KOK Defends Allard Baird

I’ll state it more plainly; Allard was a better GM than Dayton has been thus far. Baird gets railed for the lackluster farm system Dayton inherited, but I think ownership’s attitude and spending played a far more significant role in that than any GM ever could.

about 2 years ago Freneau 34 comments 0 recs |

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Revisionist history

A crappy current GM leads to a revision of history in which the last crappy GM really wasn’t so bad. Fast-forward to five or ten years from now and you’ll find some people saying that Dayton Moore was better than the next GM because of prospects X, Y and Z that panned out, as well as the acquisitions of Meche, Soria, whatever. The cold reality is that Allard Baird sucked. Maybe some of that was Glass’s fault, but the truth is that he did very, very little well. He had a few draft picks pan out. That’s really about it. He stunk. Did he stink less than Moore? I doubt it.

The immoderate moderator

by Scott McKinney on Dec 22, 2009 11:34 PM EST reply actions 1 recs

I think of Baird in stages

initially, he was clueless… but was improving by the end… could be wrong

by Freneau on Dec 22, 2009 11:50 PM EST up reply actions

No one disputes that he sucked

He quite evidently did. He was way out of his depth as GM, like Dayton is. And he seems to have found his perfect role now, so good for him.

But I think it is fair to stick up a little for Baird, because so much of the defense of Moore revolves around the idea that he is some significant improvement over Allard. And he isn’t. No worse, certainly, but it is just as revisionist to make Baird out to be completely incompetent in every single thing as a means to defend Moore as it is to pretend that he was anything other than poor GM. And that’s even taking into account the different ownership situation they faced.

by kcbottom9th on Dec 22, 2009 11:53 PM EST up reply actions

I have to agree.

Baird had to worry about “signability” in the draft. Glass wouldn’t have given the green light to Baird to draft a Tim Melville-type. We will never know what Baird couldve done with the money Glass has let Dayton spend. We may have still had Guillen and Farnsworth or we may have had Adam Dunn and Kerry Wood. We will never know, but there’s no denying that Dayton needs to go.

Yes, I'm still alive. Sorry to disappoint you.

by royaldaddy on Dec 23, 2009 12:14 AM EST via mobile up reply actions

tim melville type....

or moose or hosmer or myers etc….

Fire Everyone

by billybeingbilly on Dec 23, 2009 4:15 AM EST up reply actions

I don't remember what was said when Baird was hired

but it’s possible that Baird was hired because the Glass family felt he was most willing to run the club their way as opposed to only doing it his way. Baird was a terrible GM, but he was set up for failure. It’s not necessarily his fault that he was a terrible GM – he should have never been hired.

When Moore was hired, I think the Glass family felt pressure to hand more authority over to the new GM. In some ways, Moore is definitely a better GM than Baird was: drafting, pitching, etc. But I blame the Glass family again for hiring the wrong guy for the job. Moore relies on instincts as often as Baird did. Neither of them is any good at offensive or defensive talent evaluation. Their scouting methods are archaic and neither one of them should be in a position to be making trades.

The Royals won’t be competitive until the Glass family are gone. Meanwhile, GM’s will likely come and go and all stack up about the same.

by rph on Dec 23, 2009 12:26 AM EST reply actions

i dont think its fair to say that baird shouldnt have ever been hired...

much smarter teams than the royals think very very highly of him apparently

Fire Everyone

by billybeingbilly on Dec 23, 2009 4:16 AM EST up reply actions

Nobody thinks highly of him as a GM

Just like Moore, Baird has some useful front office skills. Those skills, however, are not enough to make either of them decent GM’s. When Moore gets fired, another team will hire him for a front office job and he’ll be an asset, just as he was in Atlanta.

The immoderate moderator

by Scott McKinney on Dec 23, 2009 8:31 AM EST up reply actions

Baird was kind of a hot candidate when he took over the Royals

I think there were rumors at the time he was a candidate for the Mets GM job. He was pretty highly thought of around baseball.

Relive Royals History at royalsretro.blogspot.com

by RoyalsRetro on Dec 23, 2009 9:36 AM EST up reply actions

baird in new york....

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by Matt Klaassen on Dec 23, 2009 7:01 PM EST up reply actions

Allard Baird came from a scouting background

If you look at just a brief history of his tour of duty with the Royals, his 1st and 2nd round picks aren’t that special. If you look at just the top 2 or 3 rounds, Royals weren’t super frugal, but they did pretty poorly in the scouting department. And with the Royals, Allard knew the game. He had to select good players and development them through the system. He knew he wasn’t going to be able to have a large budget in signing top dog free agents. Allard and his staff selected some less than ideal players at where they were drafting and he didn’t have a solid draft philosophy. Sometimes on needs, sometimes on physical talent, but no solid direction. 2nd, when the players were in the system, he rushed them all the time. The list is endless…Ruben Gotay, Jimmy Gobble, Chris George, Zack Grienke, Shane Costa. Players making huge jumps without any consideration for development. Allard really stunk as a GM. He probably better with his role now, advisor or just focusing on scouting. Royals just can’t really develop players at all.

