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thanks GB
I can't even seriously consider Bill Smith in the top half of GMs after he completely screwed up the Santana trade. He had Lester plus 2 other blue chip prospects on the table and he got greedy; ended up with a box of raisins and a broken down Ford Taurus.The biggest thing I give Theo credit for is that he's always operating on a this year plan, a 3-year plan, and a 5-year plan. He's willing to take a little damage in one of them to help the others but he's not willing to completely sell any of them out.The thing that makes me saddest about Theo is how ruthless he is. Putting aside resigning the aging stars who won you a WS, how the Red Sox FO treated Arroyo was criminal.ETA: I'm grasping at straws what Bill Smith has done that was actually any good. He's only been GM for about 3 years, right? I wouldn't call the Twins FO moves in that period anything exceptional, even ignoring the Santana deal.
There are lots of reports and debate to what he had available. At the end of the day, we'll never KNOW what was out there. I can give a guy a pass because I'm sure he faced additional pressure for trading him in the division and that was really his first big deal if memory serves. I give lots of credit to Terry Ryan, but what I see is a guy at the head of a first class organization that has churned out plenty of talent and keeps reloading over rebuilding, so rather than some wheeler-dealer ability, I credit him for being part of strong talent pipeline. His biggest black mark to me is trading Garza for Delmon Young, actually, which looked alright at the time, but has really not worked out. Garza would be fronting that rotation right now and Young is nothing special. But I think you'd find most GM's have something like that on their resume.
I guess what you're saying is that you think Bill Smith is one of the best GMs because he's the GM of a team that has had a historically good Front Office? Or am I missing something here. Because I'll agree with you that Terry Ryan was a great GM, about as shrewd as they come. And maybe Bill Smith gets a little bit of credit for being part of the Twins FO for so many years. But I look at what he's done since he's been the GM, in the last 3 years, and I really don't see much. I haven't been paying that close of attention to the Twins but have they been drafting particularly well the past few years? Because here's what I think about when I look at Bill Smith....We'll never know exactly what was on the table for Santana but there were pretty numerous and reliable reports that the offers were good. As you mention, the Garza trade was a disaster (and frankly, the kind of deal that Terry Ryan never would have done). I don't think trading Gomez for Hardy was that great. He resigned Mauer, which is nice, but he signed him IMO exactly at market so that was no great coup. They resigned Nathan to a big deal which is looking not so smart in retrospect and I thought was a crappy idea at the time. I guess they have their OF set to reasonable, long-term deals but again I don't see any particular acumen involved here. Trading for Jon Rauch was good but that just hammers home my point that you don't give closers rich contracts. He deserves some credit for Pavano and Thome has been doing OK but I look at the body of his work as actual GM and I'm just not that impressed.
I will defer to your day to day familiarity with the organization. But from an outsider perspective, what I would hold against the Cashman and Epstein's of the world, is the tremendous financial resources available. I"m a big Gardenhire fan, but what I see when I look at your organization is young players that have a clue and have a fundamental base that lets them grow into their abilities rather consistently. I think that is an organizational compliment and when you see it enough, you have to give your GM credit. But at the same time, what you're saying is probably fair.Matthias said:
You don't think that the other GMs, who voted for Theo, understand that there is no level playing field??
Or maybe they all voted for him because he makes good pancakes?
I wouldn't trade Friedman for Epstein, but who cares.
