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What’s baseball got to do with it?

via BallBug

Forbes has an article about the Business of Baseball. Given that Forbes is a business magazine not a sports magazine its list of baseball 10 best general managers will be the subject of some debate.

Being an Orioles’ fan, I hardly think that Mike Flanagan (#10 according to Forbes) deserves to be anywhere near the top of this list (yet.) He works for a difficult owner and as a fan I haven’t seen a good product for an entire year during his tenure. If this year turns out well, as it appears it might right now, there’s still little hope for long term success here. The Orioles have one of the weaker farm systems in MLB and the team isn’t especially young. (Overall that is. There’s Markakis, Cabrera, Loewen and Ray, but most everyone else of significance is 28 and up.) Success this year isn’t likely to extend more than two years unless the team’s scouting improves drastically.

I realize that this ranking is primarily from a business not a baseball standpoint, that’s why stathead favorite GM’s without much success (so far) like Mark Shapiro and Doug Melvin don’t rank. (Forbes does have metrics for evaluating them, but success on the field isn’t necessarily one of them.) Still how can Mike Flanagan make the list but not the likes of Kenny Williams, Brian Cashman, Bill Stoneman or even Tim Purpura whose teams have been in the World Series in recent years. Or Kevin Towers and Terry Ryan whose teams have made the playoffs?

And how does John Schuerholz rank below Brian Sabean or Pat Gillick?

Shouldn’t baseball have something to do with it?

Crossposted on Soccer Dad.

 
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