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=== Good News Dept. ===
In fairness, Zduriencik has put it on the marquee now. Hey, we are wide open to a monster deal, says he. Give credit where it's due.
Sometimes I think that we forget that Lincoln and Armstrong are willing to push all in when they are confident in the GM. You remember Lincoln saying "It's very easy to raise payroll when it's Pat Gillick spending the money."
Zduriencik seems to have hit the point to where Lincoln and Armstrong want to throw him the ball. Here's where SSI does give them a bit of a pass, and Bavasi a bit of blame, for the 2004-08 years.
SSI isn't so incredibly naive as to imagine that Bill Bavasi is unintelligent or illiterate. But SSI does grant that Bavasi never established heavy credibility. He didn't.
Jack Zduriencik has done so. Every bit of the street cred that Z has, he has earned. He is the Mike Carp of MLB GM's.
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Zduriencik, with his pursuits of Adrian Gonzalez, Cliff Lee, and now apparently Prince Fielder, is ironically following the very recommendation that Geoff Baker has been pushing. Zduriencik often finds Baker's nagging to be an annoyance, but Zduriencik also respects Baker as a journalist and as an analyst.
That's all we're talking about here. Respect for one another. There's no one guy who gets to hog all the respect. Plenty 'nuff 'bounds to go 'round, as Sir Charles once said.
Dunno if Baker's smart enough for you, Gentle Reader. I'll tell you this, though. He is smart enough for me.
.
=== Rodney King, Dept. ===
There is a case to be made for 25 Honda Civics. There's a case to be made for using the WAR/$ tables to build a team around Ryan Doumit and Chris Capuano (and USSM made a good one). There is a case to be made against signing marquee players (and about half of the blog-o-sphere makes it, daily).
There is no case to be made for the marginalization of anyone who thinks differently than we do, much less of an excellent (and plugged-in!) baseball analyst like Geoff Baker.
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That easy to find Truth, is it? :- )
If we respect and celebrate those who are different from us, if we engage their ideas with genuine respect, we might be surprised what we can learn.
That's free advice,
Dr D