Kim Ng Deserved More From the Marlins
Kim Ng broke ground as both the majors’ first female general manager, and its first of East Asian descent, the culmination of a three-decade rise through the front offices of the White Sox, Yankees, Dodgers, and Major League Baseball. But after a three-season run during which she guided the Marlins to just their fourth postseason appearance ever, not to mention their first full-season finish above .500 since 2009, she and the team have parted ways. Reportedly, while the Marlins exercised their end of a mutual option for 2024, she declined her end, believing she had earned a stronger commitment from ownership.
After a decade and a half of interviews that put her on the cusp of history, Ng became the first female GM of a men’s team in any major league North American professional sport when the Marlins hired her in November 2020. She took over on the heels of the pandemic-shortened season, during which the Marlins went 31-29 and made the expanded playoffs, their first postseason appearance of any kind since 2003. The Marlins backslid to 67-95 in 2021 and 69-93 last year amid considerable organizational upheaval, but this year’s team broke through, winning 84 games (albeit with a -57 run differential) and drawing 1.16 million fans, the NL’s lowest total but the team’s highest since 2017, when it was still under the ownership of Jeffrey Loria. The Marlins finished third in the NL East, and through a tiebreaker claimed the fifth playoff seed. They dropped two games to the Phillies and were eliminated on October 4.
Generally such breakthroughs elicit extension offers that provide security instead of placing executives in lame-duck positions. Ng did receive an offer, according to ESPN’s Buster Olney, but it came with a catch. Owner Bruce Sherman is seeking to bring in a president of baseball operations, a senior executive to whom Ng would have reported. Understandably, moving down the pecking order wasn’t what Ng had in mind, as she had hopes of expanding and reshaping the front office under her own vision, cutting ties with holdovers in the scouting and player development department “with whom she did not reach a good working relationship,” according to the New York Post’s Joel Sherman.
Via The Athletic’s Tyler Kepner, Ng issued a statement:
“Last week, Bruce (Sherman) and I discussed his plan to reshape the Baseball Operations department. In our discussions, it became apparent that we were not completely aligned on what that should look like and I felt it best to step away.
“I wish to express my sincere gratitude and appreciation to the Marlins family and its fans for my time in South Florida. This year was a great step forward for the organization, and I will miss working with Skip [manager Skip Schumaker] and his coaches as well as all of the dedicated staff in baseball operations and throughout the front office. They are a very talented group and I wish them great success in the future.”
All of this feels very par for the course for the Marlins, who haven’t exactly cultivated a winning tradition because, you know, those things cost money. Since Sherman purchased the Marlins from Loria for $1.2 billion in October 2017, the team’s payroll has consistently ranked among the majors’ bottom 10, and often among the bottom five, just as it generally was with Loria:
| Year | 40-Man Payroll | Rk | Top exec | W-L | Win% |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2018 | $90.5M | 27 | Michael Hill, POBO | 63-98 | .391 |
| 2019 | $75.7M | 29 | Michael Hill, POBO | 57-105 | .352 |
| 2020 | $74.7M* | 21 | Michael Hill, POBO | 31-29 | .517 |
| 2021 | $60.9M | 27 | Kim Ng, GM | 67-95 | .414 |
| 2022 | $83.6M | 26 | Kim Ng, GM | 69-93 | .426 |
| 2023 | $110.2M* | 22* | Kim Ng, GM | 84-78 | .519 |
When Sherman purchased the team, he brought Derek Jeter on board as CEO with a $5 million salary and a 4% ownership interest. With Hill serving as president of baseball operations under Jeter, the Marlins nearly halved their payroll from 2017 to ’21 by trading away the likes of Giancarlo Stanton, Marcell Ozuna, Christian Yelich, Dee Strange-Gordon, and J.T. Realmuto, bringing in prospects such as Sandy Alcantara and Zac Gallen, Lewis Brinson, Sixto Sánchez, and more (spoiler alert: they didn’t all pan out). When Jeter found Sherman unwilling to increase spending significantly so as to woo free agents, he stepped down and divested his ownership share in February 2022, saying, “[T]he vision for the future of the franchise is different than the one I signed up to lead.” His departure was the bellwether of further change. In June 2022, vice president of player development Gary Denbo, a Jeter hire who alienated numerous staffers, was fired. In September, manager Don Mattingly, who had piloted the team since 2016, resigned.
Ng had ties to Mattingly from her time as assistant GM with the Dodgers from 2002–11, and to Jeter and Denbo from her time as assistant GM with the Yankees from 1998–2001. All of them predated her arrival in Miami. The hiring of Schumaker provided her with an opportunity to put a fresh stamp on the organization, and to bring in somebody from outside her sphere. The early returns on Schumaker have been positive, and both he and Ng have been credited with changing the culture, bringing a new attitude and credibility to a franchise desperately in need both.
Ng inherited a team well-stocked with young pitching; in 2020, 53 of its 60 starts were taken by pitchers in their age-25 seasons or younger, with two of those pitchers (Sánchez and Trevor Rogers) among the four Marlins who appeared on our 2021 Top 100 Prospects list, along with shortstop Jazz Chisholm Jr. (acquired from the Diamondbacks in a 2019 deadline trade for Gallen) and outfielder JJ Bleday, the fourth pick of the 2019 draft. Though the names have changed as pitchers have developed and/or gotten injured, Ng has maintained that enviable stockpile. Two-thirds of the team’s starts this year went to pitchers in their age-25 seasons and younger, including 20-year-old phenom Eury Pérez, a 2019 international signee who placed third in this year’s Top 100. Alcantara, the reigning NL Cy Young winner, accounted for more than half the remaining starts, and even as he regressed in his age-27 season before missing the final month and needing Tommy John surgery, the unit thrived, finishing in the majors’ top 10 in ERA, FIP, and WAR. Even amid their 90-plus losses, the rotation ranked among the majors’ top 12 in all three categories in 2022, with the first two in the top half (and 17th by WAR) in ’21.
