Wednesday, December 22, 2004 |
DePo Blacklisted?
According to The Book of Mike (hat tip to David Pinto's Baseball Musings), it was actually Paul DePodesta, upon whom the blame actually accrues for the trade unraveling. He claims, based on the usual anonymous player agent, that not only did DePodesta leak the trade to Ken Rosenthal, but he counterclaimed publicly that the trade wasn't as likely as previously thought.
DePodesta allegedly lied to both the Yankees and Diamondbacks when he told them yesterday that the paperwork for the trade had been submitted to the commissioner's office. As you would expect, this is a major no-no in the baseball world, and insider's expect that DePodesta has - at best - made his doing his job extremely difficult (as other teams will be hesitant, if not completely unwilling, to work with him). Others feel that DePodesta may find himself out of baseball - or at least out of a GM level position - in the near future because of his handling of this situation.Pinto, who's pretty thoughtful generally, adds:We have also learned that this was not the first trade that DePodesta got cold feet about after taking it nearly all the way to the altar. The Dodgers attempted to back out of their July trade with the Marlins (principally involving catcher Paul LoDuca and pitcher Brad Penny). DePodesta tried to back out at the last minute, as was the case yesterday with the Johnson trade, but was called to the carpet [sic] by Marlins GM Larry Beinfest. Ultimately, the deal went through, but now the Dodgers are looking for a catcher and bullpen help this offseason - both of which became needs after their deadline deal with the then-champions.
Together, Beane and DePodesta were a really great GM. Paul, it looks like, doesn't have Billy's skills in dealing with others on these trades. He's a smart guy, so maybe he can develop those skills. If he does fail in this job, some smart GM will be glad to have him crunching numbers for his organization.This non-trade had a lot of odd things to it. Bear in mind, this is purely rumor, but given the way the Charles Johnson nonsense went down earlier this year, it makes sense. Megatrades rarely get done because of all the potential loose ends. But could DePo plausibly get hung because of this? Perhaps, but I very much doubt it. Baseball is full of low-wattage types like Jim Bowden, and dozens in line behind him despite his eviction. DePodesta has the advantage of making a winner his first year in operation. He's earned a right to some respect -- whether or not he's the victim of a whisper campaign yours truly is helping to spread.
Here I hear a lot of news and comments in the park or in the radio, but i don't post them unless I can publish "The source".
That can be true about Depodesta, but for now is just a rumor.
carpet, not "to" the carpet.
I really liked the hire last winter, and though he's done some noteworthy good things, I don't think he traded for the monumental improvements at third and
(to a lesser but still impressive degree) short. He was a contributor to a team that barely made the playoffs from a less-than-compelling division, and barely showed once it got there (and much of that might be assigned to a risk I and others warned about concerning the basic fitness of Brad Penny). He was not the architect of anything genuinely special or impressive - much more passenger than driver of that bus. His body of work, thin as it necessarily is, has eroded some of the good feeling I had at his hire...
: 12/22/2004 07:48:00 PMNewer› ‹Older
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