The Ted Lilly deal worked real well...all 3 sides lost out. Arthur Rhodes did too...right up their with the Alan Embree/who needs a closer move out of the Jamesian clowns. Blanton and Haren...TBD.
A lot of GMs make due with limited budgets. So what...does not make them geniuses or to be admired.
See the Marlins or the Padres for an organization that has managed to actually win something with limited means. Or the Cards on a mid-scale budget. I though the object was to win something...silly me.
Beane had a book written about his so-called philospophy which if you want to call it the "How to finish in 2nd to 4th place in your league" Philosphy is pretty successful. Did not realize there is some sort of prize awarded for being in the top 4 year after year but never winning a thing.
To begin with, the Cards haven't "won anything" since 1982 against, sadly, my Brewers. The Marlins won one of the 2 championships whilerunning on a big payroll. Bottom line, being in the top 4 year after year does matter. He's taken a bottom tier payroll and made the team consistently competitive. Once you're in the playoffs, anything can happen, so getting there puts you in a position to win it all. Look at the 2003 Marlins, a wild card team, the unquestionable underdog against the big bad Yankees. A different team has won the series each of the last five years, so no team is consistently dominating the postseason with any single philosophy, whether it be Beane's analysis of market inefficiences or the Yanks' buy the championship method.
Anyway, that being said, my top 5 GM's currently would go like this...
1. John Schuerholz
2. Billy Beane
3. Theo Epstein
4. Terry Ryan
5. Doug Melvin
...with a very honorable mention to JP Riccardi and Walt Jocketty.
RynMan wrote:Hang on a minute.....how IS Terry Ryan getting soo much love? Correct me if I'm wrong but hasn't he been the GM in Minnesota for a LONG time? This means he was also the GM when the Twins were nearly contracted. The Twins were a horrible team for a while there, and would he still be getting the love if this thread were started during that period?
For me:
1. Schuerholtz 2. Beane
So a learning curve is unacceptable? He's been completely fleecing other teams in transactions as of the past five years. And building good teams on a tight budget.
Wait until Liriano makes the show. He just got promoted to Triple-A a month before the All-Star break. So far there, he's gone 2-0 in four starts, with a 3.46 ERA in 26 innings, striking out 32 and walking 8 with a 0.81 WHIP. In Doulbe-A he struck out 92 in 76.2 innings with a 3.64 ERA and a 1.25 WHIP. Not bad for a minor league throw in for a loud mouth catcher along with arguably the best closer in baseball over the past year-and-a-half. Oh, and Liriano is 21 right now.
RynMan wrote:Hang on a minute.....how IS Terry Ryan getting soo much love? Correct me if I'm wrong but hasn't he been the GM in Minnesota for a LONG time? This means he was also the GM when the Twins were nearly contracted. The Twins were a horrible team for a while there, and would he still be getting the love if this thread were started during that period?
For me:
1. Schuerholtz 2. Beane
So a learning curve is unacceptable? He's been completely fleecing other teams in transactions as of the past five years. And building good teams on a tight budget.
Wait until Liriano makes the show. He just got promoted to Triple-A a month before the All-Star break. So far there, he's gone 2-0 in four starts, with a 3.46 ERA in 26 innings, striking out 32 and walking 8 with a 0.81 WHIP. In Doulbe-A he struck out 92 in 76.2 innings with a 3.64 ERA and a 1.25 WHIP. Not bad for a minor league throw in for a loud mouth catcher along with arguably the best closer in baseball over the past year-and-a-half. Oh, and Liriano is 21 right now.
Also:
Carasco -> Ford
Knoblauch -> Milton, Guzman, and Buchanan
Milton -> Silva, Punto
Buchanan -> Bartlett
Thank you looptid! This is the kind of response I was hoping for, and a good one at that. Ryan has made some good moves as you have stated, I was just pointing out that if this thread were created during a down period the opinions may have differed. Although I do give him credit for bringing that team back from almost certain contraction to a division leading team.
We are forgetting who just assembled the best team in baseball in the first half. Kenny Williams deserves some credit for aquiring guys like Freddie Garcia, Podsednik, Pierzynski, Iguchi, and Hermanson. Those are all moves made in the last calendar year.
JGreer wrote:We are forgetting who just assembled the best team in baseball in the first half. Kenny Williams deserves some credit for aquiring guys like Freddie Garcia, Podsednik, Pierzynski, Iguchi, and Hermanson. Those are all moves made in the last calendar year.
Can't say that I agree. I still think the C. Lee for Pods was a horrible deal. ChiSox are winning because of their SP not because of the GM's offseason moves.