1998 Jeff Austin (Assistant GM)
1999 Kyle Snyder (Assistant GM)
2000 Mike Stodloka
2001 Colt Griffin, Roscoe Crosby (2nd round)
2002 Zack Greinke, Adam Donachie (2nd round)
2003 Chris Lubanski, Mitch Maier, Matt Campbell, Billy Buckner
2004 Billy Butler, Shane Costa
2005 Alex Gordon, Jeff Bianchi

Finally although DM has not been a perfect GM and his decision making hasn’t been great, but you don’t see less than competent people working in his group. Guys like Muzzy Jackson, Deric Ladnier, Buddy Bell in key positions. Allard really stunk as a GM. Probably a great person and less thin skinned than DM but it is nice that he is gone.

by Rogue Buddhist on Dec 23, 2009 5:29 AM EST reply actions 1 recs

He also rushed Dos Carlos

which worked out. I’m not necessarily defending Baird’s incompetence. Just pointing out that the argument isn’t exactly clear cut. And it’s probably good that they rushed Febles because he aged like Kathleen Turner.

by BrRoyal on Dec 23, 2009 9:28 AM EST up reply actions

Only one of the prospects worked out

You are right about Carlos Beltran working out. Only one of his quick move through the system worked out, and I didn’t even add guys like Jeremy Affeldt and all of his next pitching phenoms that turned into nothing unique or even pedestrian. Guys like Jimmy Gobble or even Chad Durbin clearly were also rushed. Doesn’t looked like a good way to build a system, but he couldn’t change his bad habit. Also another topic about Allard and his regime was the amount of injuries, especially the pitchers.

by Rogue Buddhist on Dec 23, 2009 12:42 PM EST up reply actions

I don't think we'll ever know how good/bad Allard was

Because of all the un-dsubstantiateverified, yet rampant umors of meddling by Dan Glass. i.e. the force of the last minute trade of Dye, the nixing of a Sweeney deal, the nixing of a Randa deal, et all…Who knows, if Allard was allowed to work with the autonomy that GMDM has been (apparently) given, he could have been a great GM

BOOM! ROASTED!

by GoBabies!! on Dec 23, 2009 8:32 AM EST reply actions

Yeah, I still wonder how things would've progressed if the

Randa for 3 minor leaguers, Sweeney for Angels top prospects, and Dye for Vernon Wells deals had been allowed to go through.

Of course, the counterpoint is that if Baird was being told to make certain moves, he should’ve quit on the spot — and he was a terrible GM for not doing so.

We’ll never know. I wish some “investigative” KC reporter would do an in depth piece on the failure of the Royals during the Baird years, but it’ll never happen. Instead, we’ll occasionally get to hear stuff like the Dye for Wells trade which just leaked out this year.

In reality, the Baird years were doomed primarily due to ownerships restrictions on scouting and the draft. You can’t maintain a farm system on a small market team with a skeleton scouting staff an $1K bonuses after the 5th round.

Unless I'm wrong...
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by Top Ramen on Dec 23, 2009 10:51 AM EST up reply actions

Jeff Passan or someone else

Should write a book about the 1995-2006 Royals. I’d say Pos, but I think this requires more bite and bridge-burning than he’s capable of.

Relive Royals History at royalsretro.blogspot.com

by RoyalsRetro on Dec 23, 2009 11:00 AM EST up reply actions

maybe dan glass will put the moves on margo at a gala affair at the plaza

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by Matt Klaassen on Dec 23, 2009 7:02 PM EST up reply actions

Pittsburgh is even better than us

This is the real sad thing, Pittsburgh and all of the incompetency that franchise has shown and how they have really flubbed the 1st round and how they have been consistently cheap, even they have done a better job developing their picks and have graduated more players than we have. Even they have been smarter than we have by trading most of their players for value. Better than what we have done.

And all of the rumors about trades, a bunch of speculation. We trade Appier, we trade Dye, Beltran, and Damon, but we are not smart enough to trade Sweeney when budget and spending was a painful thing for the Glass family. Also, finally Baird didn’t really make one good trade whether he supposedly had a gun on his head or not. His trades were always filling needs and never getting great players. I can’t think of too many trades where Baird did well. Only one, trading Benito Santiago for Leo Nunez. And that’s it. His evaluation of players, nothing great as a Royal.

His players, guys like Jeremy Affeldt, Burgos, and Runelvys Hernandez all couldn’t pitch. For that matter other being lucky on Greinke, during the Allard regime, the Royals developed little pitching.

by Rogue Buddhist on Dec 23, 2009 11:49 AM EST reply actions

Baird

Made a few good trades down the stretch in 2003 getting useful players without giving up anything.

