The Path To General Management

Have you ever wondered if you have what it takes to be a General Manager (GM) for a professional baseball organization? Have you played all the strategy modes on MLB The Show and feel pretty confident in your abilities? Well, how about I let you in on a little secret. If you truly love the game of baseball, you qualify. Contrary to popular belief, not every GM started out as a player or used to be a scout. Although there are some, the majority of GM’s worked their way up from the bottom. There’s no specific route on how to get to the top, but there are ways to improve your chances. Here are a few GM’s and the path they took to get where they’re at:

Brian Cashman: New York Yankees

Photo cred: nytimes.com/

No better way to start off than with the first GM to ever win a World Series in each of his first three years after taking over a team. Sure you could argue that he inherited a dynasty, but this man worked his way into being the guy to call all the shots. Cashman was a history major at Catholic University of America, where he was a second baseman for their baseball team and would then intern with the New York Yankees during the summer. Because his internship couldn’t necessarily keep him afloat financially, he also worked stadium security at night. After his internship was finished, Cashman was hired to be one of the assistant GM’s for the Yankees. From there, Cashman became Vice President, then moved to GM, and now he resides as the GM and the Senior Vice President of the New York Yankees. Despite having to work his way from a security guard during the graveyard shift, Cashman has still managed to keep one of the most historic franchises in all of sports competitive and at the top of the American League in nearly every year.

Alex Anthopoulos: Toronto Blue Jays (Former)

Photo cred: bluejayhunter.com

If you think Cashman started from the bottom, hold on one second and read Anthopoulos’ story. Even though he is no longer the GM, his story is one that needs to be shared. Alex Anthopoulos is a Montreal native who graduated from McMaster University with a degree in Economics. After school, his father passed away so Anthopoulos went back home to work in the family business. After a couple of years in the that business, Anthopoulos decided to follow his dream and work in professional baseball. After sending letters out to every team in the MLB, Anthopoulos finally landed a job….. sorting letters. Specifically, sorting fan letters down in the mailroom for no pay.

Yeah, true story.

Anthopoulos saw this position as an opportunity and he seized every moment of it. “The biggest thing I did with the fan mail thing [his unpaid job with the Expos] — and I can’t stress this enough — is the importance of humility in anything you do. The minute you think things should be delivered to you or entitled to you, you’re not going to get very far in life.”1 Anthopoulos went on to become an area scout for the Florida Marlins before becoming the scouting coordinator for the Toronto Blue Jays, which eventually led him to become GM from 2009-2015. Anthopoulos now works for the LA Dodgers as the Vice President of Baseball Operations.

Jon Daniels: Texas Rangers

Photo cred: newdawgblog.wordpress.com

Daniels wasn’t always in baseball. Like Anthopoulos, Daniels left college to work for another business and quit after a couple of years to pursue a career in professional baseball. Daniels took an internship with the Colorado Rockies before landing a job with the Texas Rangers as an assistant in Baseball Operations. With a degree in Applied Economics from Cornell, it was obvious Daniels had the brains to take on the job and quickly worked his way to become the Director of Baseball Operations. Daniels was hired to be the GM at the age of 28, making him the youngest General Manager in baseball history. Not only was he the youngest, but he also led the Texas Rangers to the World Series in 2010 and 2011 despite having to overcome some incredible odds. “The Rangers are at the bottom of the payroll spectrum, they’re not going to be at the top, and since '10, when they were at the bottom, that hasn’t been a major obstacle.”2 The Rangers still remain to be one of the most competitive teams in the American League to this day.

So yes, there are plenty of different ways to become a GM and, as you can see, they all started out as the low man on the totem pole before climbing to the top. There are plenty of other paths that were taken by GM’s to reach where they are, but I believe that these three are the most diverse. Of course, there are a few former players who found their way into the front office who are now GM’s. But the majority are just educated baseball fans who wanted to be part of the action. So if you didn’t believe me earlier about qualifying by only truly loving the game, what do you think about it now?

