Dempster Traded to Texas for 3B Villanueva & RHP Hendricks

[Backtobanks]

Ned is old school, but he's been handcuffed bigtime out there up until now. He's handed out some bad FA contracts obviously, but his trade track record probably doesn't look all that bad. The Blake for Santana deal is what everyone points to and it WAS bad. But my guess is if you judge him on his entire body of work, he shows up as utterly average, in the grand scheme of things.

 

Exactly my point. Coletti came out of this trade deadline with 4 big additions to his team without giving up his top prospects. Explain to me how this makes him an idiot or a bad GM.

[Clem Fandango]

The fact that Wil Myers is still in the minors while Francouer continues to occupy KC's roster is an example of the fact that not all GMs are baseball smart.

 

Wil Myers AA and AAA combined:

 

.310 AVG .389 OBP 1.031 OPS and 33HR.

 

Wil Myers might be ready for big league action, but the Royals aren't winning anything this year and he's still only 21. Waiting it out to gain an extra year of control while giving him a full year at AAA won't hurt them by any means.

 

Also, if we're gonna talk about dumb GM's...

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dave_Littlefield

[Backtobanks]

The fact that Wil Myers is still in the minors while Francouer continues to occupy KC's roster is an example of the fact that not all GMs are baseball smart.

 

Wil Myers AA and AAA combined:

 

.310 AVG .389 OBP 1.031 OPS and 33HR.

 

Maybe he subscribes to Theo's philosophy of making sure he gets the right number of AB at AAA because we know it has nothing to do with starting his ML "clock". :^o

[Guest]

B2B: would you argue with me when I say half of all GM's are below average at their jobs?

[jersey cubs fan]

Ned is old school, but he's been handcuffed bigtime out there up until now. He's handed out some bad FA contracts obviously, but his trade track record probably doesn't look all that bad. The Blake for Santana deal is what everyone points to and it WAS bad. But my guess is if you judge him on his entire body of work, he shows up as utterly average, in the grand scheme of things.

 

Exactly my point. Coletti came out of this trade deadline with 4 big additions to his team without giving up his top prospects. Explain to me how this makes him an idiot or a bad GM.

 

4 big additions?

[El Duderino]

victorino is a corpse and brandon league is brandon league. i'll give you hanley, and I cannot remember the other guy he traded for.

[Guest]

i've been asleep since 2010. wake me up when hanley ramirez is good again.

 

 

i'm not saying it can't happen or that i wouldn't buy low on him, but um, yea...

[El Duderino]

ned also gave up a good young starting pitcher and replaced him with steven fife. stretch drive!

[Theo]

i've been asleep since 2010. wake me up when hanley ramirez is good again.

 

 

i'm not saying it can't happen or that i wouldn't buy low on him, but um, yea...

Wake up, Hanley Ramirez is good.

[Tryptamine]

i've been asleep since 2010. wake me up when hanley ramirez is good again.

 

 

i'm not saying it can't happen or that i wouldn't buy low on him, but um, yea...

Wake up, Hanley Ramirez is good.

 

Not particularly. He's on pace to finish around 2.5WAR this year after 1.3 the year before.

[Theo]

i've been asleep since 2010. wake me up when hanley ramirez is good again.

 

 

i'm not saying it can't happen or that i wouldn't buy low on him, but um, yea...

Wake up, Hanley Ramirez is good.

 

Not particularly. He's on pace to finish around 2.5WAR this year after 1.3 the year before.

 

If he moves back to SS, I belive he would project to top 10 at the position in all of baseball. I also believe he's been a bit unlucky this year with BABIP. I think the problem is people are contrasting to his days when his numbers were MVP caliber, I don't know if he makes it back to that level but I believe he is and will continue to be pretty good.

[SouthSideRyan]

Theo is the smartest guy in the room. I'm really excited to start seeing the fruits of his labors.

 

I sometimes wonder if GM's of inferior intelligence (like Coletti) are intimidated by Theo and Hoyer. They have a knack for finding hidden gems (or at least somehow always getting the upper hand in trades). When they start asking for prospects, do the Coletti's of the world start to panic?

 

Theo might be a very smart guy, but it bothers me that posters refer to most other GMs as idiots and somehow any success that they have had has been luck. Most of these guys have been in and around baseball all of their lives. I'm sure most owners wouldn't leave an "idiot" in the GM post for many years. All of the sabermetric analysis that Beane and Theo initiated has been implemented by most teams.

