So in my last post, I gave Murray Chass a solid rap across the knuckles.
In this one, positivity!
Chass recently wrote about all the impending front-office changes, including the paucity of talk about hiring a minority candidate. Leaving aside that prickly issue for now, I liked this passage:
In an upcoming change, the Athletics plan to elevate celebrity general manager Billy Beane to a loftier titled position while removing assistant from David Forst's assistant general manager title. The A's are promoting the pair to avoid losing Forst, who very likely would be in demand elsewhere as general manager.
Beane will very likely be named president of baseball operations, a relatively new title that is held by Theo Epstein of the Cubs, Michael Hill of the Marlins, Andrew Friedman of the Dodgers, Jon Daniels of the Rangers, Mike Rizzo of the Nationals, John Hart of the Braves, Walt Jocketty of the Reds and Dave Dombrowski of the Red Sox.
In reality, the president of baseball operations performs the general manager's duties while the general manager is essentially the assistant general manager.
Exactly. Which is why I suggest that we just keep calling Epstein and Hill and Friedman and Daniels and Rizzo and Hart and Jocketty and Dombrowski and Beane the same thing we've always called them: general managers. Placing them on par with their peers who perform the same duties but don't have the same (official) titles.
Of course, that does leave one in a quandary when referencing the David Forsts and Jed Hoyers of the world, who are essentially assistant general managers in charge of other assistant general managers. For example, Hoyer's official title is Executive Vice President, General Manager ... while Randy Bush and Shiraz Rehman are both Assistant General Managers.
All of which is fine and dandy, but can lead to confusion amongst the general public.
Hey, there will always be confusion somewhere. And if a big-time writer like Ken Rosenthal were to refer to Jed Hoyer as an assistant general manager, some feathers would undoubtedly be ruffled. But we should do whatever we can to avoid letting office politics and grade inflation confuse our readers.
