Effectively Wild: A FanGraphs Baseball Podcast - Effectively Wild Episode 1638: How Kim Ng Broke into Baseball

Episode Date: January 4, 2021

Ben Lindbergh and Meg Rowley banter about the official retirement of Phil Hughes, the joy of anticipating top prospects and watching them debut, the sobering reality of players their age starting to retire, a report that the 2021 season is likely to start on time, and a control group for their minor league free agent […]

Got a feeling 21 is gonna be a good year Especially if you and me see it in together I had no reason to be over-optimistic But somehow when you smiled I could brave bad weather I could brave bad weather Meg Raleigh of Fangrass for our first episode recorded in 2021. Hello, Meg. Hello. So I mentioned that I was about to celebrate a birthday a little while back. I did celebrate that birthday, and I was thinking that we have really reached the age where players are starting to retire who are about our age, and it's not even like they're retiring prematurely necessarily.

It's just that they've reached roughly retirement age for baseball players, which is sort of a sobering thought. We're not at that stage of life where we start growing really fond of the Fernando Rodney's and Bartolo Colon's of the world, the ones who are still hanging on, who are like the last player younger than we are. We still have a ways to go until we get there, although we will get there. But we are kind of at the point where players who were approximately in our cohort are starting to leave the game. And it's sort of sad. You know, Howie Kendrick retired recently, and Kendrick is a few years older than I am. But I remember him coming up

as a prospect. And the fact that he is now leaving the game makes me think about some things because, you know, he was young and just embarking on what should be a promising career. And now that career is over. And that makes me think, huh, what does that say about me and where I am in life? Fortunately, the aging curve for writers and editors and podcasters is a bit more forgiving than the aging curve for baseball players. But, the aging curve for writers and editors and podcasters is a bit more forgiving than the aging curve for baseball players. But Kendrick had a really nice career and all-time great World Series moment, the kind that you dream about coming up. So good for him. I was thinking about this again, though, on Sunday because Phil Hughes retired officially. And got to be honest, didn't know that Phil Hughes was not

officially retired already because he has not pitched for a couple of years. So I knew him now as a person on Twitter and a YouTuber who opens packs of baseball cards, but he had not officially retired. It's kind of like Bernie Williams, my favorite player growing up, who didn't officially retire until like nine years after he stopped playing. And then at some point he finally said, okay, I'm officially retired. And everyone said, yes, we know. But it's now Phil Hughes's turn. And that sort of hit me because Phil Hughes was a player I was really excited about when he came up because he was about my age. He's like, I don't know, six months older than I am. And he was a top prospect for the team that at the time I was still rooting for.

And at that time, the Yankees didn't really have a lot of prospects or at least didn't really have top prospects who made the majors. Obviously, there was a really great crop of prospects who came up on the Yankees in the 90s, but I was like eight years old when Jeter and Rivera and Pos't really have prospects. There was like one little window where the Yankees had prospects and actually brought them up and they were good for much of Yankees history or at least Steinbrenner era Yankees history. They didn't really do that. They just traded away prospects or didn't give them a chance. So not that anyone should feel sorry for little me growing up watching the Yankees win the World Series every year because they didn't really have prospects coming up. I had it pretty good as a fan, but that was one thing that I sort of missed out on. And occasionally there would be one,

like Nick Johnson was a top prospect and I was excited about him and loved watching him. And sometimes they would have top prospects who would get traded away, like Eric Milton in the Knobloch deal or DeAndre Navarro in the trade for Randy Johnson. Or they would have top prospects who would get traded away, like Eric Milton in the Knobloch deal or DeAndre Navarro in the trade for Randy Johnson, or they would have top prospects who would be busts like Ed Yarnall. But Phil Hughes was like blue chip. I mean, he was like top two, three prospects in baseball. I think he was maybe top three in Baseball America in 2007. I think he was number two in baseball prospectus, maybe ahead of Tim Lincecum, who came up the same year and started winning Cy Young's the next season.

Sorry to blow up Kevin Goldstein's spot there 13 years later. But he was like- Gosh, Kevin. Yeah, come on. Kevin was a little higher on him than baseball America was. But it was really exciting to have Philil hughes come up at that time because yankees were still really good at that time like a bad yankee season was like they would win 90 something games and lose in the playoffs which like as a mariners fan you're probably not uh really mourning for me but it was still like a joy of fandom that you just didn't really get like there were some great players who came up during that time, like Robinson Cano came up and Brett Gardner, a really good player, came up during that time.

But they were not top 100 guys. I mean, they should have been in retrospect, but they were not. They did not have that prospect pedigree. And Phil Hughes did more than almost anyone in baseball. And so when he came up at age 21, I guess in 2007, it was like an event for Yankees fan. I remember I cut class to watch his debut. Hopefully the statute of limitations on that has passed, but I was in college. I just didn't go. And I stayed home and watched Phil Hughes's debut on whatever rudimentary MLB TV was available at that time.

And it was not a great debut. He gave up four runs in four and a third innings and it just, it wasn't great, but it was exciting that he was there. And then his next start, May 1st, it was his second start in 2007. He had a no hitter going after six and a third innings. And then he hurt himself. He pulled a hamstring or something and he was out until august and so it was bittersweet because it was like oh man here he is the prospect he's showing what he can do six strikeouts through six and a third and they can't touch him and then he was gone for a few months so it was the highs and the lows and it was like not a great rangers team that he was no hitting but still that was the promise and that was like i don't know maybe one of the only times i got to experience that when i was still a fan of one team java chamberlain came up later that season and he was a good prospect but he wasn't a top tier prospect until he performed so well in that debut season and i don't know that there is any pure joy of

fandom than having a highly touted prospect come up and look great and show you why he was a great prospect and just like the decades of promise are stretching out before you here's this 21 year old he's shutting down this opposing team and it's just like endless you you imagine him for the next decade doing that for your team i'm thinking of like steven strasburg's debut for the nationals which john taylor looked back on at fangraphs last spring 10 years later what was more exciting than that and other than winning a world series i don't know that there's anything better than that or more enjoyable so i don't know if you have an equivalent experience to my phil hughes arrival i mean like when a rod came up i was like oh the mariners are gonna dominate the west and win 10 world series and then ben some of those things happened for a

little bit but i had some good years there yeah but um but you know i i think that you're right there's something very there's something very special about the guys who you anticipate and you're hankering for them. You really want to see it pay off. I don't have the experience of being a Yankees fan and having – there's the reality of them not having the big name prospects all the time, but also there's a lot less pressure on any individual prospect on a team that has the ability to paper over holes with free agent signings and has an august history and is the storied franchise. And so I would imagine that the experience of even highly hyped prospects is really different when you have that sort of franchise context for it. But it's still really special right like i think that you know he was not a highly regarded prospect in the same way but i think that you know part of what made edgar so special to mariners fans was that he was you know he was our guy he was our guy his whole career. He was with us from the beginning until the end.