 

Bill Bavasi was legally a chimp.

[SouthSideRyan]

Ned is old school, but he's been handcuffed bigtime out there up until now. He's handed out some bad FA contracts obviously, but his trade track record probably doesn't look all that bad. The Blake for Santana deal is what everyone points to and it WAS bad. But my guess is if you judge him on his entire body of work, he shows up as utterly average, in the grand scheme of things.

 

He also traded James McDonald+ for Dotel, and Josh Bell+ For George Sherrill(Bell turned into nothing, but he was a top prospect 2 months later, and he got a terrible return for him because he's dumb)

[Little Slide Rooter]

B2B: would you argue with me when I say half of all GM's are below average at their jobs?

 

That's a big statement. While most GMs make their fair share mistakes,its one of the most desired jobs in sports, and there's only 30 of them out there. Whether we're talking Coletti, Hendry, Epstein, or Friedman, anyone who's ever made it to that point and stayed for any length of time, these guys are a lot more competent than even the smartest fans give them credit for. Most of these guys clawed their way up a ladder to get to where they are, and if they're doing a poor job, there's no shortage of guys waiting in line to take over.

 

Also, a big market GM and a small market GM are very different jobs. With big market teams, the GMs job is to put a contender on the field every year. Obviously, unless you're the White Sox, the farm system's important. However, theres more pressure to contend each year and those prospects often become currency.With smaller market guys, it's to put a cost effective team on the field, and keep the farm system growing to work toward a window in which to contend sometime in the near future. When players become expensive, swap them out for cheaper ones. It's not often that you see a big market team do what Epstein and Hoyer are doing with the Cuba. I often wonder how Hendry, Colleti, or Cashman would make out in KC or Oakland Alternately, how would Andrew Friedman, Billy Beane or even Dayton Moore do with the Red Sox or Yankees.

[Guest]

The answer by definition is Yes. One word. Yes.

[SouthSideRyan]

Ned is old school, but he's been handcuffed bigtime out there up until now. He's handed out some bad FA contracts obviously, but his trade track record probably doesn't look all that bad. The Blake for Santana deal is what everyone points to and it WAS bad. But my guess is if you judge him on his entire body of work, he shows up as utterly average, in the grand scheme of things.

 

Exactly my point. Coletti came out of this trade deadline with 4 big additions to his team without giving up his top prospects. Explain to me how this makes him an idiot or a bad GM.

 

Yaeh Randy Choate and Brandon League are [expletive] big-time!

 

ETA: And Ramirez was a salary dump and he STILL gave up Eovaldi.

Edited August 2, 2012 by SouthSideRyan

[jersey cubs fan]

The answer by definition is Yes. One word. Yes.

 

by definition? Not exactly.

[SouthSideRyan]

The answer by definition is Yes. One word. Yes.

 

by definition? Not exactly.

 

below median.

[Ding Dong Johnson]

B2B: would you argue with me when I say half of all GM's are below average at their jobs?

 

That's a big statement. While most GMs make their fair share mistakes,its one of the most desired jobs in sports, and there's only 30 of them out there. Whether we're talking Coletti, Hendry, Epstein, or Friedman, anyone who's ever made it to that point and stayed for any length of time, these guys are a lot more competent than even the smartest fans give them credit for. Most of these guys clawed their way up a ladder to get to where they are, and if they're doing a poor job, there's no shortage of guys waiting in line to take over.

 

Also, a big market GM and a small market GM are very different jobs. With big market teams, the GMs job is to put a contender on the field every year. Obviously, unless you're the White Sox, the farm system's important. However, theres more pressure to contend each year and those prospects often become currency.With smaller market guys, it's to put a cost effective team on the field, and keep the farm system growing to work toward a window in which to contend sometime in the near future. When players become expensive, swap them out for cheaper ones. It's not often that you see a big market team do what Epstein and Hoyer are doing with the Cuba. I often wonder how Hendry, Colleti, or Cashman would make out in KC or Oakland Alternately, how would Andrew Friedman, Billy Beane or even Dayton Moore do with the Red Sox or Yankees.

You lost me after "That's".

[Guest]

The answer by definition is Yes. One word. Yes.

