SI: Beinfest Game's 4th Best GM....Errr...President of BBO

[Party]

4. Larry Beinfest, Florida Marlins

Duly noted that Michael Hill is nominally the Marlins' general manager. That said, Beinfest, technically the team's president of baseball operations, consistently gets more wins for his dollar than anyone else in baseball. Since he took over following the 2002 season, the Marlins have won a World Series and posted winning records in five of seven seasons, despite consistently ranking at or near the bottom of the majors in payroll. Beinfest has picked up players every way you can -- trading for Hanley Ramirez, acquiring Dan Uggla in the Rule 5 draft, and bringing up players from the farm -- and on the few occasions he's had money to spend, he has spent it shrewdly.

Read More: http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/201...#ixzz0hbVS1bBp

Signs there might be something wrong with this list:

Dan O'Dowd and Kenny Williams are in the top 10.

[Bobbob1313]

Beinfest gets points for finding guys like Uggla, Cody, and Cantu and getting value for nothing. He's at least league average when it comes to trading, and even then it's hard to get a good gauge on that because most of the trades he's made have been forced by payroll.

If there's a giant flaw with him, it's that he does put too much faith in "his guys". But I don't see how he's not a top 10 GM at least.

[Swifty]

Bobby, I don't think giving him credit for Uggla and Cantu is appropriate, since he promised jobs to Pokey Reese and Jose Castillo but those two were such spectacular flameouts we had no choice but to give Uggla and Cantu the shots they got, but they came in as afterthoughts, as filler, and not these wonderfully cherished diamonds in the rough.

You want to give him credit that he can create competition, fine, but don't pretend he's some genius that finds undervalued guys on other team's rosters, poaches them and has them turn to gold.

[Bobbob1313]

I don't think Jose Castillo was ever promised a job with the Marlins, I think that's a misrepresentation. It was a competition and Cantu won it, and he deserves credit for finding a guy that has been a productive player and giving him the chance.

As for Uggla, he was a Rule 5 guy, if he didn't make the team they were sending him back. He was going to get his shot at some point, whether Reese was promised the job or not. You have to give Beinfest credit for even identifying him as a player worth taking that chance on.

He should get credit for being able to identify valuable players, regardless of whether they had to earn a shot or not. They were both huge question marks, of course he wasn't going to hand them jobs. But he found talent and value in them and when they were given the chance, they produced. He absolutely gets credit for them.

[Mainge]

Bobby, I don't think giving him credit for Uggla and Cantu is appropriate, since he promised jobs to Pokey Reese and Jose Castillo but those two were such spectacular flameouts we had no choice but to give Uggla and Cantu the shots they got, but they came in as afterthoughts, as filler, and not these wonderfully cherished diamonds in the rough.

You want to give him credit that he can create competition, fine, but don't pretend he's some genius that finds undervalued guys on other team's rosters, poaches them and has them turn to gold.

Regardless, they were signed. Let's not pretend these were guys that everyone wanted and that Beinfest only begrudgingly signed because he had to. No one wanted them, Bieinfest did. Yes, maybe as depth or competition or whatever but to discredit him for that is silly.

Pioli didn't draft Brady with grandeur visions of being a Hall of Fame Super Bowl pwning QB. But guess what? Shit hit the fan (as it often does in sports) and Brady got his chance and the Patriots never looked back.

[nny]

Bobby, I don't think giving him credit for Uggla and Cantu is appropriate, since he promised jobs to Pokey Reese and Jose Castillo but those two were such spectacular flameouts we had no choice but to give Uggla and Cantu the shots they got, but they came in as afterthoughts, as filler, and not these wonderfully cherished diamonds in the rough.

You want to give him credit that he can create competition, fine, but don't pretend he's some genius that finds undervalued guys on other team's rosters, poaches them and has them turn to gold.

I actually agree

How long did it take Baker and Cody to get starting gigs while completely inferior talent got infinite playing time?

It's easy to say "Look at Uggla on Rule V, look at Cody on waivers, look at Baker on MILB trade, look at Cantu on MILB contract"

But how much of that is the situation Beinfest is in?

Same goes with the bullpen. We're in the situation to see "See what shit sticks to the wall."

The "Major" moves Beinfest makes normally end up being dismal. The "minor" moves he makes are the ones that have ended up doing well. Is that (I hate to use the word but I'm too lazy to come up with a better word to use) luck or skill? How can he be bad at "major" moves and good at "minor" moves?