And so I think that when you see that actualized, it's really remarkable. Like you look around and you're conscious of actively making a memory. When they come up, you're like, I need to notice stuff around me because I'm going to tell this story to someone. And I'm going to hope that the statute of limitations for skipping school is over and I'm going to remember what I was wearing and who I was with and what it felt like and you're you are um I remember the room I was watching yeah yeah and you're like aware of making a memory in a way that I don't know that we always are when we're experiencing our own lives and that I think we probably

wish we were more conscious of so that we could do it more actively because there's all this stuff that we experience, good and bad, that's important that we just forget because we're human beings and our memories are bad. And so, yeah, it's a very special kind of a thing. And I think that you don't always get to to be aware that you're doing it and so it is really cool when you're like i was hyped and then i got to see it so yeah a couple years before that felix came up was that a momentous occasion for you do you recall yeah but yes but again there's like this there's this pressure

i think it it adds something kind of there's like a small bit of bitter taste to it when you like need this guy to be good. Yes. Right. Like, God, just, just please be good. Please save us from this. All the hopes of your franchise are hanging on this guy. Yeah.

Right. Like I, I had hoped, I had had this this totally naive hope that we in the extended mariners fandom community would have like realistic expectations for the current crop of of good but unproven prospects and we do not and it is a bummer because some of those guys will work out and be good hopefully and some of them will probably be less great than they're currently forecast to be because that's how prospects work and it is i look forward to a time for mariners fans when they can have a guy come up and just be excited and not be like please save us from this terrible fate i was watching we're recording this on a sunday i was watching football today, and the Cleveland Browns just broke their postseason drought. They're going to play in the NFL playoffs, and clearly they do not have the longest postseason drought among the major four men's sports in North America, but I was like, God, that Mariners record might be, it might get to hang around for a little bit.

his record might be it might get to hang around for a little bit yeah well i mean felix obviously turned into what felix was supposed to turn into phil hughes didn't quite i mean he had his moments uh if you had shown me his baseball reference page as it looks today in the spring of 2007 i would have said oh well that's not quite what I was hoping for. But there were some moments in there like he made an all-star team. He got Cy Young votes in that 2014 season with the Twins. And he contributed to a World Series win with that 2009 season where he was mostly setting up Rivera and pitched very well. So he did some stuff stuff he wasn't like a bust or anything i think if you look at like the average expectation for like a top 10 pitching prospect according to a study from a couple years ago at the point of pittsburgh it's like 14 war is the average produced by a pitcher

ranked in the top 10 in their first six years of service time. So Phil Hughes, depending on whether you're going by baseball reference or fan graphs, were produced either like 11 or 17, 18 or total. So not quite what you would want from a number two ranked prospect. And of course, his career was ended a little early because of thoracic outlet syndrome. And so he didn't quite get to stretch his stuff as long as he might have otherwise, but didn't totally pan out as I hoped that he would on May 1st, 2007. But when I was watching him that day, I didn't know that. And the promise was just unlimited, really. And I was just imagining a string of days when he would

look that dominant and years and years when he would be anchoring a staff and you can dream about that and you don't know whether those dreams will come true or not but it's a little different when you see it happening in the big leagues like you can read about prospects you can see the top ranking and it's very exciting but when they're actually doing it in the big leagues in their debut or soon after, then it's real, then it's happening. And yet there is just so much to come that it's kind of intoxicating. So I will remember that feeling, even if the rest of Phil Hughes's career didn't completely deliver on the hopes. There were good moments and there was that moment, which was special on its own and the lack of top prospects

like that on the yankees it was like because they would trade their prospects for really good veterans and those veterans would be really good or they just couldn't find playing time for them because they had a bunch of like near hall of famers or actual hall of famers in the lineup so again like uh it was not a plight of yankees fans or anything, but it was fun and different because by that time it was a veteran team. And so to see a top 10, top 5 prospect come up, it was pretty exciting. So thanks to Phil Hughes for the memories. After our conversation with Jay last week about the Hall of Fame, I started doing some mental math about who would be eligible when i was getting close to my vote and i the hall of fame like you know once guys announce that they're retired the hall of fame adds them to their future eligibles page and of course like

this assumes that they'll persist on ballots and some of them won't and it also assumes that they won't be elected and some of them will be and it also assumes that they won't be elected and some of them will be and what have you right but i think that i get my my my first vote i think will come in for the 2028 class in 2026 hunter pence will be eligible for the hall of fame and hunter pence great fun guy we all love hunter pence he's not a hall of famer but like hunter pence ben yeah is gonna be on the hall of fame ballot like before i get mine yeah i feel i'm not like we are young vital people and they're you know it's hard sports constantly reminds you of your age in ways that can be sort of disturbing at an early age because like imagine if like you were just ready to retire now at your current age which

is like a reality for a lot of baseball players and then you have to figure out well what should i do should i just uh enjoy my retirement for the next several decades, hopefully? Or do I find some second career? Do I keep working in baseball? It's just, it's hard to contemplate. I mean, a lot of people change careers and are not athletes, but still to be doing what you're doing right now and to come to the point where you're no longer able to do it at this point when society would still consider you a fairly young person just must be jarring especially if you've only been doing that one thing for most of your life and all of your adult life yeah i wonder if our collective memory of i mean i think the answer to this question is yes but i

suspect that our collective memory of phil hughes's career would be different if that 2014 twins team was not a 70 and 92 yeah team yeah look at that strikeout to walk ratio he had that year 11.6 yeah he walked less than one batter per nine but yeah he was uh he was spectacular it is funny to look at the baseball reference like 2014 twins encyclopedia where they have their top 12 players and see how many of these guys last photo was with the rangers yeah yeah a couple of them phil hughes's last photo is with the padres and i gotta be honest i forgot that phil hughes was a padre oh yeah i have no memory of that just two years ago but uh yeah pitched 16 games in relief for them. Who knew? He also made $80 million, which is, you know, if you're judging success by earnings, he probably feels pretty accomplished about that.

That's not a bad nest egg heading into retirement at age 34. The nice thing is I'm reminiscing about this as if it was the only time I got to experience this. And it sort of was as a fan of a particular team to have a prospect that exalted come up. And when you stop being a fan of one team and you start following the sport on a macro level or covering the sport, you do lose some of the pleasures that you enjoyed as a fan, but you also gain some pleasures or lose some displeasure. And one of the pleasures I gained is that I now get to experience this all the time, right? Because I'm excited about every team's prospect. Because I'm excited about every team's top prospect. So I don't have to be parochial about it. Anytime a top 10 guy comes up, I get to say, hey, this is exciting. So that's a perk of the present for me. Plus, I no longer need to skip class to watch baseball. All right. Well, that's the cycle of athletic life out with the old or out with the 34-year-olds and in with the new. And the new will be coming in sometime soon,

it looks like and sounds like, hopefully, because it's a new year. And thus far, the news about baseball is good. How about that? Nice little change. It looks like, according to a report by The Athletic's Evan Drellick, the season might actually start on time, or at least should start on time subject to the pandemic. There has been a lot of talk about would spring training be delayed? Would opening day be delayed? The owners seemingly have been pushing for that because they are less than eager to play games without fans in the stands, which might be a reality early in the season. But according to Evan's report, it sounds

