2020-21 Baseball Offseason Thread

Here we go.

 

I didn't say it was harder. It's just as hard though. A small market front office gig is more FRUSTRATING, because the better you are at it, the more players you see eventually leave for greener ($$$) pastures, but you are way more likely to get fired more quickly if you don't deliver results in a big market gig.

 

Perfect except for the sewage you mean ...

 

Sorry, but no. It is not just as hard. You are playing the same game, but the high-revenue market GM has more resources to play with. That the guy in the big market might get fired more quickly if he fails doesn't mean the job itself is more difficult.

 

Just finished the entire 3-volume Connie Mack biography. It's spectacular. A wonderful way to spend the offseason.

Two teams could not have survived in Philadelphia. But the dysfunctional Mack family, in the final 10 years, did everything it could to make sure the team leaving would be the A's, not the Phillies. The youngest kid (Connie Mack Jr.) was the smartest and he's the one who got the short end of the stick when he's the one who probably could have saved the franchise.

 

When the Carpenter family (a branch of the DuPonts) bought the Phillies in the '40s, the A's fate was sealed. They weren't gonna run out of money.

 

Small market general managers face pressure, too. If I'm going to take a high-profile, high-pressure job, I want the resources. It is comical to say a little more pressure makes it more difficult when he has more than double the resources of some of his competitors.

 

Maybe. The A's owned the ballpark and Connie Jr. had a deal worked out with the Kelly family (Grace's dad, I think) in the early 1950s that would have poured a ton of money into the franchise, and removed sons Roy and Earle from all phases of the team's operation. But Connie Sr. didn't go along with it and said his oldest sons would take control when he stepped down. Connie Jr. sold his shares to them, and moved to Florida; Roy and Earle ran it completely into the ground.

There was even a well-heeled group of Philadelphians who had a deal to buy the A's in 1954, but then Roy double-crossed them and sold out to Kansas City, a deal the influential Yankees were pushing.

The A's were historically the stronger franchise. Had they been revived, I could see the Phillies moving to New York or someplace in the late 1950s.

 

The Mets have acquired someone named Joey Lucchesi. Can't think of a more appropriate place. Phillies might be the second choice.

 

I got a preview of a patch the Padres will be wearing this season