There’s a Comment Policy for the site, which encourages people to be polite and inquisitive. It also spells out that this place is not a democracy. The goal is to be a benevolent dictatorship. Anyway, there’s a passage in the policy that’s in the front of my mind today after yesterday’s article and some of the comments. Here’s the graph:
I don’t care if you’ve been following the team since 1962. That by itself doesn’t make your opinion any better than someone who started following in 2015. Some of the best commenters at the site have been following the team since the 1960s and they bring with them their knowledge and experience. Some of the worst posters at the site have been following the team since the 1960s and think that makes them special. It doesn’t. Come here curious to learn new (or old) things and consider new (or old) ideas. If you think the only things that matter are Wins, RBIs and batting average – please go somewhere else. If you think everything is done better today than it was 40 years ago, you’re just as bad.
Yesterday’s article was about the manager and some questions and statements in the comments section specifically addressed how the role of manager has changed in the last 20-plus years. The greybeards among us remember a time when managers had absolute authority over what happened between the white lines. Today it seems like the manager’s role is much, much more likely to be carrying out orders from the front office.
In a way, this makes sense. MLB is a multi-billion-dollar business and companies that large don’t let middle managers make key decisions that affect the bottom line. The problem becomes when the front offices now making the decisions end up making rotten ones. Because that happens fairly often. In the old days, if a manager made a bad decision, he would get questioned about it immediately by the press and was held accountable. And if he made enough bad decisions, the GM would fire him.
But if the front office is making the decisions – how often does the press question them and ownership fire them? When’s the last time a beat reporter asked the GM why rotten bullpen moves continue to happen? You know the answer to that – never. Meanwhile, a quick Google search doesn’t show the number of GMs who get fired as opposed to those who step down. Recently we saw Phillies GM Matt Klentak “stepped down” after five years on the job and a record 56 games below .500 at 336-392. All of this despite aggressive moves that added high-price talent such as Jake Arrieta, Bryce Harper, J.T. Realmuto, Zack Wheeler and others to the roster.
Was the problem Klentak and the front office as GM or Klentak and the front office as manager?
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