Bill Madden of the New York Daily News hands out grades to some GMs before spring training begins. You have to love this bit:
On the other end of the discussion, two rookie GMs, Neal Huntington of the Pirates and John Mozeliak of the Cardinals, get failing marks. (In Mozeliak's case, in allowing sparkplug shortstop David Eckstein to walk as a free agent and replacing him with the very inferior Cesar Izturis, he appears to have fallen victim to the same ownership-driven payroll constraints as his predecessor, Walt Jocketty, but there is no excuse for Huntington doing absolutely nothing to improve the last-place Pirates. Alas, in Pittsburgh it appears to be non-business as usual under new CEO Frank Coonelly, with the team unwilling to spend.
How about the fact that the Pirates were last place, and don't have a lot to build around? It strikes me as not only defensible but laudable that Huntington isn't going to make moves simply to make moves - you sign players and make trades to improve your chances at success, and there weren't a lot of moves the Pirates could make right now to give them a shot at the division.
Much better to stand pat and try to rebuild than to be the Astros, which got a mortgage on the future and invested the dividends in junk bonds and commodities futures.
Labels: Baseball
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