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Thread: The difference between Alonso and Stubbs/Mesoraco

  1. #31
    Member Kingspoint's Avatar
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    Re: The difference between Alonso and Stubbs/Mesoraco

    Quote Originally Posted by dougdirt View Post
    I think you are pretty offbase with John Allen and the draft, at least since Lindner stepped down. The Reds haven't made signability picks.
    He's always been this question mark in the organization to me. How much influence he's had on the organization from year to year seems to vary, but it always seemed to be impactual.


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  3. #32
    Waitin til next year bucksfan2's Avatar
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    Re: The difference between Alonso and Stubbs/Mesoraco

    Quote Originally Posted by Kingspoint View Post
    He's always been this question mark in the organization to me. How much influence he's had on the organization from year to year seems to vary, but it always seemed to be impactual.
    I don't want to turn this into a John Allen thread but he was the huge wart on the Reds organization for quite a while. Its like a disgraced CEO hanging around the company in some capacity for a couple of years. Its scary to think about his overall impact in the draft. Not just the Sowers punt but the inability to pay over slot. Draft and persuade college signees to play in the minors instead of college. It is also scary to think of his impact in Latin America. How many times did his scouts come to him with a guy but Allen bulked at the price?

    IMO the Reds drafts have improved drastically since Allen was taken out of baseball operations. I don't know if that was Allen so much or Bowden being canned. But oh what could have been had Allen not considered $.5M wasteful spending instead of $.5M investing in your team.

  4. #33
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    Re: The difference between Alonso and Stubbs/Mesoraco

    Quote Originally Posted by bucksfan2 View Post
    I don't want to turn this into a John Allen thread but he was the huge wart on the Reds organization for quite a while. Its like a disgraced CEO hanging around the company in some capacity for a couple of years. Its scary to think about his overall impact in the draft. Not just the Sowers punt but the inability to pay over slot. Draft and persuade college signees to play in the minors instead of college. It is also scary to think of his impact in Latin America. How many times did his scouts come to him with a guy but Allen bulked at the price?

    IMO the Reds drafts have improved drastically since Allen was taken out of baseball operations. I don't know if that was Allen so much or Bowden being canned. But oh what could have been had Allen not considered $.5M wasteful spending instead of $.5M investing in your team.
    I don't recall the organizational history on the Sowers pick, but if it had Allen's hand written on it, it doesn't make much sense. Allen is perceived as the beancounting lackey who kept a tight purse string. Why would he have the club pick a high school player who made it absolutely clear he intended to go to college? That would strike me as a type of pick which is intrinsically going to force your price up because you have to knock the player over with an overwhelming offer. That's got Jim Bowden written all over it.

    Allen certainly had his faults working under two dramatically different owners, Marge Schott and Carl Lindner. Both had huge impacts on how the club was run, not to mention the goofball antics of Jim Bowden (as evidenced, IMO, in the Sowers pick). Allen, though, is made the fall guy because he worked for Schott and Lindner.
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    Re: The difference between Alonso and Stubbs/Mesoraco

    I suspect that if Allen had re-classified deferred money (e.g. deferred Jr salary, and deferred bonuses to Espinosa and Sardinha), the Reds would have had enough cash for a real draft pick instead of Sowers.

    instead, Allen was extremely conservative, preferring to classify future obligations as now money.

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    Re: The difference between Alonso and Stubbs/Mesoraco

    You might recall, the Reds had been "borrowing" from the next season's draft budget for a couple of years and to get Espinosa signed in 2000, they used the 2001 money. When '01 rolled around, they selected Sowers without any intent whatsoever of signing him. Reportedly, they never even made a serious offer. That was the way the organization was being run in those days, and it showed in scouting and player development. And the team paid dearly for its failures to operate in a professional manner.

    Hard to say unless you were inside the family, but bottomline, it has to trace to ownership. The owner was the one approving the budgets and setting the guidelines for the budgets. That's not to let Bowden off the hook because he certainly deserved plenty of blame for the way he was implementing what cash he had to work with.

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    Re: The difference between Alonso and Stubbs/Mesoraco

    Allen didn't have any real power-nor did he make any real decisions --he followed to the letter what ownership wanted. It's silly to blame him for any of the bad that happened cause he was following orders. At most his biggest fault was a lack of creativity in solving problems, but compliant types rarely have a creativity gene. If they did they wouldn't be the compliant type that they are.

    Allen was told what the parameters were- what the rules were...and followed them to the letter. He was there to take some of the heat and to implement ownership strategy. The minute the organiation wants someone who can solve problems and think creatively -that's the minute Allen is no longer needed.

    Blaming him instead of ownership is silly -the man did what he was told and my guess is he did it within the parameters that were given. A low level asst. could have done the same thing and implemented it just as effectively.