(For as much of a bummer as it is to lose Alcantara for next season, Ng did sign him to a five-year, $56 million extension in November 2021. After rehabbing he’ll have at least two more seasons under team control, three if the Marlins exercise his $21 million option for 2027.)
That largely-inherited core has helped to compensate for the team’s limited free agent spending. Of the nine players Ng signed to major league contracts, only four were for multiple seasons. Only three had total values of more than $8.5 million, and the returns on those (Avisaíl García at four years, $53 million, Jorge Soler at three years, $40 million, and Jean Segura at two years, $17 million) haven’t been great, with both García and Segura below replacement level. Soler did hit 36 homers this season, and Ng flipped Segura at the deadline (along with infielder Kahlil Watson, a 45-FV prospect in High-A) to Cleveland for Josh Bell, who had been sub-replacement level in the first year of his two-year, $33 million deal. The Guardians instantly released Segura, eating his remaining salary, while Bell perked up to produce a 119 wRC+ with 0.7 WAR post-trade, aiding the Marlins’ playoff push.
Indeed, Ng’s more notable transactions have involved trades, of which the best thus far has been the July 28, 2021 deal that sent pending free agent Starling Marte to Oakland for Jesús Luzardo, who’s developed into a very good starter and is under club control through 2026. Her most well-known deal is probably the January one that paid quick dividends for both sides, as she sent Pablo López and two teenage prospects to the Twins for Luis Arraez, who flirted with .400 in the first half and won the NL batting title; meanwhile, López helped the Twins win the AL Central and break their 18-game postseason losing streak. Besides Bell, her other key deadline trade this year netted third baseman Jake Burger from the White Sox for 45-FV lefty pitching prospect Jake Eder. Burger hit for a 131 wRC+ and produced 1.1 WAR down the stretch; he’s under club control through 2028.
Not to be overlooked is Ng’s trade for reliever Tanner Scott via a five-player deal with the Orioles in April 2022. In his 10th professional season, the 29-year-old lefty broke out to lead the majors in WAR (2.8) and WPA (4.90) this year thanks to improved control and weaker contact. Ng also acquired reliever A.J. Puk from the A’s for the disappointing Bleday this past February; he and Scott combined for 27 of the team’s 43 saves.
Not all of Ng’s deals have panned out, less due to traded youngsters blossoming into stars à la Gallen (a Hill trade) than to meager performances by the players acquired. The 2021 deadline flip of pending free agent reliever Yimi García to Houston brought outfielder Bryan De La Cruz, who after a promising late-’21 stint has netted just 0.6 WAR in two seasons of regular play. The November 2021 trade of three players for the Pirates’ Gold Glove-winning catcher Jacob Stallings has yielded back-to-back sub-replacement level campaigns. This year’s late-July acquisition of David Robertson from the Mets in exchange for two teenage position players — an unexpected opening salvo regarding both teams’ deadline intentions — brought in a once-elite reliever, though Robertson posted a 5.06 ERA and was supplanted by Scott as closer.
As for the Marlins’ drafts, the jury is still out, as none of the players chosen on Ng’s watch have reached the majors. She dealt Watson, the team’s 2021 first-rounder, after his stock had fallen due to an on-field incident with an umpire. Of the Marlins’ other first-round picks over the past three years, 2021 pick Joe Mack grades out as a 40+ FV prospect, as does 2022 pick Jacob Berry, a third baseman (the only college player of this group). This year’s first rounders, righty Noble Meyer (45+ FV) and lefty Thomas White (45 FV) are the team’s third- and fourth-ranked prospects on The Board behind second baseman Yiddi Cappe and righty Max Meyer, their only two prospects among the Top 100. Meyer, the third pick of the 2020 draft, is recovering from August 2022 Tommy John surgery but could join the rotation at some point next year.
If Ng’s track record in handling the Marlins’ roster is hardly flawless, what head of baseball operations’ record is? The point stands that she built a playoff team despite limited resources, which at the very least puts her ahead of the nine teams around the league that didn’t crack the postseason at all from 2021-23, some while spending much more money. The Marlins are trending in the right direction and will bear Ng’s fingerprints for years. She deserved the security and authority to continue building.
As to where the Marlins go from here, assistant GMs Brian Chattin, Dan Greenlee, and Oz Ocampo are said to be candidates for the GM spot. No names have surfaced yet for the president of baseball operations position, but whoever pursues the job will surely note that both Ng and Hill departed immediately after producing playoff teams — suggesting, perhaps, that escape from the Marlins is the real reward.
As for Ng, she began her career with the White Sox in 1991, rising from an intern to assistant director of baseball operations before leaving in ’96. Those ties could make her an appealing candidate to become the team’s president of baseball operations above Chris Getz, who was promoted from assistant GM to GM after senior VP Ken Williams and GM Rick Hahn were fired in August. The Red Sox also have an opening after firing Chaim Bloom; reportedly, potential candidates such as Dodgers GM Brandon Gomes, Phillies GM Sam Fuld, Twins POBO Derek Falvey, and former Rangers POBO Jon Daniels have all declined to interview given the organization’s recent instability. Maybe Ng will see things differently.
The other high-profile executive opening is the Mets’ GM job after Billy Eppler’s surprising resignation. Owner Steve Cohen recently hired David Stearns as the team’s POBO, so being second in command might hold less appeal for Ng, but on the other hand, she’d join a franchise flush with resources, and her knowledge of the NL East would make her a particularly valuable addition.
