changes wrote:JaysRule15 wrote:changes wrote:
Oh I wouldn't be surprised if that's what they thought. I don't expect them as ownership to have a higher insight on their team besides their record (despite strong easy evidence to suggest they were much better). AA did much more for this team throughout his tenure than trade the farm for an easy playoff appearance, which according to half of this board now, apparently everyone can do. That is, everyone can find a bunch of elite talent out of nowhere, anyone can rebuild their farm system with ease, and anyone can trade for elite talent. But I suppose if anyone is delusional enough to believe that, then AA is a dime a dozen.
Oh, I agree that AA was a great GM who did all those things you mentioned. But when it comes to ownership making front office moves, the win/loss and team accomplishments are all that matter. If this team wasn't contending, no casual fans were going to care or tune in regardless of how much elite talent AA found or how many trades he "won" at. I'm just saying that Rogers gave AA 5 and a half years of full autonomy. They didn't see tangible results, so they gave that autonomy to Shapiro. But then AA made a bunch of trades and got the team to the playoffs. But by then, it was too late for any party to reverse course. The power was already given to Shapiro. Rogers tried getting AA to stay, but AA clearly didn't want to lose his autonomy, so he left. I don't think anyone is to blame here. Rogers aren't just some meddling owners. Almost no owner in baseball would give a GM 5 and a half years of full power and then not make changes if they didn't get a contending team.
I don't really disagree with most of what you said. I personally can't just excuse dumb ownership by saying oh well their only insight is a teams record so their hands are clean. There's more variables that go into play.
As far as wanting him back goes, I could offer 1 million on a 2 million dollar lottery ticket after I know it's the winning ticket. Do I want the lottery ticket? I guess. Is there any point in me making the offer? Not as far as actually getting that ticket is concerned. (I'm not saying AA is as rare as winning the lotto lol.)
That's the thing though. At no point was Rogers intending to cut AA loose. Even before the team started contending post-deadline, AA had an offer to stay on as GM under Shapiro. Sure, it was only a 1-2 year offer initially. And when the team won the AL East, that offer was deservedly upgraded to a 5 year, $10 million deal (that would've made AA one of the highest paid GMs in the league). Rogers clearly wanted AA to stay the entire time. It's just that after 5 and a half years of having a non-contending team, they wanted to take some of AA's autonomy away and go with someone else. AA didn't like that (and I don't blame him, no one would like having their power taken away). But I can understand where Rogers was coming from. AA certainly hadn't done enough to become president when they hired Shapiro. I wish Shapiro and AA had worked together, but unfortunately that didn't happen.
