deemed a success? 105 wins a year? 110? 120? Winning the Series every single year?

[Pedro Cerrano]

"Jason Giambi is an FA?....let's sign him!"

"Mike Mussina is an FA?....let's sign him!"

"Hideki Matsui is an FA?....let's sign him!"

"Gary Sheffield is an FA?....let's sign him!"

"Kevin Brown is an FA?....let's sign him!"

"Alex Rodriguez is an FA?....let's sign him, wait let's trade for him and sign him!"

"Carl Pavano is an FA?....let's sign him!"

"Jaret Wright is an FA?....let's sign him!"

"Johnny Damon is an FA?....let's sign him!"

"Mark Teixeira is an FA?....let's sign him!"

"CC Sabathia is an FA?....let's sign him!"

"AJ Burnett is an FA?....let's sign him!"