Moorad facing three key decisions

[hafey2]

But Bob, i'm sure Joe did not expect that the diamondbacks would be so bad and thus schilling would waive his no trade clause. Did you expect them to be this bad. And it was more than risk of losing him without compensation, they flat out do not have money in the budget to sign a 36 year old pitcher for more than 10 million a year.
Most elite prospects are in the majors before age 27.

How can you say we need those guys when they are less or equally rpoductive as our current players, for 10 times the cost?

Spivey .790 OPS @ 2,367,500 vs. Hairston .805 OPS @ 285,000
COunsell .692 @ 3,166,000 vs. Kata .665 @ 315k vs. Cintron .646 @ 335k
Moeller .584 @ 305k vs. Hammock .618 @ 315k.....as bad as Robby has been!

 

[Billexium]

I think it's hard to fault BB for not playing the youngsters more down the stretch last year since they were in the Wild Card Race up until pretty close to the end. Or at least close enough to not allow for AAA ball on the field every night. If he didn't put what he thought was his best team out there everyday he would have been run out of town a lot sooner than he was. And last year Overbay did nothing to show he could contribute in the midst of a race for the playoffs. Also I think Fossum will (eventually) be a positive from the D'Backs trade. Last night was a good sign. And if Lyons can find a way to stop having setbacks in his rehab maybe he'll become a quality reliever soon. And that is something the team desperately needs.

 

[ASUCHRIS]

The Sexson trade was nearly equal in terms of salary changing hands, so I do not think Richie prevented us from signing a pitcher.

edit: Sexson cost an additional 2 million then the players sent to Milwaukee.

Again, you are missing my point. I am speaking about future purposes here, in our quest to re-sign Sexson and stick with our joke of a pitching staff.

 

[hafey2]

I think I was misunderstanding you, Chris. In terms of re-signing Sexson, I do go both ways. I am not sure if we should. I think Moorad needs to choose a direction, and strongly move that way. EIther we are going to contend or we are rebuilding. I think Joe's biggest flaw was that he tried to split the difference and take the middle way this season.

 

[KingLouieLouie]

Moorad's first mistake is keeping Joe Jr as the GM. Sorry, but this guy has shown no ability in making good trades. Granted, the Sexson deal would not look so bad had he not gotten hurt, but the deal was way lopsided. He got screwed on the Schilling deal, made a public disaster of the attempted Matt Williams deal, failed to get a deal done for Randy Johnson, and what exactly did he get for Finley?

Rebuilding this organization starts at the top, or so it would seem with the ousting of Colangelo. Maybe Moorad is giving Joe the false sense of security and still plans on replacing him, but until that decision is made, I don't see this team doing any better.

I feel really bad for Pedrique every time I see his sad face on TV. The guy was thrown into a horrible situation.

I think you can say that Joe Jr has outlived his usefulness with this organization and it's time for him to move on. Of course, just my opinion and someday, maybe I will eat those words.

There's a couple matters to take into consideration as to why Joe Jr. is still the G.M...

#1: Moorad hasnt officially taken over as the CEO (won't 50% until 9/1 and then completely by 100% until 1/1/05), so he doesn't have any official matters.

#2: There's still the waiver-trade deadline (which ends on 8/31), and Joe Jr. and his staff has done a lot of the research/scouting, so it would take awhile to make any transition...

#3: The Dbacks must do an extensive search for GM, and just wouldn't hire anyone on an interim basis.....

The best kept secrets are obviously the ones that "slip under the radar"...How do we know if Joe Jr. hasnt been dismissed yet privately and they already have someone in mind to fill the position? Only time will tell in every regard......
research

 

[Bob Chebat]

Moorad said in his press conference that there will be no changes in upper management, so that is where I got that info from. It was on the Arizona Sports Report last night after the game.

To answer your question hafey, sure, there is no way they could have perceived the team being this bad this season. At the beginning of the season, they were still thinking they were a playoff team, and when you look at the opening day roster, they had a fairly good reason to believe that.

However, despite the thoughts of playoff prospects this year for those in the organization, it was extremely obvious that the pitching staff was a huge question mark. There was no way to determine that they would have the injury problems they have had, so I will give them that much.

As for the wildcard race last season and the failure to release Brenly at that time, maybe it's just me, but I remember the D-backs hitting the skids in August going 14-13 and had no sustained momentum. The entire second half was played at almost a .500 clip, not good enough to make a serious playoff run.

