Ok. Are we judging on that? Because that knocks out Beane and puts in Sabean. What I am looking for is a coherent set of standards that create a top tier (Beane, Friedman, Epstein?) that clearly differentiates them from Sabean, mozeliak, cashman, Jocketty, duquette, etc. There is not, of course, one set of concrete criteria by which to judge this given the variety of contexts. You know it, and it's a stupid tangent. That sounds an awful lot like the same kind of reasoning that gives MVPs to the guy with the most RBIs. It's just the "we know it when we see it" argument, which isn't something the sabermetric community should ever be accepting as an answer. So explain what YOU think is the clear cut criteria for deeming someone a successful GM. Don't do this B.S. dance of acting like the burden of proof is on everyone else to make your point for you.