Add new comment

Really, all I've done is clarify how difficult it is to be a successful GM in baseball (or any other pro sport).  I've never been more frustrated by a sports executive than I was with Wally Walker (the Sonics were my first sports love... boy did I love the Gus Williams 1-on-3 fast break).  No matter how much I wished to challenge his intelligence, he was surely qualified on paper. Graduated from UVa, got an MBA from Stanford, and worked at Goldman-Sachs.  Oh, he also has two NBA championship rings from his playing days.  But he absoluted lacked the Midas touch with talent evaluation, not to mention many other questionable moves.  In the end he sucked, but not because he was a moron, but because the job is really hard.
While we might only have developed two pre-free angency players, per Sandy, by the time we know what we have in Saunders, Tui, and Moore, Lopez and Gutierrez will be getting expensive.  Most players only have 2-3 years between being established and getting expensive.  We invested a lot of time Lopez, he's now an asset (not a big one, but an asset nonetheless), but he's a FA in two years.
It really blows my mind to go through this exercise and then have the standard opinion be that great players are over paid.  Have Albert Pujols gives you the production of Ichiro and Branyan from one position for less money.  It's why the mid-nineties M's should be eternally ashamed for blowing the chance at greatness with the Griffey, Rodriguez, Johnson, Martinez, and Buhner M's.  Utterly terrible mismanagement, worse than the Lincoln/Bavasi mismanagement from my perspective.  This is also why I do not have a crush on Piniella... I really believe if he had been more patient with young pitchers we could have developed a bullpen.