Intelligence of Front Office Personnel

[miami_fan]

I don’t know when it started, but there seems to be a greater emphasis on the intelligence of a person when they are hired to a front office position. I am not talking about the team highlighting the intelligence of the person. I think it is pretty obvious that all the teams believe they have intelligent people working for them. I am talking about the media’s infatuation with telling us that the new front office hire is a smart guy. So I guess there is a distinction I am missing between the smart front office personnel and the dumb front office personnel. Now I understand we are dealing with small margins here. For example, Josh Byrnes has been hired by the Dodgers and almost immediately I have heard and read about how smart he is. Does that mean San Diego and Arizona have smarter people in their front office since they let him go?

Who are the smartest front offices in your favorite sport and who are the dumb ones? Also, in your opinion, what is it with the greater emphasis on intelligence by the media?

[Lathum]

I'm not really sure how to answer your questions, but it seems to me franchises are more interested in running their teams like companies now with CEOs at the top. It used to be more about having talent evaluators running the show, but now it seems more like the smart guys run things and the evaluators report to them

[miami_fan]

Originally Posted by Lathum

I'm not really sure how to answer your questions, but it seems to me franchises are more interested in running their teams like companies now with CEOs at the top. It used to be more about having talent evaluators running the show, but now it seems more like the smart guys run things and the evaluators report to them

That definition (not that you intended it to be) seems very condescending to the talent evaluators. I understand getting a CEO type to run the organization. It just seem weird to justify the Dodgers hiring Andrew Friedman, for example, because he is a smart guy.

I know I am using the Dodgers in my examples. They are not the only ones just the most recent. The same comments were made about the Dolphins new GM Dennis Hickey.

[Izulde]

This CEO/business mentality is infesting pretty much *everything* in the US these days, and in some cases, it's made things much worse (higher education being the first thing that comes to mind)

[SteveMax58]

Originally Posted by Izulde

This CEO/business mentality is infesting pretty much *everything* in the US these days, and in some cases, it's made things much worse (higher education being the first thing that comes to mind)

Sometimes its badly needed in an organization lacking business professionalism but there is a level of "impersonalness" with the products/services/people that really irks me about it.

Its also a very different type of "smart". What happens is that you put people in charge that have may or may not have much domain expertise and have the subject matter experts simply report upwards through them. And since they (typically) have less domain knowledge, its easier for them to speak the same language to the executive level, since the exec level is likely not domain experts either. This allows them to consider the business ramifications first & foremost. Its essentially how you get thousands upon thousands of employees reporting upwards in a coherent fashion so that decision making is still centralized with less & less autonomy at the lower ranks. Getting the right people in the right positions, and making this all work (somewhat) fluidly is what the "smart" ones can do.

While this strategy has shown measurable success in many businesses...it simply bores me to tears to work inside that type of environment. Welcome to corporate America I guess.

[sterlingice]

I think it also leads to knowledge gaps. When you don't have people with domain expertise at the top, they tend to silo for efficiency without considering the interactions that went on between the groups.

SI

[cuervo72]

Originally Posted by miami_fan

Does that mean San Diego and Arizona have smarter people in their front office since they let him go?

Well, I dunno about those guys in San Diego...

(Though compared to Ruben Amaro, I guess I'd take them.)

[nol]

I think most of it is still at a very early stage. We're now at the point where we realize that having played that sport professionally is not a prerequisite to being able to scout talent or build a team (and might even be a detriment), but I'm sure it will swing back from the Daryl Morey "everybody's an asset" extreme.

[EagleFan]

Being a Phillies fan I can say there is no intelligence in the front office...

[stevew]

I don't think it's intelligence but it's so easy to see dumb moves and wonder what the thought process is. Like BJ Upton's signing got first guessed, and he got a staggering guarantee. Especially when AAAA OFers could be had for 500K. I think the movement towards analysis is great in all sports but a well reasoned contrarian path is interesting to follow.

[JPhillips]

Originally Posted by Izulde

This CEO/business mentality is infesting pretty much *everything* in the US these days, and in some cases, it's made things much worse (higher education being the first thing that comes to mind)

Can I get an amen!