Support Ned
by Andrew on Apr 22, 2008 3:37 PM PDT
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PrintNed gets his first matchup in the Bucs Dugout worst GM tournament, taking on JP Riccardi in the quarterfinals. I really urge you to go over there and vote for Riccardi. I’ve made my feelings on Ned pretty well known, but he is learning at least. He hasn’t done anything boneheaded since the Proctor trade, and while nine months without a bad move doesn’t seem all that great, it’s better than the monthly blockheaded boner that we were treated to at the beginning of his tenure.
After releasing Frank Thomas to make sure Shannon Stewart gets more play time/avoiding paying his salary, I’m pretty convinced that Riccardi is the worst GM in baseball now, and it would be a shame to not see him recognized as such. He embodies pretty much every negative trait about sabermetrics mainly drafting low ceiling college guys, and filling his team up with players based on how good they are for the dollar instead of being good. Combine this with arrogance that lead him to ignore his advisors and take Ricky Romero over Troy Tulowitski and you have a GM who looks great if you want to win 84 games a year. Oh, and the closest thing the team has to a difference maker that Riccardi acquired himself is Aaron Hill, or maybe A.J. Burnett on the off chance he's healthy. After seven years on the job, Riccardi has failed to build anything that would have any hope of competiting the the AL East. I'd much rather have Nned than that.
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No way
You’ve gone soft Andrew.
Isnt winning 84 games with Riccardi’s payroll, in the AL East, better than winning 84 games with Colletti’s payroll, in the NL West?
Good GM’ing requires asset allocation and return on investment, and Ned’s been almost a complete failure. if any guy is trying to just be good enough to win 80 or so games, its Ned bc he’s valued depth over talent.
Gotta vote Ned here. He’s got more resources than Riccardi does, but has accomplished just as little
It’s not like the Blue Jays are a small market team anymore. Isn’t their payroll 100 million now? And you have to give points to Colletti for at least not interfering with Logan White’s drafts. I believe it was Riccardi who had the Blue Jays draft Romero instead of Tulo. Ned has made some terrible signings, but he’s also made some good ones. And his strategy of giving more money for less years is brilliant. Frankly, the only place where Ned probably deserves an almost total bad grade is in the trading department (with the exception of the Ethier trade). Now, I’m certainly not implying that Ned is a good GM. But he at least seemingly learned that Juan Pierre was a mistake signing. Riccardi’s been going with the same strategy of signing mediocre players for 7 years now.
by Tango and Cash on Apr 22, 2008 8:25 PM PDT up reply actions
Here's a blog defending JP..
http://thesouthpawbaseball.blogspot.com/2008/03/i-beg-to-differ.html
I dont think you can sight Tulo/Romero and use that as evidence that the Blue Jays just draft low upside college players. Tulo was a college player himself. The Blue Jays (as it looks right now) picked the wrong college player. I dont think it a philosophical difference though.
It’s going to be pretty hard for the Blue Jays to ever win more than 85 games because the Yankees/Red Sox are both in the division and spend so much more. Considering the competition and the record, I dont think JP’s done near as bad as Ned though. I think the only questionable contract JP’s given out was the deal to BJ Ryan. He obviously didnt read the chapter in Moneyball about “Selling the Closer”.
Tulo/Romero is an example of JP having to be in charge and ignoring what his advisors have to say, not taking low upside guys. Spending his previous first round picks on David Purcey, Aaron Hill, Zach Jackson, and Russ Adams are examples of taking low upside college guys.
The Blue Jays know what they face coming into the season, and that they have to be a team with a ton of upside coming into the season, instead the fill the team with “nice little players” who have no upside. There’s nothing wrong with Reed Johnson, Lyle Overbay, Aaron Hill, or Greg Zaun on their own, it’s just when you put them all together, you have a team that you know is just going to be a little above average, and he should know coming into the season that’s not good enough.
Oh, and he gave that contract to Vernon Wells.
Co-Author Of The Fourth Most Popular NL West Based Blog On SBN
As said above, Ned isn’t great by himself, but at least he lets Logan White do his thing. Riccardi operates the team like just knowing basic sabermetrics is enough to get ahead, and thanks to that, has a team with no upside that will be winning 84 games for a long time. The Dodgers are going to be very good in the near future, and while it may not be to Ned’s credit, he hasn’t done much to stop it either.
Co-Author Of The Fourth Most Popular NL West Based Blog On SBN
J.P. sucks
Ned is one of the best in the game in over-paying for fewer years, a tactic that he used with Furcal, Schmidt and Jones and while there have been mixed results so far, these were brilliant moves when they were made.
J.P. is a prick and hasn’t made one good move, except for the Rios extension and that was a no-brainer.
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by Baseball Mastermind on Apr 22, 2008 8:54 PM PDT reply actions
Ricciardi is worse. . .
But I voted for Colletti, anyway. Sometimes it’s okay for the wrong guy to win. I also think Colletti is benefiting from the soft bigotry of low expectations. They’re both shark sandwiches.
JR has had 7 years
to prove how bad he is, while Ned has had only 2 1/2. I think JR wins easily in this contest because Ned seems to listen to the right people these days while JR still thinks he’s smarter then everyone else, even while Tampa Bay is about to send him to the 2nd division.
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