November 17, 2002
This is the type of piece I love to read by Gammons, as opposed to his trade rumor articles. This gives you a clear idea of what is going on behind the scenes; how GM's are strapped for cash, and no one but the Phillies seem to be moving on free agents. Here's the irony for Cleveland fans:
Cleveland, meanwhile, can't get into the five-year, $75 million range on Jim Thome that the Phillies are willing to expend. The Indians this winter are paying into revenue sharing and the Phillies are getting $15 million, so Cleveland will be helping to pay for Thome's salary should he leave.
Gammons also names a number of players that teams are trying to move:
"Why wouldn't I be smart to wait?" asked one GM. "There are going to be several free agents that freefall into the first of the year. And look at all the players teams are begging to unload."
Here are a number of them:
Juan Gonzalez. Jay Powell. Todd Van Poppel. Carl Everett. David Segui. Marty Cordova. Scott Erickson. Brook Fordyce. John Burkett. Keith Foulke. Mark Wohlers. Dmitri Young. Matt Anderson. Damion Easley. Craig Paquette. Dean Palmer. Shane Halter. Bobby Higginson. Danny Patterson. Joe Randa. Timo Perez. Michael Tucker. Jeff Suppan. Rick Reed. Raul Mondesi. Rondell White. Sterling Hitchcock. Carlos Delgado. Jeff Cirillo. Greg Vaughn. Mo Vaughn. Ben Grieve. Todd Hundley. Hampton. Neagle. Walker. Richard Hidalgo. Eric Karros. Mark Grudzielanek. Jeffrey Hammonds. Eric Young. Burnitz. Ordonez. David Weathers. Roger Cedeno. Travis Lee. Jason Kendall. Kevin Young. Bubba Trammell. Livan Hernandez. J.T. Snow ...
The interesting thing about this list is that few of these players are any good. It used to be that when former players ran clubs, they'd see someone who was good once, and take a shot at them. That doesn't happen as much. Why?
What we are seeing is Bart Giamatti's vision of the future of baseball management. He hoped that a classical scholar who turned to the baseball business would encourage many bright and energetic university graduates to follow their hearts away from Wall Street to baseball, and that is precisely what is happening. Mariners GM Pat Gillick is considered a traditionalist, but as a 20-year-old graduate of USC was way ahead of his time, and a man whose brilliance has long been recognized. Sandy Alderson, a graduate of Dartmouth and Harvard Law, obviously has had a dramatic impact, with Beane and Blue Jays GM J. P. Ricciardi following his teachings, and now two future GMs under Beane in Harvardians Paul DePodesta and David Forst waiting in the wings. Shapiro is a graduate of Princeton, Jim Beattie of Dartmouth. Theo Epstein came out of Yale and got his law degree while working under Kevin Towers in San Diego. It now seems nothing for someone to go from any Ivy League or small, elite institution like Williams (Jim Duquette) or Amherst (Neil Huntington, Ben Cherrington) to go into baseball.
"The young circle of general managers like Beane, Shapiro, Brian Cashman, O'Dowd, Ricciardi, Towers and guys like that are very different," says agent Scott Boras. "Some of them are very bright, and very creative. I hate to admit it, but I think we agree more than we disagree on a lot of issues about which I have long felt very strongly." While discussing this very subject, one of the members of Boras' staff kidded him by saying, "we're not smarter than everyone anymore."
And that is good for the game.
And so is a large number of free agents.
Posted by David Pinto at
12:53 PM
|
Baseball