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    Re: The difference between Alonso and Stubbs/Mesoraco

    Quote Originally Posted by Cooper View Post
    Allen didn't have any real power-nor did he make any real decisions --he followed to the letter what ownership wanted.

    Allen had a lot of power, beginning from the time that he ran the team during Marge's dark days. after that, because of his former position and the team's relative success during that time period, he retained a lot more influence than your run of the mill beancounter.

    I'm sure that he lost his share of fights (e.g., Jr's contract) but he won his share as well. I suspect that the stadium is almost all his.

    I actually think that he had some sensible ideas at the baseball level, including several to stymie Bowden in the late '90's as well as his opposition to Jr's contract. But the stadium looms as his big albatross. Wrong stadium for this market; it hamstrings the Reds, possibly for decades.

  9. #38
    Rally Onion! Chip R's Avatar
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    Re: The difference between Alonso and Stubbs/Mesoraco

    Quote Originally Posted by princeton View Post
    But the stadium looms as his big albatross. Wrong stadium for this market; it hamstrings the Reds, possibly for decades.

    Why do you say that?
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  10. #39
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    Re: The difference between Alonso and Stubbs/Mesoraco

    Quote Originally Posted by Chip R View Post
    Why do you say that?
    Because he presided over the construction of a bandbox ballpark that caters to a type of game and type of player that the fans in this town don't like to watch.

    Plus, the small dimensions make having premium pitching a must -- which a team like Cincinnati can't afford to go out and buy. It's almost always cheaper to buy a guy who can muscle the ball out of a big park than it is to buy a guy who can keep the ball inside a small park.
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    Re: The difference between Alonso and Stubbs/Mesoraco

    Quote Originally Posted by Caveat Emperor View Post

    Plus, the small dimensions make having premium pitching a must -- which a team like Cincinnati can't afford to go out and buy. It's almost always cheaper to buy a guy who can muscle the ball out of a big park than it is to buy a guy who can keep the ball inside a small park.
    Excellent point. A large park can be part of a winning strategy for a small market team. Oakland has had some fine pitchers, but they have appeared to be even better because of the large park and extensive foul area. It improves the marketability of your pitchers and helps in attracting middle of the rotation free agents at more reasonable prices.

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    Re: The difference between Alonso and Stubbs/Mesoraco

    The stadium and the team are a reflection of the owner. I still contend that Allen had no real power. He is a reflection of the owner's want/need to be conservative and without creativity...the OWNERS wanted a man who could operate the team and build the stadium within a narrow frame work. If that's what you want: John Allen is your man.

    I think there is an assumption that because he carried out some things that he had power and influence. He did not -not any more power or influence than say Marvin Lewis. They both were the face of the franchise-they both carried out policy and operations.....neither had a speck of real power. They took their orders from very conservative owners and they were told to operate within very defined parameters.

  13. #42
    Rally Onion! Chip R's Avatar
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    Re: The difference between Alonso and Stubbs/Mesoraco

    Quote Originally Posted by Cooper View Post
    The stadium and the team are a reflection of the owner. I still contend that Allen had no real power. He is a reflection of the owner's want/need to be conservative and without creativity...the OWNERS wanted a man who could operate the team and build the stadium within a narrow frame work. If that's what you want: John Allen is your man.

    I think there is an assumption that because he carried out some things that he had power and influence. He did not -not any more power or influence than say Marvin Lewis. They both were the face of the franchise-they both carried out policy and operations.....neither had a speck of real power. They took their orders from very conservative owners and they were told to operate within very defined parameters.

    You're probably right, Coop. But a lot of executives fit this bill. The difference between them and a guy like John Allen is the others will see a need and do their best to sell their boss on it even if it goes over budget. That's what JimBo did when he traded for Jr. It didn't turn out like everyone hoped but he wasn't willing to sit back and not do a deal like that because it would put the Reds over budget. Allen seemed like the type of guy who wouldn't go over budget even if it could help the team out.

    Getting back to the pitching, good pitchers can win anywhere. I've said this before but I watched Aaron Harang and C.C. Sabathia throw goose eggs for over 9 innings one afternoon. There were no hurricane force winds blowing in or 25 degree temperatures to keep balls in the park.

    I've seen plenty of other opposition pitchers and a few Reds pitchers throw gems in GAB. So it can be done. The organization just has to sell future pitchers on that. Challenge them. Everyone's got an ego and usually think they are better than what they really are. You tell a guy, "You think you're in the same class as Oswalt or Webb or Sabathia? Well, you shouldn't have any problems pitching here. If they can do it, so can you." Tell them they can go to San Diego and pitch in that place and be succesful but there will always be that little doubt in the back of their minds that it may not have been their ability but the park they pitch in. If you can pitch well in GAB, all doubt will be removed.
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