References:

1 Clapp, B. (2015, March 30). How Ten MLB General Managers Began Their Sports Careers [Web log post]. Retrieved March 21, 2017, from http://www.workinsports.com/blog/how-ten-mlb-general-managers-began-their-sports-careers/

2 MLB Rangers Believe They Can Defend AL West Crown Without Spending Spree. (2015, December 10). Retrieved March 29, 2017, from http://www.sportsbusinessdaily.com/Daily/Issues/2015/12/10/Franchises/MLB-Rangers.aspx?hl=Jon Daniels&sc=0

17 Inches

If you are unfamiliar with the story of Coach John Scolinos’ speech at the 1996 American Baseball Coaches Association Convention, then prepare to get your head rocked with some wisdom.

John Scolinos was a Los Angeles native, who coached for Pepperdine University from 1946-1960 and then went on to coach at California State Polytechnic University Pomona from 1962-1991. During Scolinos’ time at Cal Poly Pomona, he led the Broncos to six conference championships and three Division II National Championships in 1976, 1980, and 1983. Scolinos would be inducted into the American Association of Collegiate Baseball Coaches Hall of Fame in 1974. Coach John Scolinos retired in 1991 at the age of 73.

In 1996, at 78 years old and five years retired from coaching, Coach John Scolinos was invited to speak at the 52nd annual American Baseball Coaches Association Convention in Nashville, Tennessee. The story of his speech was told by a coach early in his career named Chris Sperry, who was attending his first ever ABCA convention.

John Scolinos
Photo cred. www.cpp.edu

When Sperry arrived in Nashville, he recalls hearing a specific name being brought up nearly everywhere he went; that name was John Scolinos. Although, at the time, Sperry had no idea who this man was or the impact he was soon going to make. Sperry assumed that he had to be of some importance since he seemed to be renowned by everyone at this convention.

Scolinos was scheduled to speak at 1:00pm, which was a time that most coaches would spend at lunch, socializing and catching up with old friends and colleagues. But not this time. Sperry recalls being confused as he looked down at his itinerary and discovered the convention to be extremely crowded during this 1 o'clock lunch hour. “1 PM John Scolinos, Cal Poly Pomona. It was the man whose name I had heard buzzing around the lobby two days earlier. Could he be the reason that all 4,000 coaches had returned, early, to the convention hall? Wow, I thought, this person must really be good. I had no idea.”1

Coach Scolinos walked out with a home plate hanging from his neck in a Flavor Flav kind of way. With the crowd mumbling with confusion, Scolinos began his speech by acknowledging the odd choice of jewelry hanging around his neck. Immediately after, Scolinos asked how many Little League coaches were in the room. To no surprise, several hands went up in the air with little hesitation. “Do you know how wide home plate is in Little League?” After a pause, someone offered, “Seventeen inches.”1 Scolinos directed this question to all the high school coaches in the room, then moved on to the collegiate coaches, then minor and major league coaches. The answer remained the same throughout. Seventeen inches. No matter what league you play in, home plate is always seventeen inches.

Coach Scolinos went on to ask the crowd what happens to Big League pitchers who can’t throw the ball over seventeen inches. He answered his own question by saying, “What they don’t do is this: they don’t say, ‘Ah, that’s okay, Jimmy. You can’t hit a seventeen-inch target. We’ll make it eighteen inches, or nineteen inches. We’ll make it twenty inches so you have a better chance of hitting it. If you can’t hit that, let us know so we can make it wider still, say twenty-five inches.”1 The crowd chuckled in confusion trying to understand where Coach Scolinos was going with this analogy.

“What do we do when our best player shows up late to practice? When our team rules forbid facial hair and a guy shows up unshaven? What if he gets caught drinking? Do we hold him accountable? Or do we change the rules to fit him, do we widen home plate?”1

The room was silent.