To these eyes, the return to New York that would make more sense would be via the Yankees, with Cashman assuming the POBO job. Initial reports that Hal Steinbrenner would bring in outside consultants to perform an audit proved inaccurate, but amid the team’s internal navel-gazing after missing the playoffs, they ought to realize the need for new perspectives in the room. Ng’s quite familiar with Cashman and the pressures of the Bronx, and could bring back what she’s learned in nearly two decades since leaving the team.
Ng began interviewing for GM jobs in 2005, when she did so with the Dodgers, and she interviewed with at least four other teams over the next decade and a half before landing the Marlins’ job. She’s demonstrated her acumen as a front office leader, and deserved a longer run in Miami. But while we can lament the likelihood that the executive pool will become less diverse in her absence, the reality is that this is the Marlins’ loss more than it is hers. Whether or not she lands her next executive job this year, she’ll move on to bigger and better things soon enough.
Brooklyn-based Jay Jaffe is a senior writer for FanGraphs, the author of The Cooperstown Casebook (Thomas Dunne Books, 2017) and the creator of the JAWS (Jaffe WAR Score) metric for Hall of Fame analysis. He founded the Futility Infielder website (2001), was a columnist for Baseball Prospectus (2005-2012) and a contributing writer for Sports Illustrated (2012-2018). He has been a recurring guest on MLB Network and a member of the BBWAA since 2011, and a Hall of Fame voter since 2021. Follow him on BlueSky @jayjaffe.bsky.social.
i don’t get it. Her time with the Marlins was largely par for the course. No huge wins, no big losses roster or farm system wise.
they offered a par for the course, originally agreed upon option for 2024. Didn’t extend her or fire her.
so why did she deserve better?
Simple answer: she didn’t.
‘Diversity’ is the only, and quite non-baseball, answer as to why this article exists. As Jay’s cited facts quite fairly make clear (kudos there), Ng did, aah, OK, or shot ‘par for the course’ as you state.
From my own research, 3 years is a bit short for a GM to be jettisoned for ‘aah’ results. But only a bit. (‘5 years’ is what I came up with for an overall tenure average, and that included guys who voluntarily moved on) Now a position being created above you that wasn’t there in the first place does connote a demotion, so I understand Ng moving on.
But she’s in no way a GM martyr. If you postulate a ‘1’ GM-expectations level, Ng was held to a 1.1 level. Maybe 1.2, tops.
Oh, and from an Organizational Management perspective, “I want to fire a whole lot of people-I mean, ‘replace’ coughcough them with MY! people” is grounds for my making authority-level changes such that “no, you cannot fire all these people whom I don’t think deserve termination”.
My brother in Christ…what about Sherman’s tenure could possibly earn him the benefit of the doubt, haha?
Was it the CEO quitting, then publicly stating that Sherman had lied to him about his willingness to spend?
Was it firing the pitching specialist who has run their player development over the last 4 years, because he didn’t get on with his cronies?
Or is it this latest, clearly calculated, decision to snub the first GM to take the Marlins to a proper playoffs in 20 years?
?? I’m puzzled as to what you think this has to do with OKing the firing of people whom you think have done alright by the organization?
(OK I’m not puzzled; every down-voting reader here knows it has nothing to do with it)
Lol.
lmao are you okay man?
A single imperative: we.
“Diversity” – this is a unique and not at all baseball view of the question of why this article exists. Although they all rightfully testify that he proclaimed Jeia (glory there), Ng did, aah, well, or shot “off course”, as you claim.
According to my own researches, 3 hours is a bit short for the fact that GM was thrown out for “ah” results. Call dad. (“5 Rokyv” is something that was invented during the hardened middle term of being in positions, and it included guys who voluntarily moved away) Now there is a position over it, but there was no mistake, it means that they were appointed to positions, so I understand , so Ng ruhaetsa gave.
However, she is a martyr of GM. If you postulate the level of expectations of GM “1”, at Ng kept at the level of 1.1. 1. and 2. may melt.
This blowhard is back to mock anyone who dares have a POV outside the alt-left Fangraphs-approved POV.
It isn’t “par for the course” if they hire someone new to be your boss.
Yup It seems they wanted her gone so they demoted her, hoping she would quit. In my book that is dishonest. Stand up and fire her if that is what you really wanted. Do it the honest way. Don’t try to put it on her for walking away.
This is kind of how the Astros fired Click, too.
Avoiding media attention is probably why they did it this way. It’s a lot better publicity to part mutually than firing the first female GM. Dishonest? Maybe, but they were still willing to keep paying her; they just wanted someone else to have the final say on her work. In the end, she got the memo, and I’m willing to bet she finds a new, probably better job, assuming she doesn’t have any particular fault during her time in Miami.
I guess. I’m not sure how much this signifies they were really willing to keep paying her – it’s a lot like the Astros offering Correa 6/160m (to move off SS for an unnamed starter not yet on the team).
Without commenting on Ng’s abilities as a GM, I think we can all agree they’d be better off with a new ownership group and Ng than with the current schmucks and a new GM.
They offered a contract. Whether in good faith or bad, if she accepted, regardless, they would be making good on those terms.
As for ownership, sure. High unlikely. I think a fresh slate is best for both parties. But even a new owner wouldn’t hire Ng. Kinda hard to sell a new owner on her track record after spending billions.
Considering that under NG, Miami made the playoffs in a full season for the first time in 20 years, that is the opposite of “par for the course.” It’s also not standard operating practice to have a GM enter the final year in a lame-duck position, as Jay illustrates. What was in the “offer” wasn’t really an offer at all.
Your post managed to use par for the course incorrectly on one hand and disingenuously on the other. A rare feat!
they were 20 games over .500 in 1 run games and had a negative run differential. they got lucky
Looking at the run differential, the contributions from pre-arb players, and the minor league system doesn’t inspire a lot of confidence in the 2024 and 2025 Marlins. MLB teams can break out unexpectedly, though.
