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Kelly Gaffney sez,
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What I find most compelling about the (Jaso) trade is that I never would have done the trade, but compelled to think about it, I have now concluded it was the right move. Most criticisms seem to view it as a failure of old school color by numbers thinking. I think it reflects Z's confidence that -- since he has been given the time to build organizational depth -- he can always fill the back end of the roster with capable role players. If the M's saw Jaso as a catcher, rather than a platoon DH, he'd still be on the team.
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=== Geniuses SHOULD See Things the Rest of Us Don't ... ===
... As Bill James put it about Whitey Herzog (?) one time.
For me as a fan, that is a minimum standard of competence for a quality GM, that he make some decisions that I don't like, and that the GM turns out to be right. I don't resent the idea that a GM might understand things that I don't; for me that is one of the joys of sports, being surprised by Russell Wilson's skill set.
Has Jack Zduriencik done things that, in retrospect, were well ahead of my own perception at the time? We're not talking about Z anticipating a development that I didn't have information towards. We're talking about his making a decision that, after reflection, given time to think about it, I still thought was wrong.
You might like some or all or none of these suggestions:
- Danny Hultzen is in this category for me. About three days after the trade, SSI managed to publish a Cole Hamels / Johann Santana template to recover a few hit points, but still. We all howled with outrage the day of the trade, at least.
- Nick Franklin, certainly. Maybe Gordon can claim that he was up to speed on the day of the draft. Most people can't. I can't.
- Brendan Ryan maybe? There have been extended periods of time, during Ryan's tenure, when I thought it was pretty clear that Ryan was costing more with the bat than he was giving back with the glove. But he's given us 4-5 WAR in his two years and last year I came to perceive that Ryan's play-in-the-hole was an 80 skill. A skill that wins baseball games all by itself. At the moment, I have an inkling that really we just need to fix the other 8 slots in the lineup and stop blaming our glove wizard.
- The fast-tracking of Kyle Seager was very impressive. Did you see any particular reason to single this kid out and race him through the minors to Safeco?
- Possibly the M's saw Pineda's injury on the horizon. I felt terrible, terrible, terrible no matter who the M's got back; Pineda was my emotional salve against the old Randy Johnson wound. But Pineda went to camp injured and the Yankees darkly insinuated that Zduriencik played them. The local "genius" might have understood that the injury risk factor was more like 60% than it was like 10%. Of course, we already knew that Taro was a genius; he never loses a roto league.
- The trade for Jason Vargas and Mike Carp was stunningly insightful. Some blogs -- not mine -- have the right to claim that they were in step with Zduriencik on Franklin Gutierrez in that deal. (Asterisk here; possibly Vargas is just spaghetti-against-the-wall in view of Luke French and co. But Vargas and Carp had special makeup, so I dunno.)
- Zduriencik's decision to hire Eric Wedge might have been over my pay grade. Wedge is MUCH better than I gave him credit for; the "blown quality start" has been no issue at all, and he's the rare hard-case who can instill discipline without drawing a mutiny.
- The deal for John Jaso ... if you go back and Google SSI, you'll find that I thought his swing looked very static back in 2011. When he became our best player in 2012, it was something we fans didn't see coming. At all.
- The Wilhelmsen and Delabar stories were pretty freaky.
- Moving Ackley to second base goes here for anybody who didn't think Ackley could play there, though this wasn't "genius" vis-a-vis SSI. It was a good amount of GUTS.
- ... fill in your own.
You might say, well, he sure fouled up the Fister deal though, didn't he?! We are not arguing that Jack Zduriencik is great, that he's above average, or that he's below average. We are arguing that he often sees things we don't. I liked Bill Bavasi, but how many things could you put in such a list for him?
I'm not talking about, you roll some dice, you hit your 7's on a Russell Branyan here, you crap out on a Hector Noesi there. The above decisions don't look like dice rolls to me; they look like a shot-caller knowing more about baseball than I did. Maybe you could put the Jaso deal in the luck category, or maybe not. What do you think?
Neither are we talking about Zduriencik having had Russell Branyan in Milwaukee, and understanding that Branyan's plate coverage was better than most people thought. We're not talking about bringing in a Mike Sweeney and having it work out extremely well. That isn't brilliant enough to hit the standard we're proposing here.
A General Manager HAS to hit this standard in my view, or I as a fan withdraw my support for him as a decisionmaker.....
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Right now we are hoping that the new #3-4 hitters, and the shifts of the kids into the bottom of the order, go into that category for some people around the blog-o-sphere.
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Zduriencik has lost a lot of games.
And I don't believe in excuses, usually, but I think he's hit a whale of a lot of bad luck so far with his Ackleys, Smoaks, and Gutierrezes. Man. You go out and trade for the three best hitting prospects in baseball* and you get absolutely zero. Imagine if you got a GM job, and now imagine if your big moves turned out to be spit.
And you deal for Cliff Lee, and Justin Upton, and slam contracts for Prince Fielder and for Josh Hamilton... none of whom become Ryan Braun for you. if I had no bad luck, I'd have no luck at allllll...
As an observer, you gotta figure all it takes is for a bounce of the ball to go their way for once't. Who knows. Maybe a #3-4 hitter set, the kids come through, and the Young Guns give you Pineda seasons. I've seen franchise momentum change in sports, gentlemen, and change based on catching a break or two. Just saw it with the Seahawks.
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