Coach Scolinos continued on with this idea by replacing accountability in baseball with accountability in our homes, schools, and our churches. His message was simple: do not widen home plate for your players, your families, or yourselves. Whether a situation involves discipline, expectations, rules, or whatever the case may be, everyone needs to be held to the same standard.

Ever since Coach Scolinos gave this speech, the story of seventeen inches has quietly been passed down. Most recently, Jason Garrett, head coach of the Dallas Cowboys, used “17”” as their 2016 training camp slogan. When asked about it, Sean Lee responded,“It's about standards. It's about all of us living up to certain standards every single day. Working extremely hard every day, understanding how much of a blessing it is to play for the Cowboys and trying to take advantage of that opportunity.”2

Jason Garrett and Scolinos family

Photo cred: sportsday.dallasnews.com

That day in Nashville, Tennessee, 21 years ago, Coach John Scolinos used his platform at an ABCA Convention to spread the word about the importance of keeping consistent standards, keeping your home plate at seventeen inches for everyone, including yourself. His message changed the perspective of 4,000 coaches that day. They showed up expecting to learn the new secret to baseball, but in turn, received something much, much greater.

I wanted to share this story because I feel that the simple message Coach Scolinos gave can have such a powerful impact in our world. His message has impacted my life personally by changing my perspective on leadership and how to go about my business. Of course we all know about accountability but what we typically do is forget to be consistent with how we react. It’s critical to have consistency in a leadership position because the moment you differ from your standards, is the moment you start to lose respect from those who you lead. Home plate can serve as a symbol in more than just the game of baseball. My doormat back home is a home plate and every morning when I walk out the front door, I step onto that house shaped rug, and it reminds me to hold myself between 17 inches. No more, no less.

References:

1Sperry, C. (2015, December 9). STAY AT 17 INCHES [Web log post]. Retrieved March 9, 2017, from http://www.sperrybaseballlife.com/stay-at-17-inches/

2 Machota, J. (2016, August 08). 17 inches? What's up with the Cowboys' new slogan? Retrieved March 09, 2017, from http://sportsday.dallasnews.com/dallas-cowboys/cowboys/2016/08/08/cowboys-new-17-inches-slogan-jason-garrett-accountability

The Baseball Olympics

Photo cred. mlb.com

Finally, after four long awaited years, baseball fans around the world will stop and watch as their country competes for the ultimate title - The World Baseball Classic is upon us once again. The atmosphere of baseball is remarkably different around the world.. If you’ve ever seen the movie Mr. Baseball, then you know what I’m talking about. Japan treats baseball games almost as if it’s a festival. There are cheerleaders, fans are given props at the ticket window to celebrate when a run is scored, and fans take turns cheering. The visiting team’s fans cheer when they are hitting while the home team’s fans sit quietly and vice versa. Baseball in the Caribbean is quite similar. Drums, horns, shakers, and clappers ring constantly throughout the stadium during the duration of a game. The passion these fans have for their teams is unmatched. It’s an amazing site to see. Yet, baseball in the U.S., as in most other countries, have a more relaxed setting.

Photo cred movies.film-cine.com

The World Baseball Classic (WBC) provides evidence that baseball is continuing to grow around the world. Quality baseball is now being played in countries that you probably wouldn’t expect. The Netherlands, Italy, and even Israel are all part of the sixteen teams that qualified for the tournament. Other countries that competed in the qualifier rounds but didn’t quite make the WBC include Nicaragua, Pakistan, and the Philippines. As a baseball fan, it’s exciting to see so many different countries bringing America’s pastime into their own culture.

From a baseball fan’s perspective, seeing the world come together to play baseball is something spectacular. However, from a General Manager’s perspective, there’s nothing that raises your blood pressure like sending your best players off to risk injury a month before the season starts. The Cleveland Indians organization will have 11 players representing their countries in the World Baseball Classic, four of which are already on the major league roster. Cleveland Indians General Manager Mike Chernoff probably has some mixed feelings about the tournament because he’s seen both the positive and the negative side of the tournament being so close to the beginning of the season. “[Carlos] Santana came back really energized after playing for the Dominican team," Indians general manager Mike Chernoff said. "So, I think that can have a positive effect. Carlos, at that time of his career, got to be around some of the best players in the world, and I think that rubbed off on him".1 However, in 2013, Vinnie Pestano injured his elbow and in 2009, Grady Sizemore injured his groin during the tournament.