You can argue about process, her moves, the state of the farm systems. But ultimately, what happens on the field is really what matters most. And, lucky or not, her team made the playoffs. They don’t have to give that appearance back because they were lucky through the season.
Ok but the team getting lucky doesn’t make her a good GM
With a bottom third payroll? Yes, it does.
You don’t automatically give a GM an extension just because the team makes the playoffs. If a pitcher is called up in September, gets hit hard, doesn’t strike out many batters, loads the bases every inning, but somehow manages a 2.5 ERA and goes 5-0, you wouldn’t offer him an extension because he has a knack for keeping runs off the board.
This is a good analogy but there are people who think that “keeping runs off the board” is still the best way to measure it and so it will be lost on them.
She drafted badly, signed badly, made the farm worse and quit instead of taking responsibility. Good riddance.
What a dumb comment.
I believe you overrated the comment by calling it just “dumb”.
She didn’t deserve better, of course. Her position player development has been quite bad and a team like the Marlins has to be able to develop hitters. Joe Mack? Jacob Berry? Khalil Watson? There’s not a single drafted and developed hitter on that roster who looks likely to be a meaningful big league contributor. On the other hand, she’s done a great job developing pitchers but less so in trading them for hitters. Sherman wanted someone above her who could improve the development staff. That he wanted her to stay on board seems an acknowledgement for the good pitching roster development. Such is life and I doubt she’s getting defended this way if she was a white man. Such is Fangraphs.
Absolutely not. And those who claim to be the most tolerant, continue to form opinions based strictly on people’s race or gender.
Awww, you get downvoted because others largely don’t agree with you? How, exactly, are you not being tolerated here?! It’s pretty funny (see: pathetic) to see how a few of you are trying to denigrate another opinion because you claim it’s rooted in race and gender…and no one is making that argument besides you few. You think her baseball record is subpar? Cool. Then why bring up race and gender at all? Seems like it bothers you for no good reason. And yet again, we have numbnuts on a fantasy baseball message board lamenting how they’re oh so brave and unpopular opinions are being unfairly judged by the alt-left. Give me a break. You’re not a victim here. Neither are those who agree with you. But most people here don’t agree and are allowed to express that. Get over yourself, you brave message board warrior.
That’s not the kind of tolerance they were talking about.
You don’t understand. She deserved better and was let down by everyone from ownership, her staff, the players, to the fanbase. All of these people need to take accountability for the middling to below average results.
Yeah keep building strawman arguments. No one has mentioned her race or gender in defending her, but rather the team’s success and subsequent playoff berth this year. With a tiny payroll. You can express your opinion without making a victim of the “white man,” which only shows your true intent here. Pretty gross, you and others decrying the virtues of inclusivity while no one is making those arguments. We get it. You have a different opinion of her track record in baseball. So why not stick to those specific ideas instead of trying to start a fight along gender and race lines?
I mentioned all the microaggressions and said Miami should learn and do better! I thought I was on the right side of history here?
It’s the moralizing tone of suggesting “desert” for Ng. Jay wouldn’t have done that for any GM with Ng’s track record of prospect development failure if she wasn’t so intersectional. If Ben Cherington makes the playoffs next year but Nutting hires over him because Davis and Termarr Johnson still aren’t tracking to be meaningful MLB bats, no one will moralize about it, guaranteed.
Well stated dezre
Well aped, Montreal!
I’m guessing wokegraphs is a white man.
The Marlins knew full well that no GM in Ng’s position would’ve ever accepted a demotion, so “picking up her option” was meaningless. They wanted her gone; that was a dismissal with some extra steps involved.
The relationship between her and Sherman must’ve truly deteriorated because the whole thing feels bizarre in light of her results. If it was a competent franchise you could argue they deserve the benefit of the doubt, but the Marlins have no such track record
It’s not a demotion to keep your job. She wanted to control areas outside of her control and the owner didn’t want that.
Billy Eppler left too.
These things happen
I think going from being the head of the baseball ops department to being directly under the head of the baseball ops department qualifies as a demotion regardless of the specific job title.
This isn’t what happened. For her entire tenure, Kim Ng was the head of baseball operations with the title of GM. They wanted to bring in a POBO, which they did not have, and consequently make her the #2 in baseball operations with the same title.
That’s a demotion, friend. That’s taking someone from the decisionmaker into not-the-decisionmaker, and I do not believe anyone currently in the role of chief decisionmaker for a MLB team would remain in-role if someone else was brought in to be their boss. It’s a demotion!
No she wasn’t. She did not have all the depts under her that a POBO does. She had a more limited role. She wanted all those responsibilities and they didn’t want to do that.
As to it being a demotion. It wasn’t. They didn’t hire a POBO on top of her. There’s no indication yet that they will do that. They might just hire another GM.
Exactly. They basically fired her and tried to make it look like it was her walking away. Bad on the Marlins.
I gonna go way out on a limb here and speculate that perhaps Bruce Sherman is not an easy person to work with.
Her draft record is not great and her free agent record with Garcia and Segura being disasters isn’t good though Soler has been a mixed bag. She did make two pretty great trades in trading Marte, who was a rental for Luzardo, who has been real god and the Tanner Scott deal was a coup. The young position players haven’t developed well but post Yelich, Stanton and Ozuna they hadn’t developed well under Hill either it seems like their position player development system is broken. I believe she wanted to make changes there before the two sides parted. She’s probably a middle of the pack gm, who probably deserved better and hopefully gets another gm job with less restrictions.
I don’t see her even middle of the pack. The pack is generally pretty good nowadays. She seems more like a well-liked organizational soldier than a visionary or even someone like Bloom or Cherington who cut their teeth in a really modern system. I can’t think of many current GMs I wouldn’t rather have. Ed Wade and his ilk are long gone
Pirates fan here. Cherington is really ordinary at best, and any semblance of competitiveness the Pirates have are from NH holdovers. And Bloom basically Hamletted his way out of a job because he couldn’t figure out a direction and made poor FA choices when he tried to take any steps. Not the best examples.