like, as of now at least, they are both paying lip service to the idea that the season will start on time, and that includes MLB. So MLB made this statement via Drellick, We have announced the dates for the start of spring training and the championship season. As we get closer, we will, in consultation with public health authorities, our medical experts, and the Players Association, determine whether any modifications should be considered in light of the current surge in COVID-19 cases and the challenges we faced in 2020 completing a 60-game season in a sport that plays every day. So they're clearly allowing a little leeway there for things to be delayed, but to be delayed for health and safety-related reasons, seemingly, which, of course, if that were to happen, we would be fine with it. I think the thing that we were kind of hoping to avoid was just the sort of squabbling that ended up postponing the start of last season

and the very public bitter back and forth and owners sort of dragging their feet and not wanting the season to start and then the two sides sniping at each other it just wasn't great really as a baseball follower for the sport in general so it seems like the owners in the league, at least for now, have accepted what the CBA says, which is that the season is supposed to start at a certain time. So if conditions will not permit that, then of course they can adjust that. But I think the priority all along, or my hope all along going into last season, going into the coming season, is that if it's delayed, it's delayed for the right reasons, or at least more palatable reasons. If it's to protect players, if it's to protect fans, then sure, absolutely do what you need to do. But if it's purely a fight over money,

then that's probably not a great outcome for the sport in general. So, you know, maybe a work stoppage has to happen at some point down the road in order to produce change. You know, I don't know if it's like the tree of baseball liberty must be refreshed from time to time with a work stoppage or whatever. But hopefully, at least, that can be avoided before the CBA expires. So good news, I guess, tentatively. avoided before the cba expires so good news i guess tentatively well i feel a lot like charlie brown being asked to kick a football but we will allow good news to persist until we see compelling evidence that it shouldn't yes i suspect that given some of the the language about national

emergencies and declarations of national emergencies and what have you that that you know there's no reason for the league to take a sort of um proactively antagonistic posture now when they are i mean i hate to say this because i just said that we should be optimistic but it seems likely that they will have very valid reasons to think about postponing or limiting fans in the stands or what have you, just given how the pandemic rages on and we're not all vaccinated yet. So I would imagine, despite much evidence from the commissioner in particular, to the contrary, that there isn't a ton of reason to be gruff and antagonistic now on the off

chance that you are able to get a full season in with fans in some or all of your ballparks, knowing that you are going to have this, you know, looming CBA negotiation that you have to get through. And while I don't know that the league or the owners are especially concerned with Goodwill based on how they behaved last year. Last year. Yeah, we can say that now. It's a relief. Man. yeah we can say that now it's a relief man it's always nice to be able to say that just like in a baseball sense when you can say last year when i'm talking about stats that were produced in the

actual last year and i'm not confusing last year and last season but also nice to just turn the page on all of that yeah it's like one of those things where it's like nothing changed at midnight, wherever you were, but it's a step forward in time, and that can only be positive in our current predicament. So I think that's the way to think about it. you'll allow a minor digression i keep a physical like weekly calendar like a yes you know a weekly notebook um because and i don't say this to to worry anyone particularly david appleman but the the extent to which your favorite baseball website is working is predicated on me remembering to do a bunch of stuff cannot be understated so i find it helpful to write it down because then i'm less likely to forget uh because it helps to commit it to memory when i do the physical act of writing it down and uh i am keeping my 2020 you know little uh calendar notebook for posterity a ritual burning or anything no i i think it's important to to keep it and and mark all of the spots where I crossed out All-Star Game and started writing

in launch positional power rankings. Just as a perfect encapsulation of everything that had gone wrong. But it did feel really satisfying to crack the new one open. Although I am also still tracking our weeks in quarantine and I did not start over. So we have to be realistic, but it does feel good to turn the page a little bit. But yeah, I think that there's not a great reason for them to engage in deep combat tactics or anything, even though Manfred has a history of being overly antagonistic and pushing people to the last minute in the hopes of getting them to concede to his position when they might have a perfectly good reason to do it that has nothing

to do with them being cheap so start from a position of positivity and then get nasty if you need to i guess is probably the the tact that they're taking plus like spring training takes place in arizona and florida and ben not a week goes by where uh where I don't see some business entity being like we are temporarily relocating to Arizona you know one of the states where you can just flirt with COVID yeah so it's what six weeks away or so I'm not going to start to count down my mental countdown to pitchers and catchers yet because it's a little more tenuous than that I think but but still like if it is postponed hopefully it'll be postponed for reasons that would reflect well on the sport rather than poorly. And it would just be tough to argue.

I think that they couldn't do it given that they did do it last year when it wasn't necessarily safe to do either, but they did it and they pushed through it and it wasn't totally disastrous. So if they did that, then it's sort of hard to justify not doing it again, I guess, especially as the NBA and NFL do it too with varying levels of safety and success. But it would just be sort of transparent if they said, well, we just can't start yet. It's not safe. We should wait until everyone has the vaccine and it's safe to have fans in the stands because they didn't do that last year. So I don't know how they could really sell that as, yes, our only concern is the safety of all involved because that clearly wasn't a prohibitive thing last year. So six weeks, three months, whatever from now, we won't be past this. This won't be behind us. from now we won't be past this this won't be behind us and everyone won't be vaccinated so there's certainly going to be some period some portion of the season where all of that is still

up in the air but it would be nice i guess to start on time i mean not that like doing that to bring back normality or whatever should be the number one priority but that was sort of the messaging last year was oh we have to have baseball so that things seem normal again. And things were not normal and baseball being back didn't really make them seem normal. It was nice to have baseball back at times, but it was kind of a constant reminder really even watching baseball that things weren't normal because there were no fins in the stands or the rules were weird or whatever so if we were on the regular schedule this year that would make things seem somewhat more normal and hopefully things will actually be more normal and then it will be safe to take pleasure in things appearing more normal as well

yeah i look forward to a new a whole new year of feeling guilty that I'm relieved that I still have a job. Once more with feeling, Ben. Yeah. All right. Last thing I wanted to mention, just a follow-up to our minor league free agent draft on our last episode. I said something on that episode about how I thought that as imprecise an exercise as the minor league free agent draft is at least we're better than random at least we're better than just picking minor league free agents by chance and that you know like half of our picks collectively got major leagues playing time last year so that seemed good and a couple listeners wrote in and said well why don't you test that and uh that's a good point

so alex davis patreon supporter said you should totally put the remaining minor league free agents into a spreadsheet and randomly generate 10 names and see how they stack up against your picks. And I said, that's a good idea. We should do that. And then someone did it for us. We got another email from a listener, Thomas, who thought of the same thing. He writes, on the most recent minor league free agent draft episode, Ben mentioned that he thinks your selections tend to do better than random chance. I thought, let's test that. I'm too lazy to go back to check previous year's results.

Stat blast, maybe? If someone else wants to do that research, let us know how it comes out. But I thought it would be fun to have a control group for this year's draft. So I present to you the 2021 minor league free agent draft control group. And what he did was use a random number generator to pick a team. And then he looked on the list of Baseball America minor league free agents, which is organized by teams that are losing those free agents. And then he drew another random number to pick within that team. And so he ended up with the following 10 players who will be entered onto the spreadsheet. And I guess we'll be competing with the computer with

chance here. So the pressure's on. So the 10 are Derek Rodriguez, Zach Grotz, Brendan McCurry, Peter Tago, Jose Martinez, James Bork, Jack Lopez, Parker Bridwell, Adrian DeHorta, Joey Crable. I'm probably mispronouncing at least one or two of those names, but those are the 10. And a couple of those were on my list. I mentioned them on that episode. Derek Rodriguez and Brendan McCurry were players I considered drafting. were players I considered drafting. Most of them were players who I know nothing about and overlooked, rightly or wrongly, in my draft prep. So we will see. We will see if we can do better than the random number generator. I like our listeners so much sometimes. Me too.