Paul Byrd for Jose Santiago worked out great

Getting Denny Bautista for Jason Grimsley was a coup, although Bautista never lived up to his billing.

Getting Huber for a waiver wire pickup in Jose Bautista was a steal, although Huber never lived up to his billing.

Esteban German for Fabio Castro was a decent deal.

Wow, that is the best I can do. All his other trades were either non-factors, or horrible. Its a pretty big indictment he didn’t make more trades. It says (a) he didn’t do enough to try to improve the club; and (b) he didn’t develop good enough talent to entice anyone to deal with him

Relive Royals History at royalsretro.blogspot.com

by RoyalsRetro on Dec 23, 2009 12:28 PM EST up reply actions

Thanks

Thank you for going over my ramblings about Baird. Looking at the list of trades, Baird never made a great trade or even something that we would talk about after all of this time. HIs regime was just one big confusing haze with little to show for. You are right, Baird didn’t do much of anything to get this organization improved more.

by Rogue Buddhist on Dec 23, 2009 12:34 PM EST up reply actions

He's responsible for Raul Ibanez

That’s probably the best thing he did for us at the MLB level.

That, and he also recognized that Angel Berroa had a Rookie-of-the-Year season in him.

Chaim Mattis Keller New York City's # 1 Royals fan!

by cmkeller on Dec 23, 2009 8:24 PM EST up reply actions

He fell into the trap that can kill a small market GM:

falling in love with your own players. Whether they want to or not, the only way to do it is the A’s model, where you use up the 0-5 years of a player and trade them away for more prospects.

Unless I'm wrong...
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by Top Ramen on Dec 25, 2009 11:38 PM EST up reply actions 1 recs

KC Royals Pitching rotation the last 2 yrs when Baird was GM.

2006: (Partial Year)
Mark Redman, Runelvys Hernandez, Scott Elarton, Luke Hudson, Ambriox Burgos, Jimmy Gobble, Denny Bautista, Joe Mays, Mike Wood, Bobby Keppel, Mike MacDougal, Seth Etherton, Kyle Synder. I conveniently left out the pitchers that DM got.

2005: Zack, Jose Lima, Runelvys Hernandez, DJ Carrasco, JP Howell, Mike MacDougal, Andy Sisco, Ambriox Burgos, Jeremy Affeldt, Mike Wood, Leo Nunez, Shawn Camp, and Jimmy Gobble.

Finally this is the man who hired Tony Muser and Tony Pena.

by Rogue Buddhist on Dec 23, 2009 11:59 AM EST reply actions

That's one of the best things you can say about Dayton

He pretty quickly and pretty cheaply improved the pitching in a short amount of time. We make fun of guys like Brett Tomko and Horacio Ramirez, but at least Dayton didn’t hand those guys Scott Elarton-sized contracts. And in his first year or two at least, he did assemble pretty nice bullpens for next to nothing.

Baird could never seem to assemble pitching staffs, whether he spent money, or didn’t spend money. It was just rotate crap in and out.

Relive Royals History at royalsretro.blogspot.com

by RoyalsRetro on Dec 23, 2009 12:29 PM EST up reply actions 1 recs

And pitching matters...

…more than offense. The problem is that both GMs seem to have undervalued defense, or don’t know how to scout it properly. So I guess we’ll need a defense-oriented GM next to balance out the last 10 years of awkward/unbalanced drafting. – TL

by timlacy on Dec 23, 2009 4:33 PM EST up reply actions

???????

And pitching matters…more than offense

What do you base that on? Are runs allowed more important than runs scored? If so, why?

The immoderate moderator

by Scott McKinney on Dec 24, 2009 5:42 PM EST up reply actions

Preventing a run on pitching and defense

means you don’t have to score that run on offense. Though tim is only talking pitching

The same could be said about offense though. If you have big bats you don’t need to pitch as well.

In the end, I suspect saving a run on defense and pitching is slightly more important as the closer your opponent is to zero, the more likely you are to win.

by AxDxMx on Dec 24, 2009 9:52 PM EST up reply actions

Actually, it depends on how good your team is.

www.vivaelbirdos.com/2009/12/9/1192894/a-run-scored-vs-a-run-saved" >

On a good team, runs saved are more valuable, on a bad team, runs scored are more valuable.

Go Royals!

by BabyBlues on Dec 25, 2009 12:10 AM EST up reply actions

Sure, that's what I was getting at in my 2nd point above.

For good teams, however (ones that score more than they allow), a run saved is actually more valuable than a run scored (blue region). In contrast, for bad teams, a run saved is less valuable.

In my final point, I was thinking more of a hypothetical good team than the Royals. There’s no help for a team that will struggle to score 3 runs per game next year. And also, didn’t Seattle outpace their Pythagorean Wins last year? It was either a fluke, or the defensive runs they saved made a big difference. So there’s that data point.

by AxDxMx on Dec 25, 2009 1:09 AM EST up reply actions