The bottom line is, there is a changing of the guard coming in at the top, and failing to re-energize the organization with new people will only result in more woes for these guys. I don't see how a new CEO/Pres/Whatever will make all these people do a better job than they are now, unless they suddenly take a bunch of smart pills and wake up.

The Diamondbacks lack depth, and that is the responsibility of the GM, starting with the people he puts around him. Scouts, coaching staff, etc...

It's real easy for a GM with a team that has deep pockets to go out and buy the likes of Sexson or Johnson. But what happens when one of them gets hurt and the till is empty?

I agree with KLL on the point of the money being spent in the wrong place. You take away one of the two best pitchers in the NL with a salary of $10M+, you replace him with a power hitting 1b for the same price, and in the process, you shovel off guys who have helped your team win in the past.

Say what you will about the numbers that those guys are producing this season, they were a pretty competitive contender last season with those guys in the lineup. Everyone knew that Mantei was questionable at best as a closer. The middle relief killed this team in the final weeks of the season last year. Wasn't it obvious that scoring runs and starting pitching were not issues that needed addressing?

The bottom line of my thoughts are, if you are going to make a change at the very top, it does not make any sense to keep everything else the same.

 

[Evil Ash]

The bottom line is, there is a changing of the guard coming in at the top, and failing to re-energize the organization with new people will only result in more woes for these guys. I don't see how a new CEO/Pres/Whatever will make all these people do a better job than they are now, unless they suddenly take a bunch of smart pills and wake up.

Well how about letting the GM do his job without forcing him to make moves? According to several reports that I have seen and heard, a lot of the bad trades made lately were orchestrated by Jerry Colangelo.

He basically told Joe to get rid of certain players at any cost (ie Durazo) because they weren't his type of player. He also forced Joe Jr into the Schilling trade because he wanted Sexson that badly and when given a short time frame and limited rescources (namely teams that had prospects and those that could afford Schilling's contract), no matter who's the GM in those circumstances more than likely you would get screwed over.

IMO You give Joe Jr one more year and make the CEO have a laissez-faire type approach and see what he can do. People tend to forget that Joe Jr has made several good moves in the past.

I mean seriously can we get any worse if we give him one more year?

 

[MaoTosiFanClub]

Ash you make some great points. Nobody can deny that at face value, Joe Jr. looks like a horrible GM just based upon certain trades this organization has made over the past few years. But my inability to gain a perspective on his style as a GM makes me think that there have been outside pressures being forced upon him at different points of his tenure, whether they came from Showalter or Colangelo, and that pressure forced him into making bad trades. I read somewhere that Jerry was 'infatuated' with obtaining Sexson and the one-sided nature of the trade reflected that. If the Cubs got Derrek Lee for Hee Seop Choi and a PTBNL then why did we have to give up so much more? I'm guessing it was because Milwaukee knew how much Jerry wanted Sexson and forced Joe Jr into making the deal he did.

Joe Jr's trades just don't add up. In '99 he saw the importance of a good bullpen and traded away some good prospects for Mantei but a few short years later he weakened his bullpen by trading away Kim for a mediocre player in Hillenbrand. He trades away supposed "1B of the Future" Jack Cust because of he swung for the fences and struck out too much yet later he brings in a player such as Richie Sexson, who fits into the same criteria. He loves to obtain 'underachieving' five-tool players in trades yet gave up very quickly on Jose Guillen. The Diamondbacks ship out guys with percieved 'attitude problems' such as Durazo and Spivey yet make trades for guys such as Raul Mondesi and draft Stephen Drew?

Where's the consistency? It makes me wonder what kind of power Jerry had in personnel decisions and maybe the decisions Jerry made in those matters had a lot to do with his forced resignation.

 

[hafey2]

As Jack Cust has shown, he is no where near Richie Sexson. Just as BK has similarily flamed out in Boston. Guillen always seemed more like a big problem with Brenly then anyone else. But your points indicate my biggest criticism of Joe, the lack of a consistant philosophy. Is this soley Joe's fault. No, but it would be interesting to know exactly how much blame falls to Joe.

 

[Bob Chebat]

Kim's biggest problem was that he was not willing to accept a role as a closer and he wanted to be a starter. They gave him his shot and he failed, and that probably hurt his overall confidence and ruined him as a pitcher.

Even if Colangelo was infatuated with Sexson, it does not excuse the lopsided deal that was made to bring him here. For Joe to pull the trigger on a deal like that simply to pacify a hankering is outright ridiculous.

