The Jocketty Files

[nate]

To me, they're basically the same. Wayne's moves had a greater dynamic range of "excitement" and talent but we're still here in the "Land of sub-.500" along with the Sleestaks and Pakuni.

[westofyou]

Meme #2 of Redszone, Wayne Krivsky is the devil.

Good stuff!

[OnBaseMachine]

Originally Posted by westofyou

Meme #2 of Redszone, Wayne Krivsky is the devil.

Good stuff!

Yep. Didn't you hear that Wayne went around kicking dogs and stealing girlfriends/wives in his spare time?

[nate]

Originally Posted by OnBaseMachine

Yep. Didn't you hear that Wayne went around kicking dogs and stealing girlfriends/wives in his spare time?

I heard he doesn't recycle and is a poor tipper.

[Mario-Rijo]

Originally Posted by edabbs44

You just don't get it.

What doesn't he get? That Walt is patient and isn't spending the big multi-billionaires pocket change? Please, please, please come with something better than a handful of contracts of which Walt's closing in fast on Wayne and yet moves at a far slower pace. All you need to know about these 2 is really simple.

Wayne got talent for nothing
Walt pays market price or above for it

Wayne paid too much money to try to put out a major league team on the field with little success
Walt ditto, he just works slower

Wayne was proactive
Walt is reactive, almost

Waynes greatest loss was Cantu
Walts greatest loss is Dunn to this point

Wayne started with O'Brien/Bowdens mess
Walt started with a better organization top to bottom and by a lot

Wayne had a 152 - 172 record with said mess
Walt has a 152 - 172 record with a better situation

Wayne did not deal any good prospects
Walt has

Wayne had poor PR skills
Walt is a master of manipulating the masses thru the media

Wayne trusted only those with evaluation skills because he trusts his evaluation skills
Walt trusts Bavasi and Bonifay and anyone else with an opinion because he knows no better

As far as I can see the only area Walt excels at is comforting the masses, now I can see why Bob hired him.

[edabbs44]

Originally Posted by OnBaseMachine

What I don't get is all the excuses for Jocketty while Krivsky was constantly hammered for everything he did. Even Krivsky's good moves were chalked up as luck while people make excuse after excuse for Jocketty. Jocketty has been horrible - far worse than Krivsky. Far worse.

No excuses for Jocketty. His job isn't completely different than say a new CEO of a firm like Citi or AIG. You walk in and find yourself in the middle of a financial crisis with a bunch of artery clogging positions on your books. You can't move these contracts w/o eating a significant portion and you can't add payroll due to these same decisions made a few years earlier. So what is Walt supposed to do? Harang has little mkt value, Cordero the same b/c of his contract and Arroyo is Jeckyll and Hyde.

Krivsky made a few good moves but taking flyers on failed prospects is like 1% of a GMs job. He failed in his bigger moves on a number of occasions. Picking up guys like Arroyo, Hamilton and Phillips were nice and all. I'll give him as much credit as he deserves for those moves. In the grand scheme they haven't brought us winning baseball so I'm not sure why we would choose to focus on a few singular wins when the sum of the moves has equaled what we have witnessed. Arroyo for Pena was a good move, but that move did nothing and then got lessened by the extension. The feel good Hamilton story has been greatly overrated. We got a half of solid production from him, then traded him for a guy who was lights out for 1/2 a season and then decent to good for a year. Now he is recovering from surgery and we'll see what happens in his future. Phillips was a no risk move that worked out greatly.

If you want, we can list the failed moves here as well and the record of the team. Which should be the most important grade on the report card. Most to all of WK's moves were designed to help the major league team and didn't do much for the farm. And yet the team still sucked. He spent more money than I remember seeing a GM spend in these parts. He chose to focus on the bullpen. And he failed in the overall task of getting winning baseball to Cincy.

You can say that he didn't have enough time, but the scary thing would have been to give him more time. He would have had to continue on the "win now" path without having the money to do so. I can't see WK being able to succeed in his plan, whatever that was, without money to spend.

[Raisor]

Originally Posted by edabbs44

You can't move these contracts w/o eating a significant portion and you can't add payroll due to these same decisions made a few years earlier. So what is Walt supposed to do? Harang has little mkt value, Cordero the same b/c of his contract and Arroyo is Jeckyll and Hyde.

What Walt does is give over 30million to Rolen, Lincoln, and Willy T.

That's horrible horrible roster management.

[edabbs44]

Originally Posted by Raisor

What Walt does is give over 30million to Rolen, Lincoln, and Willy T.

That's horrible horrible roster management.

Wayne gave, what, roughly $120MM to Harang, Arroyo, Cordero, Stanton and Gonzalez? When the situation was screaming to wait on spending until the youth was ready? Which happens to be the next couple of years, not 3 years ago.

And this is not counting the little moves like Conine and Cormier. Or Fogg. But we can total them all up and see how much money has been wasted. I'll take Walt as the winner in that battle.

$21MM or so of that money went to Stanton and Gonzo by the way. Stellar.

[OnBaseMachine]

I'm not going to sit here and argue this on Christmas Eve. Just look at the transactions for both GM's and it's pretty clear that Krivsky was better than Jocketty.

[edabbs44]

Originally Posted by OnBaseMachine

I'm not going to sit here and argue this on Christmas Eve. Just look at the transactions for both GM's and it's pretty clear that Krivsky was better than Jocketty.

If the entire grade of a GM was based solely on who you acquired, without factoring in contracts, money spent, W/L record, drafting, planning for the future, etc, then I would agree with you.

[HokieRed]

O'Brien acquired Bailey, Bruce, Cueto, and Francisco--in two years. If adding impact players is to be the standard, as I think it should be, there's no doubt the biggest mistake the organization's made in recent years is getting rid of O'Brien.

[TheNext44]

Originally Posted by Raisor

What Walt does is give over 30million to Rolen, Lincoln, and Willy T.

That's horrible horrible roster management.

Giving $10M to Taveras and Lincoln is inexcusable.

Giving $20M to Rolen in order to save $5M this season might be questioned, but has been considered a smart move by many. Not fair to lump it in with the other two. In fact, there's a decent chance that Rolen's production alone over the next three will be worth all the money given to all three.

[nate]

Originally Posted by TheNext44

Giving $10M to Taveras and Lincoln is inexcusable.

Giving $20M to Rolen in order to save $5M this season might be questioned, but has been considered a smart move by many. Not fair to lump it in with the other two. In fact, there's a decent chance that Rolen's production alone over the next three will be worth all the money given to all three.

Yes.

[Raisor]

Originally Posted by nate

Yes.

our first fight.

[KoryMac5]

Originally Posted by HokieRed

O'Brien acquired Bailey, Bruce, Cueto, and Francisco--in two years. If adding impact players is to be the standard, as I think it should be, there's no doubt the biggest mistake the organization's made in recent years is getting rid of O'Brien.

It is too bad we couldn't have merged all three, O'Brien, Walt, and Wayne into some huge Frankenstein GM. All three had different strengths and weaknesses.