As tough as it is for the Indians, the Detroit Tigers (15) and the New York Mets (13) will have even more players participating in the 2017 tournament. However, being in the United States, this event might not be as exciting and watch-worthy as it is in other places. “While it is popular in some countries, it is more of a curiosity than a must-see event in the U.S. - especially when American stars such as Bryce Harper, Mike Trout, Clayton Kershaw and David Price choose to sit it out”.2 In a generation that has become fans of individual players rather than a certain team, it may be more difficult to get excited for an event when your favorite player chooses not to participate.

I don’t know where the majority lies, but I am head over heels for this tournament. I love every bit of it. I count down the days for the Olympics and Opening Day and now the two come together every four years to give me two and a half weeks of childlike giddiness. The Netherlands put themselves on the baseball world map in the 2013 tournament. Could Israel do the same in their first World Baseball Classic appearance? Here are the Pools for the Opening round:

Photo cred. Thinglink.com

Pool A: Seoul

• Korea
• Chinese Taipei
• Netherlands
• Israel

Pool B: Tokyo

• Japan
• Cuba
• China

• 

  Photo cred. Cbssports.com

  Australia

Pool C: Miami

• United States
• Dominican Republic
• Canada
• Columbia

Pool D: Jalisco

• Mexico
• Puerto Rico
• Venezuela
• Italy

With the defending champs, Dominican Republic, and a very underrated Canadian team, the United States have a tough road to survive pool play. It doesn’t help that the United States doesn’t have the Cy Young or MVP winners from 2016 on their roster either. Israel and The Netherlands have already upset host city Korea and will advance to the next round. Japan is off to a hot start and looks as though they're on a mission to reclaim the WBC title. The U.S. will open up with Colombia on Friday, March 10th at 6:00 pm EST.

Games started Monday, March 6th and will be played through the championship round on March 22nd.  All games will be aired live on MLB Network.

References:

1Bastian, J. (2017, February 08). Indians have 12 players on 2017 WBC rosters. Retrieved March 02, 2017, from http://m.indians.mlb.com/news/article/215483780/indians-have-12-players-on-2017-wbc-rosters/

2Press, T. A. (2017, February 13). World Baseball Classic increases player demands, not necessarily excitement | Reading Eagle - AP. Retrieved March 02, 2017, from http://www.readingeagle.com/ap/article/world-baseball-classic-increases-player-demands-not-necessarily-excitement

Just get Back to the Basics

Photo cred outfieldflyrule.com

For non-baseball fans, the length of a baseball game takes too long. For baseball fans, the length of a baseball game still takes too long. It doesn’t matter who you are, baseball is a slow-paced game that can take upwards of four hours to complete. So the answer is simple, increase the pace of play, right?

The Major League Baseball (MLB) Commissioner's office is experimenting with some rule changes in the Gulf Coast League, the Arizona Leagues, and the World Baseball Classic. These rule changes include: placing a runner on second base at the start of each inning during extra innings, skipping the four pitches of an intentional walk and having a signal from the dugout instead, and increasing the size of the strike zone.

Rule Change 1 - Who’s on Second? Extra Innings

BREAKING NEWS!! The National Football League’s Commissioner, Roger Goodell, has announced new overtime rules. The kicker of each team will line up at the 50 yard line and the first one to miss loses the football game. Ridiculous, right? It seems as though it would be too easy to score. How can the NFL let the outcome of a game be determined by that method? According to research conducted by unconventionalstats.com, the NFL field goal percentage at 50 yards was 50.52% during the 2013 season. Compare that to the odds of a runner scoring when on second base with no outs. According to a study by Scott Lindholm (beyondthescorecard.blogspot.com), a runner on second base with no outs scored 59.8% of the time during the first 30 games of 2013. Thus, the proposed rule changes in baseball would make it even easier to score a run during extra innings than a NFL place kicker making a 50 yard field goal in overtime.