 

by definition? Not exactly.

 

below median.

Yeah, but that gives it away too much.

 

 

 

btw - one of my favorite pieces of trivia is that something like 95% of all people polled believe that they are above average drivers. 45% of them are wrong. :)

[davell]

Ned is old school, but he's been handcuffed bigtime out there up until now. He's handed out some bad FA contracts obviously, but his trade track record probably doesn't look all that bad. The Blake for Santana deal is what everyone points to and it WAS bad. But my guess is if you judge him on his entire body of work, he shows up as utterly average, in the grand scheme of things.

 

He also traded James McDonald+ for Dotel, and Josh Bell+ For George Sherrill(Bell turned into nothing, but he was a top prospect 2 months later, and he got a terrible return for him because he's dumb)

The Dotel trade was awful. I would have preferred getting McDonald and Andrew Lambo for Lilly and Theriot and I'm confident that those guys,had to be on the table, because they were more valuable than Dotel obviously. That said, McDonald needed a change of scenery. They gave him chances out there and he wasn't getting it done. Don't get me wrong, they should have gotten much more than they did, but he had lost quite a bit of luster. Lambo was the guy everyone was shocked about being included, because he had been a top 100 guy just a season before, if I remember correctly. But had 2 strikes on the drug policy already. I hate defending Ned, by the way, because I don't consider him a good GM. But he's done OK with what he's been given. Some good trades, a couple bad ones, and a spotty FA record. Below average? Yes. But not bad enough to run your franchise into the ground.

[Guest]

Ned is old school, but he's been handcuffed bigtime out there up until now. He's handed out some bad FA contracts obviously, but his trade track record probably doesn't look all that bad. The Blake for Santana deal is what everyone points to and it WAS bad. But my guess is if you judge him on his entire body of work, he shows up as utterly average, in the grand scheme of things.

 

He also traded James McDonald+ for Dotel, and Josh Bell+ For George Sherrill(Bell turned into nothing, but he was a top prospect 2 months later, and he got a terrible return for him because he's dumb)

Thank you. The Casey Blake trade wasn't his only garbage deadline deal.

[Backtobanks]

B2B: would you argue with me when I say half of all GM's are below average at their jobs?

 

Only if you agree that half of all GMs are above average.

[Backtobanks]

B2B: would you argue with me when I say half of all GM's are below average at their jobs?

 

That's a big statement. While most GMs make their fair share mistakes,its one of the most desired jobs in sports, and there's only 30 of them out there. Whether we're talking Coletti, Hendry, Epstein, or Friedman, anyone who's ever made it to that point and stayed for any length of time, these guys are a lot more competent than even the smartest fans give them credit for. Most of these guys clawed their way up a ladder to get to where they are, and if they're doing a poor job, there's no shortage of guys waiting in line to take over.

 

Also, a big market GM and a small market GM are very different jobs. With big market teams, the GMs job is to put a contender on the field every year. Obviously, unless you're the White Sox, the farm system's important. However, theres more pressure to contend each year and those prospects often become currency.With smaller market guys, it's to put a cost effective team on the field, and keep the farm system growing to work toward a window in which to contend sometime in the near future. When players become expensive, swap them out for cheaper ones. It's not often that you see a big market team do what Epstein and Hoyer are doing with the Cuba. I often wonder how Hendry, Colleti, or Cashman would make out in KC or Oakland Alternately, how would Andrew Friedman, Billy Beane or even Dayton Moore do with the Red Sox or Yankees.

 

Well said! Also, all of the discussion comparing different GMs is ridiculous because of your point about big market/small market. Ownership told Hendry that his job while he was here was to spend a lot of money and try to buy a winning team. Theo's philosophy (backed by Ricketts) is to cut payroll and rebuild with the farm system. I think most guys who got this far in baseball would figure out a way to survive in another situation. Let's not forget that Theo took a very good Red Sox team (avg. 89 wins a season) and made them better (93 win avg.) with a huge payroll, but he has never dealt with a bad team that's going to rebuild with a decreasing payroll. I'm sure he will make the system better, but I'm not as confident as many of you that he will have a perennial 95-win juggernaut in the NL Central.

[jersey cubs fan]

Ownership told Hendry that his job while he was here was to spend a lot of money and try to buy a winning team.

 

And he failed miserably at that job.