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I haven't contributed much to the whole Baker thread, mostly because I'm not sure I know enough to contribute meaningfully. But I'm aware of this, the Baker info and the Curto stuff remains only part of the iceberg. There's a lot we aren't/haven't/won't see, really until Z makes his stand on this. And, of course, that will be filtered through his needs, just as the others have been, too.
I'm not sure I see dysfunction here. I do see tumult, but that isn't always dysfunction. I have a daughter who will be 18 in 10 days and another who is 15. Between they and their mother, there is occasional tumult in my house. I don't think there is ever dysfunction.
You get the idea.
I see Z as a GM searching: To find himself, to identify and trust his abilities, to find the right fit at Manager, to carefully pick (and win the ones he picks) his battles with the shirts upstairs.
Do you think he quotes Hamlet? I wouldn't be surprised.
The Wak/Figgins fiasco really is the best example of Z struggling to find his GM self. He blew that one from top to bottom, except in the hiring of Wak, who I think was a fine manager. Here Z struggled mightily. Figgins was a bad hire, compounded by Z's stubbornness/failure to acknowledge it. Figgins had value....if dumped quickly. Wak went, however, not Figgins. How could he (Z) dump his first big FA signing? I'm sure that was his mindset. But in the end, he had made a bad bet, and then he raised it.
That move, I think caused him to distrust SABR-ish numbers and to trust more in his own "old-time" scouting sense.
He hasn't chased a "SABR" type FA since. Even Jaso was an OBP/quasi-masher guy. Z's chased bonkers, or guys who once did bonk. OPB is hardly a SABR-ish monopoly now, BTW.
I've been no real Z fan, but I think he's now begun to find his way as a GM, in relation to how he evaluates player talent. Part of it was that he got lucky in two badly advised trade/signing efforts last year...and I think he knows it. I don't know what the McClendon hiring says. I think it says that he wasn't willing to risk hiring a guy with no managerial (MLB experience). He played this one safely. I would have preferred the guy from Oakland, but I'll go along.
So I think what we see, is an oldtime baseball guy (a great judge of young talent but not of comparative talent, at the MLB level) who was wrapped in a SABR image. It was an image he couldn't carry off.......and I think that led to much of the tumult of which we read.
He's better now. Which isn't to say he's good. He's certainly been hobbled by the shirts, to some degree....but then they are the shirts. They have a role, I think Z has been better at dealing with the shirts above than dealing with the shirts (including the Manager) below. There is probably a psychological explanation there. My bet is he still sees himself as a talent finder, not an organizational pilot.
But there is much below the surface of this we haven't seen.....and won't get a better picture of until Z is no longer an M.
moe