MLB’s Chief Baseball Officer, Joe Torre, was quoted by Jeff Passan of Yahoo Sports saying “It’s not fun to watch when you go through your whole pitching staff and wind up bringing a utility infielder in to pitch. As much as it’s nice to talk about being at an 18-inning game, it takes time”.2

Royals win 2015 World Series

I agree with Torre on the idea of how miserable it must be for a manager to go through his pitching staff during a long game. But isn’t that why they are paid a hefty sum of money? At that point in the game, it’s a battle of who can be the most effective while still maintaining efficiency for games still left on the schedule. It comes down to who wants it more. Who is going to blink first. And to me, that’s the most intense part of baseball. Would you have rather seen the Royals start with a man on second base against the Mets in Game 5 of the 2015 World Series? The Royals just scored two in the ninth to tie the game and have all the momentum and now we want to go ahead and put a man on second base for them? Not a chance! Make them continue to hit and produce runs. Consider the scenario - the best hitting team in baseball (Royals) vs the best pitching team in baseball (Mets), and we’re going to take the power of pitching out of the game?!? It probably wouldn’t have changed the outcome, but the 10th and 11th innings were some of the most intense moments in baseball history. What a shame it would have been if fans had to miss out on THAT experience during Game 5 of the 2015 World Series.

Rule Change 2 - Take Your Base

The whole point of implementing the new intentional walk rule is to save time. Good, so now we’ve cut down 45 seconds of every other game. Now, I can make it home for dinner! There simply aren’t enough intentional walks during a game to make significant impact on the overall length of a game.

Rule Change 3 - Strike Zone

Baseball has become a pitchers game in the past few years. Batting averages have decreased while pitching statistics have improved. Society has grown bored with baseball due to pitching dominance. I’m not saying that dominate pitching is a bad thing but fans want to see home-runs, hitting parades, and web gems. Raising the strike zone decreases all three of those characteristics. In my personal experience, a 95 mph fastball is a lot easier (but still incredibly difficult) to hit at the knees rather than at the top of the zone. Strikeouts will increase more than they already have, which increases fan boredom, which makes baseball, once again, feel as if a game is too long. Give hitters a chance. They only succeed two to three times out of ten chances already, don’t make it more difficult.

Play Ball!

Play under review

Back to decreasing the duration of the game. My issue with trying to increase the pace of play is that baseball was always a game ruled by human ability and the occasional human error until the introduction of instant replay in 2014. Coincidently, that was the first year that the average 9-inning Major League Baseball game lasted over three hours. Interesting! “The average time of a nine-inning game lasted three hours last season (2016), an increase of four minutes from 2015, despite the implementation of rules to speed up the game”.1

So yes, baseball is taking too long for fans to remain attentive, but it’s because of the rule changes that have slowed the pace of  the game. We don’t even get to see managers run out of the dugout and get face-to-face with and umpires anymore. Maybe it’s just me, but I don’t like the fact that old-fashioned baseball is changing as rapidly as it is now. Maybe we need to slow things down a bit. Pun intended.

References:

1 Nightengale, B. (2017, February 03). MLB commissioner looks to speed up pace of game. Retrieved February 20, 2017, from http://thesportdigest.com/2017/02/mlb-commissioner-looks-to-speed-up-pace-of-game/

2 Passan, J. (2017, February 08). MLB plans to test new extra-innings rules in rookie ball, with Joe Torre's approval. Retrieved February 21, 2017, from http://sports.yahoo.com/news/mlb-plans-to-test-new-extra-innings-rules-in-rookie-ball-with-joe-torres-approval-224914115.html

Numbers Never Lie: Does Sabermetrics Work?

