Joined: Wed Sep 24, 2008 12:16 pm
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Boilermaker Rick wrote: rogers park bryan wrote: You can be as condescending as you want, but the discussion started when I said the Cubs had an extremely successful GM and you said "So do the Sox" which is saying they are equal. That really isn't saying they are equal. The problem is you took it that way. rogers park bryan wrote: What if Kenny is 10th? What words would you use? A little above average? 10th would not be a little above average. That would be top third of the league. I'd still love to see that list. I think you'd have a real hard time coming up with 9 other GM's that Kenny would trade his record of success with. Remember, we aren't talking about ability, and we never were. We were talking about success. Well, its hard to do rankings of GM's. Thats why I just hold them to a generic standard of wins instead of against each other. I mean 11 GM's are in year one or two, so you'd have to put them aside right? Its too subjective (Rebuilding? Going for it? Good minor leagues?) Here is the last one I found. S.I. used to do it yearly 1. Andrew Friedman, Tampa Bay Rays
For as much praise as the Rays have received over the last few years, they've probably deserved even more. Over the last three years they've spent just a million dollars per marginal win, the sort of thing that gets baseball wonks to draw hearts around pictures of Friedman. Maybe the best example of their method is the preposterous contract to which they signed Evan Longoria during his first days as a major leaguer -- if the Rays exercise all the options in the contract, they could end up paying him less than $50 million through his age 30 season, which makes him the single most valuable commodity in baseball. Friedman has also won a pennant and maintains one of the game's best farm systems. It may seem absurd to say of a 32-year-old whom few people had heard of a year and a half ago, but he and his braintrust are the best in baseball.
2. Theo Epstein, Boston Red Sox
Among baseball's really big spenders, the Red Sox are the most efficient, or, if you prefer, the least wasteful. It's difficult to avoid roster bloat while playing even-up with the Yankees, but they've managed it. Before signing starter John Lackey this winter, they didn't have a player making more than $14 million per year, and the team is built around cheap, homegrown talent. Like the Rays, the impressive thing about the Red Sox is that they may deserve even more hype than they get.
3. Brian Cashman, New York Yankees
Cashman's weakness isn't a small one -- the Yankees, the only team in baseball to routinely run $200 million payrolls, have recently been spending about four times as much per win as the Rays. Why, then, does he rank so high? His four world championships don't hurt, but the really impressive thing is that since he secured full control over baseball operations after the 2005 season, the Yankees have spent their money wisely, signing studs like CC Sabathia rather than sure bets for decline, and traded smartly, dealing the fruits of a much-improved farm system for players still in their prime, such as Curtis Granderson.
4. Larry Beinfest, Florida Marlins
Duly noted that Michael Hill is nominally the Marlins' general manager. That said, Beinfest, technically the team's president of baseball operations, consistently gets more wins for his dollar than anyone else in baseball. Since he took over following the 2002 season, the Marlins have won a World Series and posted winning records in five of seven seasons, despite consistently ranking at or near the bottom of the majors in payroll. Beinfest has picked up players every way you can -- trading for Hanley Ramirez, acquiring Dan Uggla in the Rule 5 draft, and bringing up players from the farm -- and on the few occasions he's had money to spend, he has spent it shrewdly.
5. Jack Zduriencik, Seattle Mariners
This may seem a preposterous ranking for someone who's only been in the job for a bit more than a year, but the key thing to note about Zduriencik is that he was already one of baseball's most highly regarded minds before coming to Seattle. His run of drafts for the Milwaukee Brewers in the 2000s was so good that he became the first scouting director to win Baseball America's Executive of the Year award. Since taking over the reins in Seattle, he has turned the Mariners into a contender, engineering their abrupt transformation from one of baseball's dullest organizations to one of its most progressive, such as by focusing on defensive studs such as Jack Wilson, Franklin Gutierrez and Casey Kotchman.
6. Doug Melvin, Milwaukee Brewers
There's a lingering air of unfulfilled potential about the Brewers, a sense that they took their shot two years ago when they traded for CC Sabathia and just missed (they lost in the NLDS). But Melvin made what had been perhaps baseball's blandest team relevant for the first time in decades, and he probably isn't done quite yet. Don't be surprised if he turns Prince Fielder into enough young talent to drive another serious run at a pennant.
7. Dan O'Dowd, Colorado Rockies
O'Dowd has built some thrilling teams recently, and done so on the cheap. It's been a long time since the Mike Hampton and Denny Neagle debacles, and granting that he's Baseball America's reigning Executive of the Year, O'Dowd still deserves more credit than he sometimes gets. He built his team up the right way and finally solved the problem of Coors Field by overseeing the introduction of the famed humidor.
8. Jon Daniels, Texas Rangers
General managers are always going on about the virtues of building a strong farm system, and what they generally mean is that they want to win major league games so they can keep their jobs. Daniels has actually built a preposterously good system (Justin Smoak, Neftali Feliz, Derek Holland) over the last few years, bringing in talent every way you can, and now has his team positioned to contend for the next several years. That he has kept the major league team perfectly respectable on modest payrolls while overseeing this rebuilding project is really very impressive, and with a good run over the next couple of years he could well move up on this list.
9. Ken Williams, Chicago White Sox
For someone regarded even by many of his own team's fans as somewhere between daft and clueless, Williams certainly has a habit of making killer trades, identifying undervalued players and putting together winning ballclubs. His basic philosophy of running out an 85-win team every year in the expectation that in its better years it will be a serious pennant contender is a bit strange for a big city team in a small-town division, but he has a World Series ring and several division flags that say it works.
10. Billy Beane, Oakland A's
Beane really seems to have been at least matched at his own game by a generation of younger general managers who learned, to some extent, from his example. He's still a fine and creative executive, and you have to wonder what he would do in a town like New York or Chicago, but he'll have to invent some new tricks to reclaim the title of the man who does most with the least. He could justifiably be ranked higher, but considering that his team has lost at least 86 games in each of the last three years, he could also be justifiably ranked lower.
Read more: http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2010/w ... #ixzz1yAfiCfAe
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) and he implemented at at his ballpark. Baseball isn't that kind of game. It's difficult to have a conversation at Sox Park. There's always some stupid noise. Baseball is a game of conversation. I think this type of "entertainment" is now pervasive throughout baseball, but the Sox were one of the leaders and remain one of the worst offenders. It's slowly crept into Wrigley and eventually it will take over there too. I don't think the marketeers really know what people like about baseball. It reminds us of all that once was good and that could be again.