Yeah. They're keeping us honest here. Yeah, they sure are. We said we're better than random chance. We will see if we are actually better than random chance. But thank you to Alex for suggesting that and to Thomas for saving us the trouble of actually rolling all those random numbers. So we'll see. All right.

So let's take a quick break and we will be back with a guest. We are talking to Dan Evans today. And one of the positive storylines about baseball in 2020 was the hiring of Kim Eng as the Marlins general manager. Although, as we discussed at the time, it was long, long overdue. And we wanted to talk to Dan, who gave Kim her first job in Major League Baseball. He hired her when he was with the White Sox. He later hired her again when he was with the Dodgers. He was the GM at the time and hired her as assistant GM. And so he goes back a long ways with Kim and we wanted to talk to him just about his history with her and how he knew she was going to be a star baseball executive from the get-go and how the role of the GM has changed and what she might be like as a GM, but also how she, who is a trailblazer as a woman, as an Asian American, can be a little less of an outlier,

hopefully, in the future. So it's a good talk with Dan, and we'll be back in just a moment with him. And I've waited many times for this one. You're coming to as you're coming to. And I've waited many times for this one. You're coming to as you're coming to. All right, well, we are glad to be joined now by Dan Evans, who has decades of experience working in the front offices of five major league teams, including the Dodgers, for whom he served as general manager from 2001 to 2004. He also, almost 1,500 episodes of this podcast ago, came on the show and gave me and Sam the idea of running an independent league baseball team, which led to our book, The Only Rule Is It Has To Work. So that's way down the lengthy list of your accomplishments, Dan, but it's one I'm very grateful for. So welcome back to the show. And I hope something else you say today gives me an

idea for another book. Well, Ben, I appreciate it. And those residuals are really coming in handy during COVID. So it's much appreciated. Yeah, I wish I were getting some, let alone you. So another accomplishment of yours, which I know you are very proud of and deservedly so, is that you hired Kim Eng not once, but twice. You were the assistant GM of the White Sox and you hired her as an intern in 1990. And then later, when you were the GM of the Dodgers, you hired her as your assistant GM, taking her away from the Yankees, where she had been serving in that capacity already. And back when Kim was hired by the Marlins in November, Ken Rosenthal called you up and just transcribed your remembrances of Kim and your praise for her. And I really enjoyed reading your recollections, and I figured it would be fun to hear you say those things, too, especially for people who didn't read that article. So tell us a little bit about how you came to know Kim. Well, Ben, first of all, I'm really proud of her because she's an even better person than she is an executive. And I think when anyone breaks a barrier like she just did, you really want to root for the event.

You want to root for the occurrence, but it's a lot easier to root for somebody who's really a special person. And anybody who's worked with or against her, has dealt with her any way business-wise knows she's just an exemplary person, lots of fun, and really good at what she does. And I think it was a long time coming. I thought she was ready for this position 15 years ago. And sadly, I think a lot of people in the baseball world had gender issues and as a result, didn't hire her. I met her when she was fresh out of college, University of Chicago. We were looking for an intern with the White Sox. Candidly to both of you, we moved across the street to a new ballpark and we suddenly had space. And we realized that we were understaffed and we were looking for someone to

help us, really help me primarily because I was spread across just about every platform in the baseball operations department. And Kim came in, interviewed great, was fantastic. My favorite part of the whole situation was she came there a little early and my then three-month old daughter was in a crib sound asleep in my office with the lights off. And I was just trying to catch up on some things with a reading light. She knocked on the door, came in, and saw little Sarah sound asleep in a dark room. And I popped outside the office and said, hey, I'm really sorry, but I'm dad today. And she just laughed in her ability to handle that situation, which obviously, you know, you're nervous for an interview. You don't anticipate somebody's daughter sleeping in the office in, you know, a toddler's clothes.

What I really enjoyed about her was her inquisitive side, which has never stopped, always asking questions. And she used to carry around these legal pads where she would write questions off the margin. And then when I had breaks in my day, she'd pop in and just hit me with them. And they got better and better and better. And I quickly realized that I had an absolute jewel in an intern. And I continued to give her as much work as I could push her way. And frankly, we hired her full time before her internship was even over. And I just watched her grow as an executive, as a person. Heck, I was at her wedding and outside the Boston area. She's just a real complete person. The fun part about the whole

story though, is when I brought her to the Dodgers and really recruited the heck out of her candidly, I brought her to the Dodgers for a completely different reason than I hired her 10 years earlier. And that was, I was looking for experience and people who had won. The Dodgers hadn't won for an extended period, had kind of gone wayward, were very rudderless. And I wanted to bring in people who had been around winning situations. And in a 10-year period, she'd been in the World Series four times. She'd won the World Series with the Yankees three times and came with a very different resume, which gave her instant credibility, which really helped her, I think, because the role I gave her with the Dodgers was overseeing player development and scouting. And that was very new in baseball. It's the first time

a woman had ever had those responsibilities as the assistant GM. I knew it, she knew it, but I knew she was ready for it. And luckily I was right. And just to give a sense of how much work baseball had to do from an inclusion perspective, I know from what you told Ken, you interviewed Kim with Jack Gold, who was the vice president of the White Sox, one of the co-owners at the time, and you interviewed her together. And then you both independently said that she had been the best candidate, but you had a conversation about, you know, do you think we're ready even to hire a woman as an intern at that point? And this is three decades ago, of course.

But the fact that that was even a conversation, you know, just for a low level position like that, I guess, goes to show just how high the barriers were that she had to overcome. Yeah. Well, Ben, you know what? I was ready without question. I was completely ready and really was pushing for it. For me, I've always been very, very big on equity and inclusion. And I have never been the person who wanted to keep that silly way of doing business going. I just thought it was abundantly bad. What I was concerned about was some of the things that were going on in the game where women

weren't invited in the room. And I wanted to make sure that the people with the White Sox who mattered, the ownership group, that they would support what I was doing. And I got incredible support. Jack Gould's one of the most decorated soldiers in the Korean War, was an exceptional man, just a great guy. He just, he won all sorts of awards in the military and was an amazingly successful businessman. And he just said to me, he said, well, it all comes down to you treating her normal, treating her equally, and guiding her and mentoring her as best you can. And he said, if you do that, and you really think she's that talented, the rest of us will just understand that she's with you in the meetings.