Cherington has spent the last two years drafting tons of SEC pitchers with control problems. The book on him in a small market will definitely be fairly written by end of season 2025, imo. Some interesting pitching coming up but can they turn around some of these young bats (Davis, Endy, Peguero, Gonzales) at MLB and further develop Termarr, Jebb, White, etc? Pretty bad on hitters similar to Ng so far. I wouldn’t protest if Cherington was “hired above” soon.
You think the book on a small market GM takes a full six years to say if it’s successful or not? Twice as long as Kim Ng got. Interesting.
I’m not a fan of complete tear downs as a rebuild simply because it’s often a mask to keep costs down, it doesn’t put a real timeline on when they’ll contend, and if it doesn’t work…you’ve wasted half a decade. They didn’t put a valid product on the field for three seasons.
The young pitching had massive issues this year with Q, Ro, and Ortiz all seeing their stuff back up. They gave almost 1,400 plate appearances to Triolo, Endy, Peguro, Gonzales, Bae, and Davis and combined for 0.4 WAR. Granted some of those guys did ok from time to time at the plate (Triolo especially), but they really need to see at least one of those guys take a big step forward at the plate.
There are still some good parts of the farm. They fell into Skenes, but you always need some luck. Termarr looks like more power than hit, but the system is light on power. There is more pitching coming up on the upper levels, but again, the same question comes up: will they be able to succeed at the MLB level relatively quickly? If not, I don’t see the club moving forward very far.
Five, sure, although I wouldn’t be sad if Cherington got hired over this offseason as Ng would have been if she hadn’t resigned. I’m giving Cherington an extra year because Covid and MiLB season lost, shortened draft, etc.
I think three years with a low-budget franchise isn’t enough to form an opinion on a GM’s skills one way or the other. How she’d do with a normal organization and enough time to get first draft class into the majors is still a question mark.
It’s enough time to figure out if she is going to be someone who delivers that wow or not.
The Miami Marlins probably feel they need a wow to grab the attention of some of the most inconsistent and bandwagony fans out there (pardon to those true diehards down in Florida).
I didn’t see this before I posted my own comment. This is roughly where I’m at; we have no idea.
At the end of the day there is not a lot of evidence either way that she was the right person leading a franchise going forward. Three years is not a long time to evaluate someone, especially when they don’t have the money to make a lot of moves. You could say that she deserved more time, you could also say that the end of her contract is a natural time to part with someone if you’re not confident in them.
I’m pretty unsure if this was a good move for an organization or not. All I know is that the way this came down makes me think that Sherman is going to be meddling a lot going forward and that is bad.
*their
Are you actually trying to suggest that there was already a GM whose ancestry derived from somewhere else on the Asian continent? I certainly can’t think of one.
Farhan Zaidi became the Dodgers GM in 2014.
Thanks! I knew I must be forgetting someone.
Zaidi has Pakistani ancestry and grew up in the Philippines.
Farhan Zaidi is of Pakistani descent
Farhan. Swing and a miss, Rog.
Not hired before Ng but Perry Minasian comes from an Armenian family. Doesn’t get mentioned under the “diversity hire” comments much despite the poor results thus far.
If/when Moreno finally releases his death grip on the Angels franchise, Ng should be considered for POBO. A role that has stupidly sat empty for years…
Armenia is not in East Asia. It’s so far West that it is barely in Asia.
“Are you actually trying to suggest that there was already a GM whose ancestry derived from somewhere else on the Asian continent?”
Splitting hairs now are we?
Thank you for at least mentioning the -57 run differential. It’s certainly POSSIBLE that the marlins just saw this season as a lucky result rather than a good job. That would be a defensible position IMO.
However of course the marlins org deserves no such benefit of the doubt and they’re probably just being shitty again.
Last year they fired their pitching development guru because he didn’t get on with Sherman’s cronies, haha
I don’t know whether Kim Ng is a good GM or not. She was the #2 person in a group that built a really good pitching development program, but I’ve heard rumors (from people on here, no less) that a lot of the people who were involved in that are gone. It’s hard to know how much credit she deserves for the development successes.
So from that perspective, it’s hard to know whether replacing her (and make no mistake, that is what the Marlins decided on) is the right move or not. There might be someone out there who is better.
However, where I can fault the Marlins is that they let her go because (1) they wanted to hire a baseball person over her while also (2) not giving any authority on changes to the front office staff. If they’re putting restrictions on who the head baseball people can fire and hire then they’re definitely not getting anyone better than her. You can’t build an entire operation and then hire someone to come in and manage it and not expect to make changes.
Maybe they’re willing to give authority to someone else but not her, but to me this looks like a meddling owner situation.
It looks to me like an owner who wants to be more involved and not hand that off to one person. There’s nothing wrong with that. These POBOs are just extra layers in Corporate world speak. When your only job is to manage other people who do the work, it’s an easy job to eliminate or in the Marlins case, not have at all.
POBO is just the new title for GM as part of the general title creep in baseball because of how the movement of front office execs between teams works. POBOs are doing the same jobs that GMs in teams without POBOs are doing or GMs were doing 10 years ago before the POBO title took off. The GMs under POBOs are really just the top AGM, but the titles have changed.
I think it all started with Andrew Friedman getting the POBO title when he joined the Dodgers making it technically a promotion from the Rays to fill the same role. He then hired Farhan Zaidi from the A’s and named him GM so that was technically a promotion from his AGM role in Oakland.
The Los Angeles Angels Of Anaheim say hello.
Gary Denbo created the program that has every other random Yankees prospect add two ticks and doubles their spin rate.
