Oftentimes some time needs to pass to get an accurate picture of a persons contributions.
Now that we are down the road a bit, what is your honest evaluation of Dan O'brian's performance as a GM with the Reds?
Hopefully our anger with his failings has subsided enough to objectivley weigh his reign; both the good and the bad.
Currently, I'm of the opinion that he was compleltey overwhelemed in the GM role and was shutdown by a fear of making a mistake. He's not a jerk, idiot or dolt. He seems like a decent enough guy that was just not cut out for the gig.
His contract negotiations skills were dreadfull and anchored the team with some real doozies (Milton, LaRue, etc). His micromanagement with silly rules that delt with symptoms (don't swing at the 1st pitch no matter what) left much to be desired.
I seem to remember that he had something to do with Bailey and Votto (perhaps even Bruce?) which would be some significant feathers in his cap. Then again, he was high on Anderson Muchado, Bubba Nelson and Kim Jong Bong Ill.
I think all of the farm system teams came in last place during the 2005 season. I'm more interested in players in the farm system learning rather than winning, but I would think the higher farm system teams could have won something. How much of that can you lay at DanO's feet? Not sure. But for all of his talk of rebuilding the farm system, he didn't do much to rebuild the scouting department (that I am aware of).
DanO strikes me as a smart guy with lots of that magical "baseball knowledge" but he really doesn't know how to manage an entire orignization and subscribes to the "analyize it to death" school of decision making. Thus he tends to wait too long for a decision, miss opportunities, make minor moves thinking its a big move and generally bungle things up.
Some days I almost feal sorry for him that he was so horribly miscast by Lindner.