I suppose we'll never know what really went on in the last 12 months with this team. I guess they will all be pointing fingers at one another saying "he told me to do this" or "he told me to do that."

It just seems that the best solution when cleaning house is to clean out the whole thing.

I agree with Ash in the fact that one more year with Jr could hardly be any worse. But along those same lines, can this organization afford to have another year like this one? In this town, we all know that the only thing that will put butts in the seats is winning. If they are not showing any signs of improvement, people will not go to the games and that means an even longer road to recovery.

It was a great thing to have this team win the World Series in four seasons and unfortunately, we are now paying the price for that championship.

It really did not have to be this way, from League Champs to League Chumps in just three seasons. They had the nucleus to keep the team, at the very worst, competitive and respectable while rebuilding. Even the Marlins weren't this horrible after their first championship season fire sale.

This team got gutted and the sad part is, they were not trying to gut the team. I don't care who was telling who to do what, the next guy in line who needs to be held responsible is Joe Jr.

It will be interesting to see what, if anything, they do in the offseason. It will take a few years to fix what is wrong, and if they wait another whole season to see if the existing GM can actually get something done about it and he fails, that makes the process take that much longer.

If the time to rebuild is now, that is where it has to start. I am sure Moorad has enough contacts to find a GM.

I managed stores for 12 years, and every time I took over a new store, the first order of business was always to get my own people in there to turn things around. If it did not need fixing, there was usually no need for a change in management. Granted, this is on a much smaller scale, but the philosophy is the same.

 

[hafey]

With a 4.08 ERA and .241 BAA, i don't know if BK failed as a starter, i think the jury is still out. 12 games prolly isn't enough. Granted he was much more dominate as a reliever, but a starter with those numbers is certainly more valuable then a right-handed specialist. Like a lot of young pitchers, he always had control and mental problems. I still think he can be useful player, although his velocity is down, reportedly.

Also I think the problem, is not that they broke up the nucleus, but that the Diamondbacks tried to have their cake and eat it too, in terms of rebuilding and competing.

 

[AZZenny]

I really agree that the immediate problem was trying to compete, rebuild, and drastically cut costs all at the same time. It would take a VERY sharp GM, some genuine forethought and planning, a lack of sentimentality clouding the decisions, and some serious luck to pull off that hat trick. None of which we seem to possess...

There were a number of people on this board alone who came out of Spring Training wondering what the organization was smoking, to publically spout that it would be seriously competitive, when so many decisions seemed bizarre to that point.

I guess I don't believe Jerry Colangelo makes small-fry decisions - He may say "Get Sexson - at any cost" but I can't picture him saying, "Gotta have Shane Reynolds and Randy Choate!" " Man, I just love that Sadler guy! Hey, Joe - send the Tracy kid to Tucson, he'll keep - sign Sadler. He's the future!" "Get rid of Durazo - I hear Beane is in a slobber pool over him - Cincy has a mediocre pitcher from Hermisillo - get Beane to work the trade, whatever it takes, and sign the Mexican guy to a two-year-plus big fat contract."

If he did, and Joe doesn't have the cojones to say, "Boss, this one is a bad baseball decision," or "This move is fiscally unwise with a small potential payoff, give me a couple days and I can do a better deal" Then I STILL don't want him as GM.

 

[Bob Chebat]

I really agree that the immediate problem was trying to compete, rebuild, and drastically cut costs all at the same time. It would take a VERY sharp GM, some genuine forethought and planning, a lack of sentimentality clouding the decisions, and some serious luck to pull off that hat trick. None of which we seem to possess...

There were a number of people on this board alone who came out of Spring Training wondering what the organization was smoking, to publically spout that it would be seriously competitive, when so many decisions seemed bizarre to that point.

I guess I don't believe Jerry Colangelo makes small-fry decisions - He may say "Get Sexson - at any cost" but I can't picture him saying, "Gotta have Shane Reynolds and Randy Choate!" " Man, I just love that Sadler guy! Hey, Joe - send the Tracy kid to Tucson, he'll keep - sign Sadler. He's the future!" "Get rid of Durazo - I hear Beane is in a slobber pool over him - Cincy has a mediocre pitcher from Hermisillo - get Beane to work the trade, whatever it takes, and sign the Mexican guy to a two-year-plus big fat contract."

If he did, and Joe doesn't have the cojones to say, "Boss, this one is a bad baseball decision," or "This move is fiscally unwise with a small potential payoff, give me a couple days and I can do a better deal" Then I STILL don't want him as GM.