Rank your Top 10 GMs

[TruffleShuffle]

Must be currently employed as a GM for a major league organization.

 

1. John Schuerholz

2. Billy Beane

3. Terry Ryan

4. Dave Dombrowski

5. Doug Melvin

6. Walt Jocketty

7. Mark Shapiro

8. Kevin Towers

9. Theo Epstein

10. Bill Stoneman

 

 

Shockingly, Jim Hendry didn't make the cut for my list.

[Rob]

1. John Schuerholz

2. Billy Beane

3. Mark Shapiro

4. Terry Ryan

5. Dave Dombrowski

6. Larry Beinfest

7. Theo Epstein

8. Kevin Towers

9. Brian Cashman

10. Doug Melvin

 

Narrowly missing the cut:

 

Walt Jocketty, Omar Minaya, and Bill Stoneman

 

Honestly though, I see there as being a huge divide after the top four.

[Drew Doughty]

Schuerholz

Beane

Ryan

Beinfest

Shapiro

Dombrowski

Melvin

Epstein

Towers

Jocketty

[Jazz]

Scheurholz

Beane

Ryan

Shapiro

Epstein

Dombrowski

Jocketty

Melvin

Stoneman

Jocketty

[Mephistopheles]

1. Billy Beane

2. John Schuerholz

3. Mark Shapiro

4. Terry Ryan

5. Asmodai

[UMFan83]

Sell me on Epstein. He has a WS title, but he also has a huge payroll to work with and a lot of his FA acquisitions (Lugo, Drew, Clement, Renteria, etc) have been questionable at best. Even the Nomar trade that netted him Orlando Cabrera he seemed to get lucky on as Cabs sucked with Montreal (I remember most on the board wanted nothing to do with him when he was rumored to come here). He also waited forever to trade Hanley Ramirez and then finally traded him away for less than what he got back arguably.

[BeerHere]

1. John Schuerholz

2. Mark Shapiro

3. Terry Ryan

4. Walk Jocketty

 

 

5. Billy Beane

6. Jim Hendry

 

 

I put Beane at #5 because there isn't much to choose from. I think some of his luster from MoneyBall has worn off and he's made his mistakes. Somewhere, Hendry has to start getting credit for a pretty good offseason. Yes he blew it in 2006 but Wood and Prior had a lot to do with that. Lilly and DeRosa have been excellent and although Soriano is overpaid, he's been a stud.

 

[BeerHere]

Sell me on Epstein. He has a WS title, but he also has a huge payroll to work with and a lot of his FA acquisitions (Lugo, Drew, Clement, Renteria, etc) have been questionable at best. Even the Nomar trade that netted him Orlando Cabrera he seemed to get lucky on as Cabs sucked with Montreal (I remember most on the board wanted nothing to do with him when he was rumored to come here). He also waited forever to trade Hanley Ramirez and then finally traded him away for less than what he got back arguably.

 

Seconded

 

Hanley Ramirez is a pretty good player for the fish.

[Post Count Padder]

1. Beane

2. Schuerholz

3. Shapiro

4. Ryan

5. Dombrowski

6. Epstein

7. Beinfest

8. Melvin

9. Towers

10. Minaya

[David]

Didn't Ramirez go in the Josh Beckett deal?

[BeerHere]

Didn't Ramirez go in the Josh Beckett deal?

 

yes

[nick23]

I don't understand how many people have Jocketty on the list. What's he done besides make awful trades and sign players to bad contracts?

[BeerHere]

I don't understand how many people have Jocketty on the list. What's he done besides make awful trades and sign players to bad contracts?

 

I give him credit for getting Carpenter, Rolen and Renteria. He was also at the helm when they found Pujols although scouting had a lot to do with that. Like it or not, the Cardinals have been a very good team for the past several years or so. There have been down years sure, but the team has been good. He also knew when to dump Morris and Williams.

 

For me though, the bottom line is that there aren't too many "good" GM's out there. I don't get the fascination with Beane. I read MoneyBall and yes, Beane has put together some decent teams with a very low payroll. A great deal of that is scouting. He's made his mistakes and he's his successes and I think that Moneyball was a very interesting read. I don't think he's as great as the book made him out to be.

[UMFan83]

Didn't Ramirez go in the Josh Beckett deal?

 

yes

 

Yes it wasn't a terrible deal. But I can't remember specifically, but there were a lot of deals that the Red Sox turned down for Hanley, saying basically that he was untouchable. Again, I could be wrong because I can't remember specifics, but I'm pretty positive the names were bigger than Beckett. Combine that with the fact that Beckett was terrible and a big reason the Sox didnt make the playoffs last year, it makes me think the Marlins won that trade.

 

The trade was

 

Hanley Ramirez, Anibal Sanchez (the no-no guy), Jesus Delgado, Harvey Garcia to the Marlins for Josh Beckett, Mike Lowell, Guillermo Mota.