And he said, you couldn't be with a more supportive group. So Jerry Reinsdorf, Jack Gould, Howard Pizer, the real leadership with the White Sox were extraordinary and encouraged her to be in meetings. So I brought her to everything with me because, frankly, for the two of you to know, I had Roland Hiemann as my first boss, and he brought me to every meeting. I was involved in everything while I was a junior

and a senior at DePaul University. And I will never forget that. And that exposure helped me for the next four decades because I really recognized how things got done. And in Kim's case, the advantage that I had with Kim was that she was brilliant and receptive and also very intuitive and brilliant. So as a result, she absorbed information better than anybody I've ever worked with and really became more and more valuable the more exposure she had to every part of the game. the more exposure she had to every part of the game. And I'm thrilled for her now because I think one of the things that goes on today is people sometimes get hired for jobs that they've never had anything to do with. And that happens in the real world. It happens in baseball. So when you have people running a scouting department who've never scouted

or a player development director who never worked in a minor league system or a general manager really didn't have a very all-encompassing career. It shows and it shows quickly to the participants. Anyone who sits in a meeting with Kim for the last 20 years, she gets it. And, you know, she wasn't hired because she was a woman. She was hired because she was the most qualified candidate. And it took Derek Jeter having the guts to do it. And he'll never regret it. He's just hired one of the most talented people in the game. She just happens to be a woman. interview with Ken was this idea that you've just hit on of support, right? And not just making the hire, but making sure that the person you're hiring is set up for success in their role. And I think that if we're trying to understand the institutional barriers that kept someone like him, who as you've described and as we all acknowledge is eminently qualified from being hired when she was initially to how long it took her to ascend to the role of GM. And as we think about how we might improve

things going forward, I think one of the things that we keep falling on is this idea that folks are hired and they're very qualified and then they kind of get lost, right? That they don't always have someone to grab them and bring them along to the meeting and make sure that they're getting in front of the right people within the industry so that they make connections and acquire skills that are important to them getting their next job. So I wonder if we can kind of broaden out a little bit from Kim and just, I'd love to hear your insight on how, as an industry, baseball might do a better job of formalizing some of those mechanisms so that, you know, we don't just have one woman, one woman of color, one Asian woman, one whatever kind of person's name on our, you know, on the tips of our tongues when we're trying

to think of the next person to move into these roles. Because I think that there are a lot of folks who are not white men who get hired at junior levels in baseball, but we aren't seeing them sort of make the leap into middle management that makes them obvious candidates when, you know, GM roles come open. So what do you think we could be doing to sort of formalize that mechanism? Because I don't want us to have to wait another 30 years. Meg, we shouldn't have waited that long. Right. It's crazy.

I mean, it's just, it's despicable for me. And it's, for me, I think one of the issues here, and I think you nailed it and I'd like to expound upon it. I think a lot of bosses have no idea how to mentor and how to nurture people who are working with them. And remember, they are working with them. They're not working for them. Because if you have that mentality, you're never going to develop people. You have to develop people to contribute and make your job easier and better. And I think a lot of people in the game don't have a real good foundation on how to develop people that are working with them. I was lucky. I mean, I was really lucky.

I had Jerry Rengstorf. I had Tony La Russa. I had Roland Heeman. I had Dave Dombrowski. These are future stars in the game. But the best part about their interaction with me is that they mentored me on and off the field. They really were there to help me. As you said, Meg, introductions, interaction, that's a real big part of your growth as a young executive. your growth as a young executive. It's opening up, you know, LinkedIn didn't exist 25 years ago. Today, you know, I get five, 10 requests every day. You didn't have that back then. You had to find ways to meet people. And I think what we need to do as a game, yes, we've got to be more inclusive. Yes, the diversity program, Major League Baseball, has to be leaned on even more. And I think it's a great program with Tyrone Brooks. But I think the executives who are supposed to be the decision makers, the leaders, they need to learn how to mentor. And they need to learn how to communicate and how to collaborate. Because if they don't do

that, it doesn't matter how many people we put in positions that are qualified below them, they're not going to get better. They're not going to improve as candidates and they're not going to be ready when positions become available. So I think the first thing we need to do is to develop the executives, kind of coaching the coaches. And we don't do that. And most businesses don't do that. If you don't have that elite mentor within the organization, I think everybody sputters. I teach a class for sports management worldwide, and it's about getting into the game, and it's been hugely successful. We've got hundreds of people in the game now. But what I've learned, Meg, is that their first job

is more about the mentor that they're assigned to than it is the logo, the city, the franchise. Because if their initial job in the game is with somebody who can't teach them, can't communicate, and can't mentor them, they barely tread water. And I think as a sport, we need to cultivate a better communication, a better collaborative spirit, a better mentoring effort while we recruit the most talented people in the game. Because there's some great people who want to be in the sport. But if we don't bring them along and nurture them, they're not going to go anywhere. And I think if anything, I was lucky. I had great mentors and I've always tried to give back the way they did to me because I know how important it was to my development and my career. I would have never had the career I had

were it not for them. Well, that's very easy for me because I had that person. People who never had that, that guide, that, you know, really for me, the bumper guards in your career and the person to really shoulder the difficult times and show you how to get through it. Those are the people who get you to the next job. And I just don't think we do that as well as we can. And I think if we did that better, some of these great candidates would be even better candidates as a result. I think that that's absolutely right. I guess the part of it that, and you know, it's clear you shared this frustration, but I think part of the frustration has been that you know if anyone has been well positioned by the roles that she has held and the skill set that she has assembled

and the connections that she has made it's Kim and so for her to take so long to be hired as a general manager for her to have to show the perseverance that she did suggests a system that requires something kind of active to improve. Because if the connections were enough or the resume were enough, then surely this would not have taken so long. And so I'm wondering if we need something more forceful because there was a lot of folks very excited for her hiring, and I think justifiably so. But it was a little strange to see people in baseball, in positions of authority, be among those people when presumably they had the opportunity to hire her prior to now. prior to now, right? And so I just, I don't know how to reconcile those things and find something that is going to, you know, ensure that we don't have to wait so long, which I don't say in an accusatory way. I mean, you're not sitting in a front office right now, but it is just,

it is frustrating to not have a more satisfactory answer. And I wonder if part of it is that we haven't quite honed in on exactly what the problem is. Well, you know what, Meg, I think there's two points to that. You know, I agree. I mean, it's odd my career speaks for it. Number one, I think young women, people of color, I think they need to see people who look like them so they can aspire to be them. And I think it's really important. Until a player sees a player they identify with, they kind of don't know they fit. Until an executive, an aspiring young, let's say some sports management major across the country, or some high school kid who has huge aspirations, until they see somebody that looks and comes from a background

of theirs, it's really hard for them to dream big. Because how do you think you can be that person when nobody else who looks like you, who has any similarities to you, has that role? What I've heard in the last couple months from a lot of different people is suddenly there's a lot of young women, even in my classes, who suddenly recognize, hey, it can be done. And it can be done because someone's done it. I think the key is there's a lot of people in the game who had an opportunity to not only hire Kim, but hire other really talented young women, minorities. And as a result, they didn't do it and they clogged things. And that's on them, Meg. That's on them completely. things. And that's on them, Meg. That's on them completely. One of the really good friend of mine, when Kim got hired, called me up, a longtime friend, and said, I'll tell you what, there's a lot of people in the game today who are having to answer to people because they didn't hire her, because they had an opportunity to hire and they didn't. And my response was, yeah, well, you know what? I'm happy they're uncomfortable.

