Reese Kaplan -- The Organizational Cost of Stalling

On Sunday Jeff Wilpon met with the media and made several statements.  The one that got most of the attention was his assertion that the refusal to spend on the top tier free agents or take on other teams’ contracts was on Sandy Alderson, not the owners.  Allegedly that was the reason – Sandy Alderson insisted on the oddball and low rent personnel decisions.  You can debate that one for hours on end, but another tidbit seemingly flew under the radar.

Jeff Wilpon said that the process of evaluating potential successors to Sandy Alderson has been going on since June, yet no one has been interviewed and that the whole hiring process is being led by the Three Stooges (my words, not his).  Furthermore, under no circumstances would any Stooge be brought back to take the reins.  However, should the hiring process extend beyond the GM meetings, then the Three Stooges would help out until the new Stooge could be secured.

WHAT????????????????????????????????

Let’s think that one through for a moment.  Let’s say you own a very successful coffee franchise.  You’ve had a history of wild success, but lately things have not gone as well after a number of competitors put out a better product and you find yourself searching for a new management team with the vision to take the company back to the forefront of the market.

How would you then go about doing that?  Well, for one you’ve recognized that the current management team is simply not getting it done.  You’ve even publicly stated as much.  Consequently, entrusting them to find the new general manager who likely will fire them and bring in a competent crew is a self-fulfilling prophecy of failure.  If the handwriting is already on the wall that your job is in jeopardy and that the sooner you find your replacement the sooner you’ll be on the unemployment line, what incentive is there to find someone quickly to take the helm?

What the coffee company owners would likely do is find a professional executive placement agency (known colloquially as “headhunters”) to do the independent screening of the best of the best, but in an expeditious timetable, turning over the top candidates to the owners for interview and final decision making.  This approach is tried and true throughout business. 

There’s no way the owners would entrust the people deemed incompetent to run the company to do the searching.  Furthermore, if the search extends well beyond the national food and beverage convention would they want the incompetent team to take the reins to make inroads with other influential industry people since they are on the way out the door?  That would be utterly ridiculous.

So now let’s look again at the WIlpon plan.  That’s WAY more disturbing than any shade he’s throwing at Sandy Alderson while he's down.  Jeffy wants us to believe that the people he deems incapable of running his ballclub suddenly competent to find their successor despite not having brought a single candidate in for an interview in the last four months.  Then he’s ready to punt on another season by letting the Three Stooges represent him at the GM meetings, the Winter meetings and probably until even someone as clueless as Jeffy realizes that they’re stalling to save their own jobs.

You can’t make this stuff up!