You want to give him credit for Freddy Garcia? Ok. Just don't forget the jury is still out on the guys Seattle got back.
The reason the White Sox are so good is because of Mark Buerhle and Jon Garland. Garland was drafted in 1997 and Buerhle in 1998. Kenny didn't take over the team until 2000.
I'm not saying he's bad, but he's done nothing to put him at one of the best. Half a season of success over 4 seasons of nothing all of a sudden makes you great?
BronXBombers51 wrote:You want to give him credit for Freddy Garcia? Ok. Just don't forget the jury is still out on the guys Seattle got back.
The reason the White Sox are so good is because of Mark Buerhle and Jon Garland. Garland was drafted in 1997 and Buerhle in 1998. Kenny didn't take over the team until 2000.
I'm not saying he's bad, but he's done nothing to put him at one of the best. Half a season of success over 4 seasons of nothing all of a sudden makes you great?
Who said the word great? The guy is working on a limited budget. Give him Cashman's tab and he'll assemble a dynasty. In fact, give most GM's in baseball that kind of money to play with.......most would be better than 3rd place right now.
BronXBombers51 wrote:You want to give him credit for Freddy Garcia? Ok. Just don't forget the jury is still out on the guys Seattle got back.
The reason the White Sox are so good is because of Mark Buerhle and Jon Garland. Garland was drafted in 1997 and Buerhle in 1998. Kenny didn't take over the team until 2000.
I'm not saying he's bad, but he's done nothing to put him at one of the best. Half a season of success over 4 seasons of nothing all of a sudden makes you great?
Who said the word great? The guy is working on a limited budget. Give him Cashman's tab and he'll assemble a dynasty. In fact, give most GM's in baseball that kind of money to play with.......most would be better than 3rd place right now.
This is a thread about the best GM in baseball. You must be a great GM to be labeled the best in the business.
If he isn't great, why'd you bring his name up? And nice job trying to take a cheap shot at the Yankees, but the fact is, I don't give a crap. We aren't talking about the Yankees here, buddy.
RynMan wrote:Hang on a minute.....how IS Terry Ryan getting soo much love? Correct me if I'm wrong but hasn't he been the GM in Minnesota for a LONG time? This means he was also the GM when the Twins were nearly contracted. The Twins were a horrible team for a while there, and would he still be getting the love if this thread were started during that period?
For me:
1. Schuerholtz 2. Beane
So a learning curve is unacceptable? He's been completely fleecing other teams in transactions as of the past five years. And building good teams on a tight budget.
Wait until Liriano makes the show. He just got promoted to Triple-A a month before the All-Star break. So far there, he's gone 2-0 in four starts, with a 3.46 ERA in 26 innings, striking out 32 and walking 8 with a 0.81 WHIP. In Doulbe-A he struck out 92 in 76.2 innings with a 3.64 ERA and a 1.25 WHIP. Not bad for a minor league throw in for a loud mouth catcher along with arguably the best closer in baseball over the past year-and-a-half. Oh, and Liriano is 21 right now.
Also:
Carasco -> Ford
Knoblauch -> Milton, Guzman, and Buchanan
Milton -> Silva, Punto
Buchanan -> Bartlett
Thank you looptid! This is the kind of response I was hoping for, and a good one at that. Ryan has made some good moves as you have stated, I was just pointing out that if this thread were created during a down period the opinions may have differed. Although I do give him credit for bringing that team back from almost certain contraction to a division leading team.
also, a few other points to mention. not to eulogize ryan to death, but you DID ask...
* when the word came out that mlb was going to seek to contract the twins, ryan had an instant job offer from the blue jays, i think it was. he decided it would be unfair to the rest of his friends/colleagues in the twins front office for him to jump ship while they sat there, wondering if their employer was going to close up shop. so he declined the job offer and stuck with the twins, saying we're in this together.
* in the period up to contraction, his directive from management was: $10MM team payroll. this, at the time that alex was making $25MM himself. there was one season, off the top of my head i'll call it '97, but i could be off, that half or more of the twins opening day roster were playing for the league-mandated minimum payroll, just having gotten called up from the minors in the same offseason. guzman, rivas, hunter, koskie, mienkievitz, jones, milton, pierzynski, ortiz... they all came up at the same time. and many of them turned into good major leaguers but they made the jump 2-3 years ahead of schedule because that's what the payroll dictated. (addendum: i just looked up the player info: looks like '98 and a few of them played a little bit in '97).
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by Scooter1027 » Thu Jul 14, 2005 3:22 am 
![:-]](./images/smilies/smirk.gif "Scottie")
