Rating a “Baseball Guy”

I’m a baseball guy.

Some skeptics question what that statement truly means.

I believe when you say or hear someone say “baseball guy,” it has to mean there is some underlying passion about the game that the particular person has instilled within themselves. It’s not necessarily some super human trait, or mind capability that can robotically create field plowing franchises.

It’s not a talent of any kind.

What it’s best defined as is perhaps an obtuse belief towards baseball- a truly different point of view, and how the game is digested. Baseball, in every sense of the word, is perceived at a completely different angle.

I want to someday run a baseball team.

Yeah, sure—far fetched dream weaver, right? I suppose. But seriously…that’s me, and that’s who I someday want to be. I understand there are no guarantees in life, so there is certainly that possibility I won’t make it, but I am certain I will at least break into the business sector of this wondrous pastime.

Yep, that’s right. My name will someday be etched in history as one of the many representatives selected to position a baseball franchise in its best financial interests- one ingredient in the everlasting, and ever demanding motor oil of baseball empires. That’s my mission, and I will get there.

I’m reading one hell of an article right now. Its plainly superb, and it identifies several men that possess these “baseball guy” traits I so eagerly speak of.

See, look what I found…here it is.

It’s a list of the next best minds in the game… The hopeful seedlings of Hollywood Billy Beanes.

To me, I think there are a few breeds of “baseball guys.” It’s sort of a family tree, branching out from one main baseball guy genotype. You have this underlying, generalist idea of what a baseball guy is, what he does, how he thinks, eats, and smells like…From that beaming nucleus, stems a dendritic depiction of three baseball guy genders.

A.)  The old, reputable/reliable hound dog. A man that shuns statistics walks tall and gutting usually carries more self-righteousness that anything else. A media machine, that always puts on a good public tune (Sabean, Hendry, Melvin, Jocketty, Dombrowski, etc.)

B.)  Then you have yesterdays young gun, brain banks. BIG MARKET money shakers. They have the wit, the connections, charm, and the money. Usually brought up under the wing of a legend. Stat analyzing, wombats… (Epstein, Beane, Cashman, Hoyer, Macphail, and Towers.)

C.)  Then you have a new wave of executives. These guys make the franchise look like gold. Young, energetic with the ability to rebuild. (Daniels, Freidman, Amaro, Antonetti, Anthopolous, Mozeliak, Moore, and Wren.)

Then, as you have it, each and every one thrown into the blender and asked to succeed and move waters and worlds…checks are cut…big checks.

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I have kept a running tally from each game of the season to tell me who the best general manager is on a daily basis. Each game is tracked by team performance and I associate the success of that team with their respective general mangers.

At the All Star break, here is where each manager stands in terms of 2011 team success (one being the best, thirty being the worst.)

1. Amaro

2. Epstein

3. Wren

4. Sabean

5. Cashman

6. Mozeliak

7. Daniels

8. Friedman

9. Dombrowski

10. Antonetti

11. Reagins

12. Towers

13. Melvin

14. Rizzo

15. Huntington

16. Alderson

17. Jocketty

18. Anthopolous

19. Hill

20. O’Dowd

21. Williams

22. Zdurienciek

23. Smith

24. Hoyer

25. Colletti

26. Beane

27. Hendry

28. Moore

29. Macphail

30. Wade

Unless you know each general manger personally, or have the insane abilities to work in every front office, simultaneously on a daily basis, it’s virtually impossible to track just how effective a manger is to his team.

Based on the importance of winning TODAY and only TODAY, these rankings are only based upon the performance of the team, which in the end should be the only grip of facts we as analysts should pay attention to.

So even with the talent in AAA and AA lurking, Dayton Moore is still one of the worst GM’s in baseball. That stated, because it is only right to play fair.

But Dayton Moore is only two slots lower that Oakland’s Billy Beane in these rankings and producers and Brad Pitt already made a triumphant movie about him, right?

I can see Steve Carell studying his Dayton Moore script now…

In my heart of hearts, I believe Dayton Moore is actually better that 28^th in all of baseball. The farm system is enough to push him up in most books. But you can’t think like that until the results actually kick in. There is so much praise spouting from the woodwork because Kansas City has this supposedly groundbreaking future.

Mark Prior, Steven Strasburg, Kansas City Royals.

Only true evidence is believable and holds the ability to be remembered.

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