I’m not sure that it’s actually good to throw harder with more spin if it’s an even less natural motion than pitching in the first place. There has to be a reason for the ridiculous ubiquity of TJS, and I’d start to look at what’s changed in the past 40 or 20 years
In any case, I would imagine that Kim Ng has a lot of options right now, maybe not as the #1 decision maker (except in Boston, where she also apparently can’t fire or hire anyone). I’m not sure whether she wants to be back in as a #2, although she’d definitely be an asset to either the Mets or Yankees. Maybe she goes back to work for MLB.
Don’t see why she’d have any more interest in the Yankees than Miami or Boston – same issues at the tippy top.
The Mets could make a lot of sense.
No one wants the Boston job considering that ownership can’t figure out what general direction they want to take.
I called that one from the moment Bloom was fired. No one with options is going to want that job. They might hire you to do a job and really believe that’s what they want, but four years later they will not. Even if you do the job you talked about with ownership.
And you’re stuck with the whole front office structure and manager / coaching staff that they’re committed too.
The only thing that’s left to do is to just promote someone from within. Or hire someone like Neal Huntington who probably doesn’t deserve a second chance and knows they won’t have any other option. I’m surprised Click even interviewed.
Click may have interviewed so he’d get the opportunity to publicly turn them down, haha – the man came up with Bloom and had to clean up after Cora’s bullshit in Houston.
Speaking of people who don’t deserve second chances and wouldn’t mind working with Cora…maybe they’ll interview Luhnow!
I think they’ll go outside an hire a really smart #2. Big names will probably turn them down but Breslow, Fuld, Sig, Rasuenbaum are the type of execs I’d imagine they go after.
Looks like it is going to Breslow. Didn’t think they would get him but it’s a big promotion for him and he’s from New England.
I think Fuld has already turned them down. All of those people will run their own departments someday (including Rosenbaum, who will definitely follow in Ng’s footsteps), so it’s more a question of when they think it is the right fit.
I’m really interested in this new wave of former players turned GM’s. First, Young with the Rangers and now Fuld and Breslow look like potential guys.
If the Sox do go with Breslow, I wonder if they’d also try to get a GM to work under him. Or maybe the guy would be Romero. But id wonder how he’d feel about being passed over by a guy with very little FO experience
Romero might hope to be the “safe pair of hands” who doesn’t have to deal with the cheater as an entrenched manager.
Honestly, I’m not surprised that the Sox “got” Breslow.
He’s obviously a bright guy…but there is literally not a single other team in baseball who would be willing to hire a GM whose top previous role was as the Cubs’ #4 in charge of pitching from 2021-23.
Plus, he played with Cora back in the day.
Aside from the bad practice of hiring former agents to be GMs (which hopefully most teams won’t do again), the most obvious analogy is to Chris Young. Young spent a couple of years working for MLB, spent a year and a half in the #2 job, and then they fired Daniels and had him take over the whole thing. Breslow has more years of experience doing relevant work, but he hasn’t done it at quite as high a level (AGM vs GM).
But both were considered to be very smart by any standard, so teams are willing to bank on them. FWIW, I don’t know how I feel about that. Being smart is not that much of a separator at that level…a lot of people are smart.
The one line I’d draw to distinguish Young from Breslow (beyond Young’s two years actually having been in the #2 role) is that Young wasn’t changing organizations.
Rangers ownership had seen his work firsthand for two years, and could be confident in his ability to collaborate with his team, even as his responsibilities evolved to include final say.
To Breslows credit, he’s a Theo guy. I wouldn’t be surprised Theo gave Breslow a recommendation.
I’d guess Click interviewed because there are only 30 of these jobs out there. But if I were him and was offered, I don’t think I’d take it.
I would take her as POBO of the White Sox in a heartbeat if only because I think Chris Getz has been really, really bad at directing player development and is terribly unqualified to be their GM. It would make for a muddled front office where it was unclear who was in charge (sounds familiar), but that’s better than leaving Getz all alone and in charge.
I wonder if she would prefer to work as a #2 or as a #1 who can’t hire or fire anyone. Doesn’t sound like a great situation…
But I would agree that she would definitely be an asset to the White Sox. One thing the White Sox needs badly is new ideas from outside of the organization and the one thing everyone says about Kim Ng is that she is very good at the actual organizational stuff of getting people on the same page.
Hm, I don’t know if she deserved better necessarily. A team has the right to move on if they aren’t happy with the job the GM is doing.
The farm system is very weak despite generally having decent drafting spots.
The team finally broke through for a decent season, though that is overshadowed by a -57 run differential.
Of the FA deals she has signed, 3 were disasters (Garcia, Cueto, Segura), 3 were fine but those players either got released or got traded away mid-season for terrible returns (Detwiler, Bass, Duvall), and then there’s Soler, who had a solid season but will likely be overpaid over the duration of the contract.
There’s been good (Luzardo, Scott, Puk) and bad (Panik/Mcinvale for Cimber/Dickerson/cash, Bass/Pop/Duran Groshans) trades.
She came in with a very strong farm system/young core and left after 2 very bad seasons and one quick postseason appearance, with a -57 run differential on that season. This doesn’t seem like a great track record to me.
OK but then be honest about it, which the Marlins are not. If you want to fire her then go ahead but don’t try to pretend you wanted her to stay.
I’m assuming they did this so they did not have to pay the option year on her contract if she claimed she would have exercised the option had she not been fired.
The way the Marlins handled this is probably the best from a PR perspective. For her, she gets to exit on a high note. They made the playoffs, she made the decision to leave and doesn’t have the stink of being fired. For them, they didn’t fire the first __ to __.
With a bottom third payroll? Seems impressive to just tread water under those circumstances. We’ll see.
I think that she will land on her feet. There is something about wealth that makes some rich men think that that wealth proves them smartest in every field. I have no idea how good Kim Ng really is, but I’m pretty confident that she has a better reputation around baseball than Sherman.