Because if you really looked at the resume and the experience, she was an easy choice in some cases. But, you know, there are barriers and the three of us know that. And I think it's up to people like us to call things like that out. You know, I got a little bit of a hard time a few years ago when I said, I don't understand why people are afraid to break a barrier that is merely a barrier that is because of people being short-sighted and for people being gender-centric. I just think it's crazy. And some people, you know, got back to me and said, you know, you probably shouldn't say stuff like that. Well, of course I'm going to say something like that because if you believe in it and you don't say it, then you're part of the problem. So, you know, for me, I think what Kim

did when she got that job was open the doors for the next generation of young women. I'm already seeing it in my class where people not only recognize that opportunity is there, but also I can be that person now. It's not something that requires, you know, a glass barrier being broken. I just have to be as good as her or better. And I've got a chance to be in that role. And I think as a sport, what I've recognized, and I've really seen it in the last 10 days or so, is groups like Baseball for All and some of the other really terrific groups are suddenly having young women not only see it, but articulate it and say, you know, I saw that she just got hired or they've never met her. They don't know much about her career, but they know that there's a woman in that position. And I think the shame of it is the

winter meetings not being held in person probably hurt some of the really favorable publicity that the hire could have received. But in reality, whenever we start playing baseball in the spring, it's going to be a huge story. But the great thing is she's ready for the job. She's not going to be overwhelmed by the job, its expectations, its responsibilities. And that's real important in her situation because if she wasn't ready for it, it could probably set the whole system back. The other thing for me, and I think, you know, it's a really big deal for someone at the collegiate level who's in a sports management course right now, they suddenly at a real early time in their career, they're starting to see somebody who not only looks like them, but went through a lot of hurdles to get there. And it gives them hope.

And so their dreams aren't stifled by people saying, well, no one's ever done it before. And the three of us have heard that throughout our careers where,, well, no one's ever done it before. And the three of us have heard that throughout our careers where, oh, well, nobody's ever done that before. And a lot of people take that as a fork in the road and they go the other way. Well, no, that's not the case anymore. And I think there's going to be young women across the world. I've heard stories in Japan and Korea of young women who have embraced this situation and recognize this is a real positive step for our game. And you know what? It's up to all of us to look at Kim's hiring as the first step, certainly not the only step.

Yeah. And I know there's no way for you to know exactly what was in people's heads and hearts It's certainly not the only step. there was any good faith aspect to that, that people were really willing to consider her and for whatever reason, just stop short at the end because of course she has the credentials and the resume, but as you know from personal experience, she's impressive in person and interviews well. So it's not as if that would have been a big obstacle at the end. So the fact that she was at least supposedly in the running for so many jobs and just didn't get one until Derek Jeter, whom she had a relationship with from the Yankees and from knowing him well during their time there, it took him hiring her to actually do this in 2020 when it seemed like we should have been well past the point at which someone would have considered that not such a risk, really. I mean, it's not as if there was any backlash or at least public blowback to the hiring. I think everyone celebrated it. And so, as Meg said, it was kind of confounding to see all of this outpouring of, oh, wow, what a great hire, and this is great. And yet it didn't happen over and over and over again when it could have happened before. Well, I do think, Ben, that our society is in a better place. I mean, we have a

vice president-elect who happens to be a woman. And I think that's a huge step for our country. But for me, one of the issues is when people have a mandate that they must interview minorities, and they must look at all qualified candidates, some people don't take that seriously. And they just check the box for a quota interview. And those people, Ben, shame on them. They're not the people they pretend to be. And they're certainly not leaders. And they're most importantly, not being inclusive and not helping the game grow. It's just not unique to baseball. It happens in every career, every society. There are people who still don't get it. We need those people to go away and stop making these myopic, short-sighted decisions and start realizing that hiring the best person is always your best move, regardless of their background,

their gender, their ethnicity, their race. It doesn't matter. If you're hiring and you hire the best person, you will always like that decision because that decision makes the sum of your parts better. No doubt. I'm sure some of those interviews were not legit. I think those people know it. Kim might not know it, might know it, who knows? The three of us merely would speculate. But I know there were cases where she was a legit candidate because people reached out to me during the interview process and asked about her. So I knew it was legitimate.

But the shame of it is she had to be so exceptional to get that opportunity, but luckily she is. If she weren't, that ceiling wouldn't have been shattered. And you hit on something, Ben, the relationship which she and Derek, which dates back 25 years, I'm sure had so much to do with it because they know her. She and Don Mattingly, they know her. They know how talented she is. There's a lot less risk when you hire somebody that you know, because you know exactly what you're getting. And in that position, the most critical position in a baseball organization, having a relationship preceding the hiring I think is huge so luckily she had

that relationship with Derek but more importantly Derek hired the best person and you've been scouting players for years but you've also been scouting potential leaders of baseball operations departments and I know that we have a lot of people who listen to the show who hope to work in baseball one day. And so I wonder from your perspective, how similar those evaluation processes are and how someone can stand out or how Kim stood out because, you know, you see a player hit one ball extremely hard or throw a pitch extremely hard. And, you know, from the radar gun reading, oh, that person has talent, it can maybe be a little harder to see that sometimes with an intern or someone who's interviewing to be an intern. And you told a couple stories in the Ken Rosenthal article about

moments when you sort of knew Kim's potential as a GM one day. So I wonder if you could either tell some of those stories or talk in a broader sense about what you look for or how someone can impress a person as a potential GM. Okay, Ben, that's a great question. I think it comes down to being around the person as much as you can. So again, asking them to interact, bringing them into situations that some people may not be comfortable bringing someone of a junior stature. I have always been a very inclusive person when I've been running departments and teams, because I just think you are only as good as the sum of the parts. So if I'm getting information from anybody, I'm good because I can weigh

all those things. I think as a young person trying to get into the game, I think you have to be ready to contribute in some manner on day one. You have to bring something to the table, whatever it is, You have to bring something to the table, whatever it is, that immediately makes you a contributor. Because I think, and the two of you have been around the game, you understand people have different skill sets. And there's different things that take place on a daily basis with a baseball organization, whether it's a big league club, a minor league team, an independent club, or a collegiate program, there's so much going on on a daily basis. You're joining their team. They're not joining you. You're joining them.

So you've got to be a good teammate. You've got to be a good person. You have to be unselfish and willing to learn, but also willing to go that little extra to help people. But I think the biggest thing is that first day, you've got to bring something to the table that makes you a little bit different. In Kim's case, she was very proficient with computers, understood the game. I mean, she was a captain of her collegiate team, middle infielder. The game made sense to her. And it was apparent from day one when she was working with us. understanding that she was going to be a good teammate. She was going to be collaborative as could be. She was always there to help, constantly saying things like, hey, you know, I see that you got a lot of work. Can I help you out? Maybe we can get this done earlier. You know, for the three of us, we look at people like that and we want to be around those people. But we also reward people like that when they show that they're willing to go the

extra yard for you. You know, you'll bring them into more situations. And I think so many people, and when I teach the sports management worldwide class, I always tell people that, you know, when someone's hiring you, they've got a job to fill. That is the most important thing that they're concerned about. They don't really give a darn about your academic background. They wonder whether or not you can fulfill the role that they have. And can you do it without a lot of babysitting? And can you do it and be a positive contributor to the group? Right away, that puts you at the front of the line. A lot of people think just because they attended a great university or they have letters after their name, that means you should hire me. No, it's a special game. It's a great sport. There are fewer teams than there

are states in the union. I mean, it is a really hard business to get into. You can't be mediocre. You've got to come in with an attitude and a skill set. And if you think you can come in and just immediately, you know, I hear these stories all the time from people where, you know, they're a month into their job. What do you want to do? I want to be a general manager of a club. They haven't even completed their internship. How about being really good at what you're doing today? You know, Roland Heeman instilled something in me my first week, which was, Dayton Moore and I were talking about in an airport one day, is he was lucky he had John Scherholz and I had Roland Heeman. And we were laughing about how great we were unknowingly to have two elite people in our

first jobs. But he said something that John had told him, just do your job really well and people will recognize it. Well, Roland had said the same thing. And I said that to people throughout my career. And I continue to say it because if in fact you do that job, that singular job that you have and you do it well, people will notice. But Ben, a lot of people, they look at their internship and they go, well, I'm not happy not getting paid and not being in the room. And why didn't he bring me into here? Well, if that's your attitude, you're never going to go anywhere because who the heck would want to work with that person anyway?