[rawaction]

Schuerholz is obviously #1.

 

After that, I'm a big fan of Shapiro and Ryan.

 

I think Beane is probably around 5 or 6. Not a big fan of Epstein. He's decent, but probably not in my top 10.

 

1. Schuerholz

2. Shapiro

3. Ryan

4. Dombroski

5. Beane

6. Beinfest

7. Stoneman

8. Melvin

9. Jocketty

10 Towers

[SouthSideRyan]

I think we did this like 3 years ago and I had Hendry in the top 10, defensibly so. Now, not so much.

 

Schuerholz

Dombrowski

Beane

Beinfest

Ryan

Shapiro

Melvin

Jocketty

Cashman

Towers

 

I'm not crazy about 9 or 10, other guys who could maybe have their spot are Byrnes, Stoneman, Minaya or Williams

[Prior4CyYoung]

Didn't Ramirez go in the Josh Beckett deal?

 

yes

 

Yes it wasn't a terrible deal. But I can't remember specifically, but there were a lot of deals that the Red Sox turned down for Hanley, saying basically that he was untouchable. Again, I could be wrong because I can't remember specifics, but I'm pretty positive the names were bigger than Beckett. Combine that with the fact that Beckett was terrible and a big reason the Sox didnt make the playoffs last year, it makes me think the Marlins won that trade.

 

The trade was

 

Hanley Ramirez, Anibal Sanchez (the no-no guy), Jesus Delgado, Harvey Garcia to the Marlins for Josh Beckett, Mike Lowell, Guillermo Mota.

 

I know Hanley Ramirez is a very good player But I fail to see how this is a bad deal. Beckett and Lowell have been huge parts in why the Red Sox have been the best team in baseball this year. And if they win another world series those 2 guys are going to be a big reason to why they did win it. Are the marlins happy with the trade ofcourse they are Hanley is one of the best young players in the game right now. But if the red sox win the world series again I am sure the Red Sox will also be very happy with the deal as well.

[TruffleShuffle]

I don't understand how many people have Jocketty on the list. What's he done besides make awful trades and sign players to bad contracts?

 

make the playoffs 7 times; win the second most games of any organization in the past 10 years. So not much.

[TruffleShuffle]

glad to see doug melvin being recognized on almost all lists... he never deserved to be fired by texas, and is really proving that in milwaukee.

[KingKongvs.Godzilla]

Schuerholz

Shapiro

Dombrowski

Beane

Beinfest

Ryan

Melvin

Jocketty

Cashman

Towers

 

Shapiro is a great GM who is still not getting any credit for it man...I've been saying the guys top 5 for 3-4 years now.

[RonnieWooWooSanto]

I would think that Friedman would be worthy of making a top ten list. Or atleast he should be approaching it considering he took over a mess left by LaMar.

 

He has put together an excellent farm system(which he started before taking the GM position). Although some of the off field antics of a few of their prospects isn't good. But, I'm not sure you can pin that on him.

 

While the D'Rays' record isn't good, they're young and on the rise. A couple of moves outside the draft that come to mind are acquiring Kazmir from Minaya & the Mets and the signing of Akinori Iwamura.

[RonnieWooWooSanto]

Nate Silver of BP wrote this article on the effectiveness of Colleti as Dodger GM and grades his overall tenure thus far. Anyways, he wraps up the article using Hendry as a comparison to Colletti.

 

http://www.baseballprospectus.com/article.php?articleid=6474

 

Colletti has a lot of the same strengths and weaknesses as the Cubs’ Jim Hendry. He’s reasonably good at evaluating talent in a baseball sense, particularly when it comes to evaluating players out of his own system. However, he’s not so good at evaluating talent in a financial sense, what you might call ‘valuation’ as opposed to ‘evaluation.’ Finally, scouting and development appears to be a strength, at least based on the progress of guys like Martin, Loney, Jonathan Broxton, and Kershaw. The trade for Andre Ethier is also the sort of move on which reputations can be made.

 

I’ve always felt that GMs like Hendry and Colletti could be exceptionally effective if teamed with a strong president/CEO/COO that has a real capacity for strategic and financial analysis, and is empowered to help make baseball decisions. Stan Kasten is one such example, as is Larry Lucchino. Instead, the Dodgers’ President (Jamie McCourt) is a family hire, and their COO (Marty Greenspun) has an impressive resume, but is not really a baseball guy. All in all, there's a bit more post-millennial tension in the forecast.

[Shavo]

 

While the D'Rays' record isn't good, they're young and on the rise. A couple of moves outside the draft that come to mind are acquiring Kazmir from Minaya & the Mets and the signing of Akinori Iwamura.

 

Minaya didn't trade Kazmir.