Sherman seems terrible. Miami is a booming city and has no business operating like a small market. The low revenue is self inflicted
Kim Ng: “Hey, we made the playoffs!”
Bruce Sherman: “How does a demotion sound?”
This. When was the last time the GM of a small market team wasn’t retained after a playoff season?
(I don’t literally know, but I’m sure it’s very uncommon.)
She drafted badly and refused to stay under guidance to improve.
She’s had three drafts. The first two admittedly look bad. But if Meyer and White turn into good prospects from this draft, that changes the equation. Plus there’s more to being a GM than just drafting.
And what is this “refused to stay under guidance to improve” even mean?
Mickey Mouse season, but Dick Williams left the Reds after 2020
Yes drafting badly should be forgiven now.
Zero chance your idea of Ng getting hired by the Yankees happens. Yes, it’d be an obviously good idea, but here’s the thing: the Yankees do not realize that they have a horrible GM. And on top of that, Cashman doesn’t hire anyone who could take his job if he were fired.
As a Yankees fan, I would genuinely appreciate her getting a shot under (or alongside) Cashman.
I’d love it too! But it’s never gonna happen.
This article does a great job of balancing out Ng’s record. Without repeating everything that was stated, Ng’s tenure strikes me as a below average, not disastrous, GM record. Why is it such a travesty to move on? If ownership senses that the team is soon entering a reset phase, why would they commit to 3-4 more years of no organizational changes?
The problem with this comment and the others like it is it completely ignores the all the context we have that paints the Marlins as a dysfunctional organization. In a vacuum, it’s not a travesty to move on, but in this specific situation it seems that one wouldn’t want to push out the person who finally wrung some success out of this mess.
If it were a guy in this situation and not Kim Ng, no long articles would’ve been written defending him. nobody would’ve cared.
I suspect you’re right that outside local sports media, no one would say much if it were some guy named Chuck Ng rather than a woman named Kim Ng.
OTOH, she is the first woman, that is a thing and makes this more notable and worth a bit more comment. And her team did just make the playoffs, which makes this notable in another way.
Even if you don’t value diversity in itself, the odds are excellent that the first woman in a position is well above average simply because it’s unlikely on a non-physical task that the 30 best qualified people are all guys.
Also, as many have asked, “Do the Marlins really deserve the benefit of the doubt?”
I have no problem calling attention to her being the first woman hired as a GM, i think it’s great to do so.
My only thing is, once she’s there just treat her the same as you would a man.
it’s patronizing to think women should be held to an easier standard of job performance just because they’re women.
It absolutely would have been reported on if it was Chuck Ng because its less about who the GM was and much more about the circumstances surrounding it.
firing a GM after only 3 seasons is very rare.firing a GM after taking the team to the playoffs is exceptionally rare.
Those 2 things alone make it newsworthy regardless of who the GM was.
Every fired GM gets a story, and most of those stink. Do you even read Fangraphs?
Every canned GM gets an article. And Jay wrote a lengthy piece on James Click last year, who received a similar one year non-offer. I guess you needed this info because you’re too frugal to pay for a membership. Just like the Marlins!
Click was fresh off of winning the WS and a string of playoff appearances. Marlins had xWins of 75 last year and the 26th ranked farm system. His firing was more perplexing.
she didn’t get canned, she quit. and how many of those articles evaluated the GMs performance as mediocre and then went on to claim they deserved better?
That kind of was the sentiment of Jay’s piece on Chaim Bloom firing a month ago.
Good lord, Bloom got that treatment weeks ago.
I appreciate the viewpoint, and it is a bit sad to see what was such a great story with a female GM running the show end, but…
… many, many male GMs have done as much as her or more and seen (a) their power stricken away from them or (b) let go.
Heck, we literally saw the man who build the current WS winner let go.
This probably just speaks more to Sherman’s style rather than anything good or bad that Kim Ng did.
Thanks for a fair write up. Ng did an admirable job winning with a franchise that is unwilling to spend money. Very much appreciating you flagging the negative run differential. Everyone is lauding the Marlins as a playoff team, which is factually true, but this team isn’t good but got lucky in both 1-run games and more importantly the Mets, Padres, and Cardinals deciding to underachieve or be very unlucky. With better results from the competition, the Marlins could easily be 82-80 and miss the playoffs.
Still totally agree she deserved better and maybe she gets that by NOT being part of the Marlins and watching them regress to 75 wins.
If we can put aside the diversity dumping, let’s ask a basic question–would she be a better GM than….Brian Cashman? Um, yes she would, and probably better than a number of sitting GMs. So, why do we even need to discuss her gender? And if we do want to discuss her gender, what’s wrong with a woman GM?
Was she fired? No.
Did the farm get worse under her? Yes.
Did she draft well? No.
Did she make more bad signings than good ones? Yes.
Good riddance.
Also why bring race into this at all? Who cares what her race or ethnicity is? No one should be hired or fired based on it.
Because it’s news. Things that don’t happen often become news when they happen. Non white men getting hired or fired from high paying corporate jobs is rare and thus becomes news. If that triggers you as a white man (yes, yes you are a white man) then tough shit. MAGA.
Or, from a slightly different perspective, the Marlins deserves more from Kin Ing.
Why is “diversity” so important to all you alt-left types? If Kim Ng was a white guy, this article would never have been written. Diversity is just an old, old wooden ship.
If you don’t have diversity you don’t have a broad range of ideas. If you don’t have a broad range of ideas everyone thinks the same. If everyone thinks the same you have no innovation. If you have no innovation you are doomed to mediocrity.
Yep.
It’s literally been empirically proven that diversity improves teams’ decision-making and outcomes.
Facts really don’t care about the feelings of folks like offthewall and “Baseball Analyzed.”
diversity for the sake of diversity breeds mediocrity.