never going to go anywhere because who the heck would want to work with that person anyway? I just think come in ready to contribute, but come in recognizing that your ego never makes it into the building. Your ego has, you know, I remember my first day on the job with the White Sox, they had me clean out the files in one office. And I know why now, I didn't know why then, they just wanted to test me and see whether or not that was beneath me. Well, I actually had a lot of fun with it. And I made it work. And I did it in one day. And everybody left. The 20-year-old junior just turned on a stereo and rocked till about 11 o'clock. And I redid the entire filing cabinet. And I came in the next day after school was over. And one of the staff said, you finished that entire series of cabinets. And I said, yeah,

because I wanted to do something that was more fun. And I figured you'd give me something more fun after I showed you I could do it. And they looked at me and they, one of the people said, we thought that was going to take you like a couple of weeks. And I said, yeah, well, it's good. And I'll never forget. I ordered, I ordered a pizza and rocked and rolled and came home and, you know, I had school the next day and people asked me, what'd you do on your first day? And I told them, and one of my dearest friends at the time said, well, I hope you're going to be doing more than that. I said, well, I got news for you. They ran out of filing cabinets last night. This September, J.J. Cooper at Baseball America wrote a story about some of the nuts and bolts of team employee contracts, baseball ops contracts, that I think a lot of fans just don't realize

the mechanisms that are in place that front offices will use to keep their people and their intellectual property in-house. And it strikes me that I think there are these sort of broader philosophical shifts that need to happen with how we view who is talented and qualified. But there also are some just like nuts and bolts things about how teams hold on to their people that make it hard for more junior employees to find opportunities outside of the organization they've been hired into if they're kind of stymied by more senior people who aren't going anywhere. So I'm wondering if, from your perspective, because you probably are aware of this even

to a greater degree than I am or than Ben is, if there are some smaller changes that might be made to the way front offices are structured that would open up opportunities for more junior people, not just women and candidates of color, but just front office employees who are a little less senior generally? Yeah, that great question. You know, it happened to me. I found out at one point in my career that a team wanted to interview me for a general manager's job, and it was denied. And I was repulsed. I was so disturbed and upset.

But the game, it has people sometimes that are more concerned about their own interests than they are the growth of executives below them. And shame on those people. I just think when you do that, and I've heard horror stories of people being denied. I mean, I remember when I was hiring a scouting director once, a general manager wouldn't give permission, and this guy was a national cross-checker. And I just said, well, how can you deny permission? I mean, this is a blatant promotion if he gets it. And he said, yeah, but if I lose him, I'm dead. And I said, so what happens, but he just didn't. I think, Meg, part of the problem is when people block other people and they really don't have other people's best interests, what they don't realize is that eradicates the trust of that junior employee. And that junior employee suddenly recognizes that everything I've been doing as a teammate trying to help this person, that didn't matter when it came for my opportunity.

And Meg, it's not getting the job because only one person gets it. It's interviewing. Right. It's being pursued. Right. pursuit. Because I know if you're only worried about getting the job, you're going to be disappointed almost every time. But it's getting into that arena and recognizing what you have to do better. I know when I didn't get a couple jobs, I became a better executive because I realized there were things that I had to do that were better. But there are people in the sport, just

like any other walk of life, that are really not in it for the common good. They're in it for themselves. And they're in a self-protection mode. Well, you know what? Those people get what they deserve ultimately because they don't succeed. And they ultimately lose their job. But the problem is people below them don't get opportunities But the problem is people below them don't get opportunities and then subsequently get stymied in their career. And I just think as a sport, we're better at it than we were, but we're still not as good at it as we should be. I mean, you guys know some of these titles that they've come up with are, I mean, insane. They're ridiculous. And what they're doing is they're intending to block people from jobs. They give them a title. In some case, maybe they pay them well, maybe they don't, but they give them a title that precludes them from getting their

next opportunity because they effectively slam the door on any potential employers from taking them away. Now, I understand the proprietary aspect and I understand protecting your best interest as an organization, but there comes a time where you're really not doing it right for the individual, and that's never good for your organization. So I think it comes down to if people leave your organization for better jobs, that means you're a really good organization and you're developing people and communicating really well. When an organization doesn't even have anybody interview for a position for an extended period, that tells me two things. Number one, they're not nurturing people and

they're not mentoring people to get them to the next step. And number two, their people just aren't very good. And some people are proud of that. They'll say, oh, you know, we haven't lost anybody for four or five years. Well, I view that as a stagnant organization that's not bringing in new life and also not recognizing that, hey, you know, if your people aren't being interviewed outside, maybe your people aren't as good as you think. So I just think as a game, we don't do that as well as we should, but we do it better than we did. And I think it's really up to the people who are supervising and in decision-making roles to recognize that they got their jobs because somebody saw potential and elevated them into those positions. those positions, it's wrong to block somebody. And if you do block somebody, I just don't believe in it. I just think it's philosophical, and I just don't subscribe to that notion. So the title Kim has today, general manager, is the same as the title that you had in the early 2000s when you had the GM job and she was helping you do that. So in essence, it's the same job or

in name at least, but in practice, of course, it's different. And there's been a lot of evolution. And I know that you've seen it firsthand, continuing to work in baseball. You were with the Blue Jays just up until a couple of years ago. So even though it was called GM then, and it's at least sometimes still called GM now, how do you think the job has changed and what change have you seen in the skill sets that are required to do it well? You know, Ben, great question. I think, first of all, from a skill set perspective, there are so many different skill sets running teams. It's an extraordinary situation where you just have all these different backgrounds and skill sets and experiences, and they vary so much.

I think it's really hard to really be fully prepared for that job. I thought I was extremely prepared, and I wasn't. Part of the problem is you never have a situation where you have 300 plus people reporting to you in any part of baseball until you become that role. Right. So the skill sets vary because very, you know, every team looks for something different when they're hiring that top executive. But I think there's a couple of things that have changed. I think you've got to be more versatile when it comes to analytics. I mean, I remember, you know, people call me a pioneer in the sport. I was just doing what I thought was the right way to do it. We were using technology in the early 80s and mid 80s that, you know, people made a movie about 15 years later and we laughed about because it's like there's nothing new there. We were doing that 10, 15 years ago. in scouting and player development, a background in the big league front office.

