USA TODAY International Edition
IN NEW ERA, GM TITLE LOSES CLOUT
Roles shift as management layers are added
BOCA RATON, FLA. Alex Anthopoulos, who stuck to his principals and turned down a $ 10 million offer from the Toronto Blue Jays with no backup plan, saw longtime general manager Doug Melvin and couldn’t resist.
“So what do you think?” Anthopoulos said. “Do you think I’m crazy, too? A lot of people think I’m insane right now.”
Melvin, who was honored Monday night at baseball’s annual general managers meetings for his 20 years of service, stopped for a moment, looked into Anthopoulos’ eyes, and said, “We all have some craziness in us. You have to do what is right.”
And what might be right suddenly looks so wrong.
How can Anthopoulos, voted by his peers as Major League Baseball’s executive of the year after leading the Blue Jays to their greatest season in 22 years, be unemployed?
This new age of baseball has turned the industry’s hiring of front office executives into the utterly bizarre.
Forget the fact that you’re over the hill at 40 if you want a GM job. What happened to the simple days when you had an actual general manager calling all the shots in the front office, reporting only to ownership?
These days, the once- prestigious general manager title has been reduced in some quarters to nothing more than a glorified assistant.
“To me, these titles are just different names for the same positions,” Washington Nationals President and GM Mike Rizzo said. “What’s the difference between the president and GM, or the GM and the assistant GM back in the day? It’s the same thing.”
Still, how to explain the Miami Marlins, who have 25 executives in the front office and baseball operations, with eight vice presidents, five special assistants and four executive assistants?
Mike Hill has the title of president of baseball operations and has assumed the GM title with the firing of Dan Jennings, but rival club executives still are confused about who’s actually calling the shots. Is it Mike Berger, vice president/ assistant GM? Is it vice president/ player personnel Jeff McAvoy? Is it easier just to call owner Jeffrey Loria?
Hill, who gave up his GM title two years ago when he became president of baseball operations and now has regained the title, insists there should be no confusion. He’s in charge. Yet Berger has Loria’s ear. McAvoy has President David Samson’s ear. And Jennings, the GM who used to have both of their ears but wanted no part of returning to a layered front office after a brief managerial stint, is left unemployed.
There are now a record 12 general managers in the game who have at least one executive above them — and in some cases at least two outranking them.
It’s the reason Anthopoulos ultimately turned down the Blue Jays’ offer from ownership when he realized he wouldn’t have full authority with new club President Mark Shapiro on board — even after his bold July maneuvering got the Blue Jays within two games of the World Series. Ben Cherington felt the same way when he resigned as Boston Red Sox GM after David Dombrowski was hired as president of baseball operations.
They each would have kept their GM titles but felt they would have been turned into glorified assistants.
It’s a decision, Dombrowski says, that he fully understands.
“I do know that in Ben’s case he would not have been the main decision- maker, so he might have viewed it that way,” Dombrowski said. “He told me that if this had happened three or four years ago, he would have been happy to do it, because it would have been a nice first opportunity.
“But having already done that, I could understand that from his perspective.”
To the contrary, Shapiro says he can’t understand Anthopoulos’ departure, which has created a public relations nightmare for Rogers Communications, which owns the Blue Jays.
“I’m not a president of baseball operations,” Shapiro said, citing a title held by Dombrowski, Theo Epstein of the Chicago Cubs, Andrew Friedman of the Los Angeles Dodgers, Chris Antonetti of the Cleveland Indians and Brian Sabean of the San Francisco Giants. “I’m a president overseeing business and baseball. I oversee a major league organization.
“I’m never going to go to the GM meetings. I’m not looking to be a GM. I will hire a real GM.”
It’s unknown whether interim GM Tony LaCava, who received a multiyear contract extension, will become the Blue Jays GM or whether Shapiro will turn to Ross Atkins, the Indians’ vice president of player personnel.
Yet if Anthopoulos had stayed on board, he would have felt as if he were getting a demotion.
“Maybe in 10 years I can look back and say I was a dumbass at 38,” he told USA TODAY Sports. “I would have loved to have talked myself into all of that money, but I couldn’t do it.
“I realize I may never be a GM again. But I never did this for the title, the status or the paycheck.”
Anthopoulos wanted to remain old school. And lost to the new era.
The reason for this confusion of titles, many baseball executives say, simply is to keep teams from hiring away their valued employees. No longer are teams raiding their rivals’ top executives.
“There was an internal debate in the industry that there was too much tampering going on, too much stealing executives,” Anthopoulos said. “So people started making up these titles and giving them promotions. It was a way of keeping them.
“There is a cap on what you can spend for players. So where are you going to spend your money? Human capital is the next resource.”
It’s why the Dodgers have the richest front office in baseball. And why the Giants promoted Bobby Evans to GM, followed by the Atlanta Braves with John Coppolella, the Indians with Mike Chernoff and the Red Sox with Mike Hazen.
The New York Yankees, of course, could have done the same with assistant GM Billy Eppler. Brian Cashman, the longest- tenured GM in baseball, could have moved up to become president of baseball operations, creating a GM title for Eppler.
The Yankees declined to create superficial positions. And Eppler wound up departing for the Los Angeles Angels’ GM vacancy.
So why didn’t the Yankees create a job title?
“Because I’m the GM,” Cashman said. “If I get kicked up to president, I’m still making the decisions. It’s kind of a ( expletive) title. I respect other people for how they do their business, but I’m not going to do any shell games.
“We’re just going to try to declare what it is.”
What a novel concept, where a GM is really a GM and an assistant is really an assistant.
“I do see the future changing,” said St. Louis Cardinals GM John Mozeliak, who answers directly to ownership. “It’s all of this added layer of management and leadership.
“I don’t think is going away anytime soon.”
Gentlemen, start your titles.