If it’s going to take a team of 5 doctors to solve a medical issue you’re having, do you want the 5 most intelligent and qualified doctors?
or the most diverse one regardless of credentials?
The “diversity” lovers will gladly vote for a rich, old, white man if Biden runs against Asian female Nikky Haley… and they will call her racist and sexist while they do so. All the down-thumbs in the world won’t make my comment wrong. 🤪
I agree that hiring someone to try to fill some quota for a manufactured diversity is wrong.
However, look at her credentials, her CV. Prior to becoming GM of the Marlins, she was one of the strongest candidates for being a GM out of anyone who had not yet been a GM. I don’t think a man who wanted to be a GM (and Kim Ng clearly wanted to be a GM as she keep applying for those roles) with her resume would have waited anywhere near as long.
Ok, WTF does that have to do with Kim Ng? She has been in baseball longer than you have probably been alive and has 3 rings as an AGM. She is EXTREMELY qualified for the job. You are making a 100% disingenuous argument.
The Mets hired an agent with zero front office or baseball experience to be their GM a few years ago. I’m guessing you weren’t crying about “qualifications” then though. I wonder why….
Should we assume you married someone of a different race, and adopted children from several races? If you don’t even have “diversity” in your own family, who are you to talk about the importance of diversity? Hypocrite!
God you’re such a snowflake. Seeing the word diversity has triggered you enough to become a debate lord in a baseball forum. Sad existence.
The word “trigger” triggers me.
Man I feel so bad for you, just insecurity and fragility pouring out of every letter typed.
Fragility oozes from me. But as a black woman, I have earned the right to voice my opinion with being attacked by the likes of you. God forbid a black woman seem fragile in this white man’s club.
Over the years, I’ve read about many front offices that you could describe as innovative. The early 2000s A’s, the 2010s Astros, the 2020s Dodgers and Rays. My impression is that these were not very diverse Front Offices, but a bunch of Ivy League nerds. What cutting edge innovation has been unlocked by the 2020s Marlins?
She quit.
Wish I had her job.
Kim Ng leads to very polarizing responses by the nature of her position, but the reality is that she’s a perfectly average, maybe slightly above average GM. She’s not elite like people are saying, you just are viewing this through the Marlins lens. And she clearly doesn’t suck.
If you want to take the gender discrimination angle, ask why a female GM has to be elite to keep her job whereas plenty of average male colleagues get to stick around for awhile.
Evaluating GM quality over 3 years is difficult to do as an outsider. We don’t know how much credit/blame Ng deserves for each move. Owners don’t always have the best judgement, but they have more information than us and at least have skin in the game. If Ng goes somewhere else and builds a contender while the Marlins are bad, we’ll all be able to point out Sherman’s blunder.
As for male/female differences in treatment, bad male GMs don’t just get to keep their jobs no matter what. In a given year, 4-5 are let go. Others on this board have pointed out that James Click also received a sympathetic article on fangraphs. But his team just won the World Series and has had successful influxes of young talent for a long time.
I would make the point though that it’s rare for a GM to be fired this quickly unless they are like BVW and suck totally. Chaim Bloom and Click are the obvious exceptions of course.
She was entering her final year and ownership wanted to hire a POBO. Do you think her performance warrants POBO with a 3-4 year extension, or ownership should hold off a few years on hiring a POBO?
No way she joins the White Sox, they only hire people who are so underqualified that they can’t leave the White Sox.
I do not fully agree with Jay’s judgement of Ng’s work. In my opinion her results are extremely twisted:
She did bring the Marlins back to the playoffs, but (a) at what cost and (b) only because the play-offs were expanded.
Her biggest accomplishments were bringing stability to this clown franchise and a winning mentality by signing Schumaker.
The situation in the off season was like this: one ace, a solid no. 2 (Pablo Lopez), several high potential arms who never had more than 120 IP, behind that several high potential pitching prospects and basicly no batting at all.
In my opinion pitching prospects are the most overvalued commodity in baseball as most of them never pan out. So the smart move would have been to trade pitching prospects for established bats (signing FAs bats was never an option due to Sherman) Ng traded proven pitching WAR for a proven bat instead and that put pressure on the rotation
Two years ago the Marlins were excited about their prospects, now they have an aging lineup with no batting prospects in the pipeline and a rotation without a no 1 and a no 2. It looks like the next rebuild is closer then the next time they make the play offs.
To me, it seemed like Ng trying to pivot the organisation to an 80’s style ball club was either a very bad or very good idea, but the right kind of approach to being the GM of a “resource constrained” organisation in a clown car ballpark.
I would have liked to have seen what the 5/6 year outcomes looked like, and it would have been interesting to see how hard she doubled down on that strategy.
Getting rid of your GM (and make no mistake, they did get rid of her regardless of what the Marlins say) after only 3 years is a pretty dumb move no matter who the GM is. 3 years is nothing in baseball. I have no idea how you could form an opinion one way or the other about a GM after only 3 years.
But Marlins gonna Marlin.
American politics is just toxic.
This story sounds a lot like Anthopoulos leaving Toronto. Both were kind of caught in the machinations of their bosses visions for the future and offered contracts which kept the title with a loss of decision making authority, and both walked. Hopefully she too lands on her feet.
I won the 2023 world series with the Minnesota Twins in OOTP 17. Sherman, I’m available, for far less than Ng was getting.
As a RS fan, a combination of Ng and Breslow intrigues me. But I am not really impressed the overall quality of Ng’s moves. Miami’s Py W/L in 2021 was 72-90. Their Py W/L this year is 75-87. An improvement of 3 games despite adding $47M in salaries. Some decent trades, but the FA (which are likely more difficult in Miami) are abysmal. It’s about $40M for Soler, Garcia, Cueto, and Segura’s for a -0.9 bWAR.