I/O: Moethedog with an interesting midterm report card for Capt Jack.
Moe is quick to caveat that whether the report card comes in A or F right now, it doesn't necessarily make a great or lousy GM. He persists, though, that the January-March decisions as a whole aren't lookin' too good.
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CRUNCH: Once The Original Sabermetrician sat down in the Red Sox offices, he was surprised to learn that GM Epstein "is judged on 10 or 12 huge calls a year. If they work out he's a genius; if they don't he's a bum," or somesuch.
I can't think of another job in which such complicated work gets hyper-simplified down to 10 or 12 coin tosses...
For sure SSI thinks not $0.02 less of Jack Zduriencik for the early-season woes -- because we never thought, in the first place, that Zduriencik was a 175-IQ saber-genius wolf prowling amongst 90-IQ non-saber sheep anyway. :- )
The M's are losing right now because the offense is a sucking chest wound. SSI was the one major blog to protest that this team was wayyyy overemphasizing the top half of the inning, so we would humbly submit that if anybody could hand-stomp with sharpened spike, it would be us...
This gasp-inducing offensive slump (12 runs in 8 games, is it?) wasn't predicted by anybody out of ST. It couldn't have been. As Pinto noted, this collection of 14 hitters has averaged around a 100 OPS+ the last three years. Replacing Griffey and Sweeney with Ryan Garko wasn't going to change our April.
None of the blogs, including SSI, pronounced this offense DOA on April 5. It looked fine on paper. In baseball these things happen.
...........
Zduriencik is now, what he was last September:
- A smart man, going against smart rivals
- A man with an almost supernatural feel for judging talent, and for judging pitching in particular
- A leader -- as opposed to a manager -- with a win-win orientation
- A Stars & Scrubs strategist
- A guy who combines steel and velvet in trade and contract negotiations
- A GM who comes from a tools, not saber, background
- A man wonderfully unencumbered by personal baggage such as ego-feuding with his manager
- etc
...........
Bill James warned, in the Baker interview, that the 2009 Mariners were nowhere near as good as their 85 wins looked -- "They won 85 games with basically one pitcher. They need 150 offensive runs (added!) to catch up to LA."
I don't consider the 2010 M's buried, anyway. But the 2010 M's don't make Zduriencik any dumber. He had a huge overhaul to endure, and he never said that this 2010 cake was ready to eat. :- )
My $0.02,
Dr D
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