Like many of this site’s readers, the author of this post has occasionally entertained a fantasy in which he’s tasked — as the general manager of a major-league club — with constructing a championship roster. As with many fantasies, this one is burdened by awful, dumb reality: apart from an impressive combination of talent and experience, the position of general manager also requires one to work “all the time” or at least “nearly all the time.” For those among us who have already allocated a portion of the day to assuming the fetal position and weeping gently, that sort of obligation is untenable. As assorted industry contacts have confirmed for me, employment in a front office allows almost zero time for reflection on the horror of merely existing.
Still, this doesn’t prevent one from contemplating how one would conduct the affairs of a club were he given the opportunity. This post is designed to do that, briefly.
This post is also built on a reasonable assumption — namely that, among the general manager’s most important duties (and the scouting director’s and team president’s) is the acquisition of amateur talent. With few exceptions, organizations exercise great control over players whom they procure by means either of the draft or international free agency. In addition to owning the rights to such players for years in the minors, clubs are then entitled to six or seven years of player control in the majors. One can (and maybe should) debate the merits of the system; however, that debate lies outside the scope of this very modest report. What’s relevant here is the fact that it exists.
Even if a club doesn’t have space for a talented player on its 25-man roster, this doesn’t render that player’s value moot. The Detroit Tigers, for example, have maintained a strong major-league club for much of the last decade in part by exchanging young, cost-controlled prospects for more expensive, more proven major leaguers. While the Tigers have frequently placed among the bottom third of farm-rankings lists, this isn’t to say that the organization hasn’t reaped the benefits of its amateur scouting department. Rather, they’ve attempted to leverage those benefits in a different way — by exchanging future for present value.
What’s the best place to find such players, though? That’s the question a GM et al. must answer — and the more accurate the answer, the better situated a club to win.
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