Very few people go from being strictly in the minor leagues to being successful as a big league GM because you're not in the arena enough and you don't understand what goes on on a daily basis. You don't have the relationships that you need in that role. But the other part is analytics make your life better. I mean, I've always thought that give me as much information as you can to help make a highly subjective game a little easier. Whether you lean on scouting more or lean on analytics more,

to me, it doesn't matter. You've got to incorporate both of them. I mean, the three of us might make guacamole and mine might be spicy. Meg's might be pretty spicy. And maybe Ben, yours is just medium. We're all happy. We all come to the right conclusion. We get our guacamole. But I think what happens in some cases is people either stray too far to one side. They're either too scouting oriented, too oriented towards analytics, and in some cases don't have enough of a foundation to really be successful. And the other thing is in today's world, you've got to be able to be adept in handling the media because now, you know, 30, 40 years ago, heck, when I first started,

you didn't have to worry about what was in the newspaper until the next morning. the newspaper until the next morning. Today, what you decide is out there within 30 to 60 seconds of making the decision. And I think you've got to be more adept than ever. You have to be limber and able to really maneuver around unexpected situations that didn't exist 20 years ago. unexpected situations that didn't exist 20 years ago. And I think as a result, the general manager and his staff that are more able to kind of handle the moment and the unexpected changes, those people are having more and more success. And the ones that are either too analytic or too scouting oriented, they're having a tough time in 2020. I mean, look what we just went through. This season, you never could have imagined in, let's say, January. You never could have imagined it. The really talented executives figured it out and learned how to dance and learned how the thing worked.

The ones that were rigid and the ones that have, I would say, fixed skill sets, they struggled. And they struggled because they didn't adapt to the situation. And I think in 2020, you have owners who are so highly leveraged because they bought their teams for an incredible amount of money. So now making money and winning is more important than ever before because of the finances involved. So you better be adept at handling some of the issues that come up or else you lose a year or you lose two. I mean, for me, rebuilding is an indication that you didn't do your job very well. All encompassing, you let aspects of your job go backwards.

And as a result, you have a bad farm system or you have a bad major league club, or in some places you have both. And I don't think that's tolerable anymore in 2020. You need to be competitive. You need to be relevant. And as we walk out of this pandemic at some point, hopefully this summer, I think when people are looking for their entertainment, which is what our sport is ultimately, you've got to be able to deliver to the general public something that their suddenly disposable income merits consideration for. And I think as a game, we need to recognize that because if you don't put an entertaining product on the field, people are going to find other options coming out of COVID. on your experience with Kim, give us any sort of scouting report on what sort of GM you think she will be, because there's a spectrum, you know, not just from statistical analysis to scouting to

player development, but also just in terms of how you operate in that job. Are you a Jerry DePoto or an AJ Preller and you're constantly making moves and splashes, or are you more cautious or prudent, or maybe you're more likely to hold on to prospects? And of course, a lot of that can depend on the market and based on working with her for years, whether you think there's anything that would be a particular strength or any particular trait that you think she will exhibit in this job? Well, first of all, she's a great listener. And I think then great listeners are almost always rewarded. You get a lot of information from people in the room. And she's not going to be afraid of the contrarian. She's been the contrarian many times herself.

So I think number one, she's a fabulous listener. I think that's going to result in a very collaborative effort. People are going to have their voices heard. She's going to listen to experience. But she's also going to listen to people who have less experience if they have valid points. I would say highly strategic, game plan oriented. She's going to have a strategy and she's going to try to implement it, but she will also

be able to recognize trends and issues which might mess with that strategy and be able to adapt accordingly. She won't be a knee-jerk person. That's just not her. She has a lot of trust and a lot of faith in her decision-making. And I think the other thing that I think is a really big deal is people on her staff will feel like they contributed to the Marlins' best interests. She's absolutely terrific at delegating and allowing people to do their job, which is a really hard thing to do in any career, in any profession, and she's really good at it. So I think what you'll see is you'll see her carrying out a game plan. I mean, the three of us follow the game so closely.

And how many times do you see something that comes across Twitter and you go, what? Why? No, what's going on here? That's not going to happen with her. You're going to see things that make sense because she was reportedly looking for X. I don't think there'll be anything that she'll do that you won't go, okay, that makes, that only, not only makes sense, but that follows along with her, her style. She's very pragmatic, very organized, but the most important thing she brings to the table, which I think will be the difference maker for her, is relationships are critical in this sport. They're vital. You have 29 different teams that you have to deal with, with 29 different

ways of doing business, personalities, egos. Kim is incredible at relationships and that will help her immensely in this job because you have people you don't like, but you still have to work with them. You have people in the media that you don't get along with, but you still have to work with them. And I think that for me is what separates a lot of people. A lot of people just can't handle the fact that an agent or a GM or an assistant GM or a media person is just not who they'd like them to be. And then they can't interact with them. Kim will find a way. and I found as a GM in my first couple months, you know, I started to realize who I had kind of taken for granted in terms of relationships and who I didn't have a real good relationship with,

and I started to recognize that I've got to work on all of those because it's up to me to be able to communicate with the entire group of agents, media people, and clubs. And I think so many people don't recognize that's the most important skill you bring because you have so many different segments of the game that you suddenly have coming to you. that you suddenly have coming to you. You're not going to them. They're coming to you and it's up to you and in the best interest of your organization to be able to figure it out and how I can make all of those relationships work.

That's her best skill. And I think as a result, it's gonna give her a chance to be very successful in her career. All right. Well, we're looking forward to watching her do this job that she should have gotten to do a long time ago. And we always look forward to talking to you, Dan Evans. Thanks so much for your time and for sharing your memories and your experience and wisdom. And as noted, as mentioned earlier, Dan serves as a mentor for sports management worldwide.

You can get more of his wisdom there. He's also a frequent speaker and consultant. And you can find him on Twitter at DanEvans108, where he is very active and responsive. So, Dan, thank you, as always, for coming on. Thanks to both of you. I love your podcast and I love both of your work. So thanks so much for having me on. Thank you.

Okay, that will do it for today. Thanks as always for listening. And thanks to those of you who are supporting the podcast on Patreon. If you'd like to be one of them, if you aren't already, you can go to patreon.com slash effectively wild. The following five listeners have already signed up and pledged some small amount of the amount to help keep the podcast going and get themselves access to some perks. Joshua Patterson, Christopher Goetz, Ed Goodall, Max Mason, and Shreyas Srinivasan. Thanks to all of you. You can join our Facebook group at facebook.com slash group slash Effectively Wild. You can rate, review, and subscribe to Effectively Wild on iTunes and Spotify and other podcast platforms.

Subscribe to Effectively Wild on iTunes and Spotify and other podcast platforms. Keep your questions and comments for me and Meg coming via email at podcastatfangraphs.com or via the Patreon messaging system if you are a supporter. Thanks to Dylan Higgins for his editing assistance. Happy New Year to you all, and we will be back a little later this week. Talk to you then. We either think that we're invincible or that we are invisible Realistically we're somewhere in between We all think that we are nobody But everybody is somebody else's somebody

Don't ask me what I really mean I am just a reflection Of what you really want to see So take what you want from me