Anybody who's worked in corporate America and seen these brainiac 'Management Consultants' swoop in with full management consent and unlimited power to hold sway over cowering middle mangers recognizes a fraud like FZ.
They usually leave with departments in tatters, and big checks.
Absolutely. And what is most frustrating about Management Consultant Farhan isn't that his churn and burn approach doesn't work out usually. It isn't even that the style of baseball under his watch has been mostly excruciating to watch. It's that he doesn't have any particular skill for evaluating, developing or promoting talent from within. He also doesn't seem to have any talent for hiring scouts, coaches and analysts who possess these skills, aka baseball skills.
I don't think FZ is a bad guy (although he works from some questionable types). I just think way too much faith has been placed on his quantitative skills to unlock value with no recognition that he is mostly transactional and isn't actually building anything. At least offensively.
Connor Joe got 16 Plate Appearances with the Giants; Michael Conforto has 581 and counting. Whom would you rather have right now? And, as the King of Siam supposedly used to say, "et cetera, et cetera, et cetera."
That's an especially frustrating example because Farhan was smart enough to get Connor Joe in the organization, and the initial evaluation was essentially right. He figured out the undervalued player and didn't pay much to get him. Great job. But then he gave him too big of a role (he was certainly not ready to be the Opening Day left fielder, even on what was always going to be a bad team, and not allowing him to be a reserve meant the fans were going to turn on him if it didn't work out immediately) and cut bait without ever really giving him a chance. A few years later, it was a similar situation with Hunter Harvey, who the team put on waivers during Spring Training without ever giving him a chance, and now they're watching him have a third straight good year out of Washington's bullpen.
When Farhan took over the team they were in last place, one of the oldest teams in the majors, one of the highest salary structures in the majors with one of the worst farm systems. They were a mess. It takes time to rebuild from a mess like that. Under Farhans tenure, they are younger, better and have a much better system. Things have yet to fully jell, but the team has improved tremendously under Farhan - he deserves more time.
It would have been hard for any GM not to improve on on that mess. Mr Zaidi is not an idiot or an incompetent, but he is unable to change course when that course goes astray. Kapler had hiis faults, but as managers go was one of the better ones in the game. Bob Melvin is already showing what a disaster he will be: he is Bruce Bochy redux, pitching mismanagement and all. (What he just did to Randy Rodriguez and Mason Black should be firing offenses.) So many of the team's recent moves, from the front office and on the field, perfectly exemplify Einstein's famous definition of insanity ("doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results").
We could have had Kim Ng!
Bada. Bing. Maestro!
Anybody who's worked in corporate America and seen these brainiac 'Management Consultants' swoop in with full management consent and unlimited power to hold sway over cowering middle mangers recognizes a fraud like FZ.
They usually leave with departments in tatters, and big checks.
Absolutely. And what is most frustrating about Management Consultant Farhan isn't that his churn and burn approach doesn't work out usually. It isn't even that the style of baseball under his watch has been mostly excruciating to watch. It's that he doesn't have any particular skill for evaluating, developing or promoting talent from within. He also doesn't seem to have any talent for hiring scouts, coaches and analysts who possess these skills, aka baseball skills.
I don't think FZ is a bad guy (although he works from some questionable types). I just think way too much faith has been placed on his quantitative skills to unlock value with no recognition that he is mostly transactional and isn't actually building anything. At least offensively.
Connor Joe got 16 Plate Appearances with the Giants; Michael Conforto has 581 and counting. Whom would you rather have right now? And, as the King of Siam supposedly used to say, "et cetera, et cetera, et cetera."
That's an especially frustrating example because Farhan was smart enough to get Connor Joe in the organization, and the initial evaluation was essentially right. He figured out the undervalued player and didn't pay much to get him. Great job. But then he gave him too big of a role (he was certainly not ready to be the Opening Day left fielder, even on what was always going to be a bad team, and not allowing him to be a reserve meant the fans were going to turn on him if it didn't work out immediately) and cut bait without ever really giving him a chance. A few years later, it was a similar situation with Hunter Harvey, who the team put on waivers during Spring Training without ever giving him a chance, and now they're watching him have a third straight good year out of Washington's bullpen.
When Farhan took over the team they were in last place, one of the oldest teams in the majors, one of the highest salary structures in the majors with one of the worst farm systems. They were a mess. It takes time to rebuild from a mess like that. Under Farhans tenure, they are younger, better and have a much better system. Things have yet to fully jell, but the team has improved tremendously under Farhan - he deserves more time.
It would have been hard for any GM not to improve on on that mess. Mr Zaidi is not an idiot or an incompetent, but he is unable to change course when that course goes astray. Kapler had hiis faults, but as managers go was one of the better ones in the game. Bob Melvin is already showing what a disaster he will be: he is Bruce Bochy redux, pitching mismanagement and all. (What he just did to Randy Rodriguez and Mason Black should be firing offenses.) So many of the team's recent moves, from the front office and on the field, perfectly exemplify Einstein's famous definition of insanity ("doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results").
On the money! One of your best!