In case you didn’t already know, there is an alternative way to study the game of baseball. The concept is called sabermetrics or, more commonly known as, Moneyball. Sabermetrics was brought into existence by Bill James, a baseball statistician and historian. However, Billy Beane, general manager of the Oakland A's took James' statistic concept and implemented it into the A's organization. Beane’s idea was to focus on the statistics that are more beneficial to the team rather than the individual. For example, “For batters, Beane substituted average, home runs, and runs batted in with a player’s slugging percentage and on-base percentage to determine offensive value to the team. For pitchers, Beane focused on walks, strikeouts, and home runs”.2 Beane’s concept eliminated certain plays, such as bunting and stealing, because they do not positively affect the amount of runs scored.

Billy Beane

The Moneyball concept relies on numbers to find more team-oriented players to improve the team’s winning percentage. For a small market team, like the A’s, who have a payroll that cannot compete with other teams in the league, the concept boosted efficiency related to the overall dollars. The main issue is that the Oakland A’s simply did not  have as much cap space (dollars) to work with as compared to the other teams.

The Oakland A’s have been a competitive team since implementing this method in 1997. They made it to the postseason eight times from 2000-2014. However, if you take a closer look at these teams during this time span, you will see they either have a MVP (Jason Giambi, Miguel Tejada), Cy Young winner (Barry Zito), or a Rookie of the Year (Bobby Crosby, Huston Street). Giambi and Tejada were gone the next year and Crosby and Street left when they were available for free agency. Zito was the only one who stayed the others left to follow the money.

So why don’t we see large market teams using the Moneyball concept? Why don’t teams use this strategy to find those diamonds in the rough, the ones that are not as flashy, but do most everything right? The answer is simple, they don’t need to and better yet, that’s not their best option. Why wait to build a team with the Moneyball method and hope to find a gold nugget flowing through when you can just go out and buy the top players. The top tier teams can afford to spend big time money on big time players and there’s a reason those players are getting the big time contract deals - statistically, they make a team better. There’s no way around it, players with a higher average, more RBIs, and more home runs are simply going to produce more runs scored which produce more wins.

Jason Giambi photocred: rantsports.com

Baseball has been around for over 100 years and it’s no secret what makes a competitive baseball team. Hits, RBIs, and home runs are the Big 3 stats for hitters, because these stats produce runs and runs win ball games.

Another important statistic is on-base percentage, however, teams must have players who can hit or manufacture a run by stealing or bunting. “Sabermetrics is a science, which means that it follows the scientific method. Conclusions must be based on evidence and logic, and any conclusions can be re-evaluated or overturned if new, contradictory, evidence turns up.”1 Predicting baseball outcomes by using the scientific method is about the same as predicting the weather. Sometimes it will work, but most of the time the weather will throw you a curveball (pun intended) and put you on your heels.

Final thought, the Moneyball concept is a scientific way to play the game of baseball. It works, there’s no doubt about it, but can it take a team like the Oakland A’s to the World Series? No. The Oakland A’s have not reached or won a World Series while gambling on the Moneyball concept. Moneyball alone will not get them where they want to go, but it can lead them in the right direction to improving their team. A major issue is that great players usually don’t go unseen, and every organization needs few great players as well as baseball savvyness to win a World Series.

Billy Beane has made the Oakland A’s a competitive organization with what little he has. To be able to get the quality players they need to be successful, the Oakland A’s must find a way to generate revenue to make Oakland a place where players want to come and stay to play baseball.  Perhaps the faults lie within the higher ups in the organization?

References:

1Birnbaum, P. (n.d.). A Guide to Sabermetric Research: Asking the Right Questions. Retrieved February 09, 2017, from http://sabr.org/sabermetrics/asking-right-questions

2Porreca, R. P. (2016, August 17). General Managers and the Importance of Using Analytics. Retrieved February 09, 2017, from http://thesportjournal.org/article/general-managers-and-the-importance-of-using-analytics/