Let's ignore "payroll constraint" roster moves while in competition. Lo Duca trade? Delgado contract (Thank God for the Mets)? The Urbina trade (Even if you make the argument "We don't have a world series without the trade" [which is very, very arguable], fact remains he vastly overpaid. Trading for Urbina wasn't a bad idea, trading how much he did was. Read reports from the times and they all basically say we were bidding against ourselves)?

I mean, if it wasn't for Hanley, this team wouldn't be good. If it wasn't for Hanley and JJ going SSJ3, we'd suck.

Though no one is infallible.

[Mainge]

I'm not a fan of without so and so, they'd suck. That's true for almost everyone. I mean without Johan and Beltran, the Mets would suck. Oh wait..

[nny]

So you're saying when Bienfest traded for Hanley, he expected him to be the second best player in baseball. And when the Mets traded for Johan, they were expecting him to be a #5.

[Beef]

That is how you decide who is a good GM? By their exact expectations?

Also, does this only apply to Beinfest because he is our GM so we know him better and don't care about other GMs? I assume we dont apply this same rule to them

[Swifty]

Listen, here's the thing, Beinfest does do some things well. However, calling Uggla and Ross and Cantu testament to his genius shows a lack of understanding of his nuanced construction of a roster. He can find pitching, he can flesh out a decent NL 12 man pitching staff. He can build a cheap yet effective bench. He works well on a budget. Go ahead, compliment him on that, but there's a really long list of Beinfest's starting lineup fuck ups so let's not pretend he's great at putting together super duper undervalued offensive talent.

Ask the 2004 team if they could have used Willingham instead of a desperation trade for LoDuca that brought along Encarnacion. Ask '05 if Hermida could have worked at the top of the order (and isn't that the second greatest Marlins what if ever? I think it's that and us rejecting Chipper for Bryan Harvey in '93). We waived Baker before trading to get him back, Cody was on waivers once before and we passed on him (remember, when he went from the Dodgers to the Reds our record was worse than Cincy so we passed on him) so there's a tremendous amount of waffling when you want to present this guy as a de facto decision maker. Everybody makes mistakes, but now that we've had enough time to let the '05 fire-sale breathe, I think we lost every trade except for the Pierre to the Cubs trade, and broke even with the Red Sox, that's pretty horrific. Give the man credit where credit is due, the bench and bullpen, but don't paint him to be some wonderfully foresighted judge of offensive talent.
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And as a PS: Our two best players happened by complete luck. If Theo doesn't take a sabbatical, there's no way in fucking hell we ever get Hanley. Beckett's playing for the Rangers for the Hank Blalock pu pu platter. Josh Johnson was a player Beinfest had to be BEGGED into taking in the 4th round. The team looks a lot like Houston if you take those guys off the roster. Now, potentially we end up with someone else and we've made them the irreplaceable cornerstone, I get it, that's the ebb and flow of a baseball roster, but really, there was a whole hell of a lot of serendipity that went into getting our two best players.

[nny]

That is how you decide who is a good GM? By their exact expectations?

No, but fact remains it's luck that we're at where we are. Anytime a player transcends into one of the best players in baseball, that's luck. Such an insanely small percent of players with talent hit that point, and if someone could easily identify those players and had it down to a science they would horde them and easily be the best team in baseball.

Same goes for the Cardinals and Pujols and et al.

Also, does this only apply to Beinfest because he is our GM so we know him better and don't care about other GMs? I assume we dont apply this same rule to them

[Mainge]

So you're saying when Bienfest traded for Hanley, he expected him to be the second best player in baseball. And when the Mets traded for Johan, they were expecting him to be a #5.

Did Beinfest trade for him? Is he the second best player in baseball? The rest is fun to talk about but doesn't matter. I'm not saying Beinfest is god. I'm not even saying he's a top 10 GM, because I don't know. But to discredit him for woulda coulda shoulda is silly.

[Beef]

No, but fact remains it's luck that we're at where we are. Anytime a player transcends into one of the best players in baseball, that's luck. Such an insanely small percent of players with talent hit that point, and if someone could easily identify those players and had it down to a science they would horde them and easily be the best team in baseball.

Yeah.


So?

[Swifty]

I think the point nny is trying to make there is if you judge based solely on results (as in, winning and in our case winning on a budget) a tremendous amount of credit needs to be given to a player who we, more or less, lucked into. The problem I have with that logic is that therefore every player who wasn't taken first overall or signed to a then record international bonus is, to some extent, "luck."

I'm not sure I completely agree with that. I think that in evaluating a GM you evaluate the process, and never the results. That's why Beinfest does not rank highly with me, he has far too many high profile missteps and mulligans and I think that we win in spite of him not completely because of him.

[Mainge]

It's too bad they don't give out Pennants and World Series rings based on the evaluation of the process'.