Worse GM: Randy Smith vs. Matt Millen

[xanadu]

In honor of Randy Smith's possibly becoming the new gm in Houston, I am curious as to the consensus of who is the worst active GM in sports. Millen and Smith share many of the same traits: horrible drafting, inability to learn from past mistakes or even acknowledge the most obvious of failures, giving outrageous contracts to mediocre talent, making stupid trades for the sake of making trades, inability to generate much interest in the team despite new stadiums, quirky personalities (bow ties vs. motorcycles), inability to develop any type of coherent strategy and follow through on that strategy. In general, it stymies the imagination that either of these were hired in the first place, let alone retained for multiple years. Which is worse, drafting wide receivers every year (while still signing a number of free agent wrs or drafting a relief pitcher with the no. 1 overall pick? Preaching a tough guy attitude prior to hiring Marty Morhinwig and drafting joey harrington and charles rogers in consecutive years or building a pitcher's park prior to trading for juan gonzales? Has there ever been a pair of gms to get less talent despite having top 10 picks every year?

Personally, I would have to take Millen as worse. In addition to his total incompentency for running a football team, the guy has no self control and just seems to be a moron. When you have a confrontation with johnny morton and you like the idiot, it just proves a certain level of idiocy and immaturity that cannot be rationalized away.

Anyways, I hope that dombrowski is talking to smith about a deal to bolster our bullpen. Do the mud hens have a speedy center fielder that couldn't hit high school pitching?

[darkobetterthanmelo]

Neither is worse. Both turned teams a few moves away from the playoffs into the worst teams in their leagues. However, Randy Smith's teams never had a hope, this years Lions team is at least talking like it. Randy Smith.

[b-diddy]

i think its matt millen in a landslide. randy smith was bad, no doubt. but alot of the bad was justifiable.

the gonzales trade? gotta get the buzz.

overpaying for mediocre talent? no one was giving detroit a discount, or really even considering us sans extra $$.

bad draft picks. yea. baseball is kind of a crap shoot, though. way less than the nfl draft is. not saying smith was a good drafter by any means, but he atleast did draft a whole bunch of pitchers... even the anderson pick wasnt that bad. a surefire 0 in the ninth is valuable, atleast.

the tigers were baseball's #1 organization in 97, i believe. i believe smith was a combination of bad luck, bad situation, and bad gming (but not all time comedic level bad. just bad). also keep in mind that baseball at that point was considered the ultimate haves vs haves not sport.

which brings up football, which atleast used to be the one sport that was supposedly unpredictable because literally every team (but one) was a possible contender at the beginning of every year.

i honestly believe matt millen is laughed at by nfl gms. he has to be. anyone that spends 20 minutes actually looking at the finer sides of his moves can see he has run this team like a jerkoff.

and dbtm, typical preseason lion cornbread is no reason to justify matt millen's existence. some fans will tell you the team motto should be: "well, why not us?".

the team motto should actually be: "lets get this over with". or, "come watch 11 men play football on sundays against professional football teams."

[b-diddy]

i mean, you do realize that were one jon kitna concussion (im thinking week 2ish) away from our starting qb being a guy that couldnt even get msu into a bowl game, right?

[Jethro34]

Wow, tough call but I'm thinking Smith gets the nod. Those Tigers teams were amazingly horrible, almost record-setting. There was nothing worth going to see. The stadium was dead, the moves were disgusting, the star power included names such as Bobby Higginson, Tony Clark, Jose Macias, Juan Encarnacion, Jeff Weaver, Robert Fick, Randall Simon, Brad Ausmus, Matt Anderson, Damion Easley, and Carlos Pena. The blind squirrel found a nut on fewer occasions than Millen. It certainly helps Millen that fans go to Lions games like they're Cubs fans, with no care to whether or not the team will win.

[Jethro34]

By the way, now that Smith is the GM, you can officially pronounce Houston dead. Brad Lidge, Carlos Lee, Lance Berkman, Roy Oswalt, and others can all be had at an affordable price now.

[b-diddy]

to play the contrarian, its not as if matt millen toppled the mighty lion franchise. he took a bad franchise (slight reprieve for for the barry era) and took it to rock bottom. so its possible that alot of the crappy infrastructure that was already there brought millen down to its level. i dont know what all his job entails, but im sure he's not negotiating every contract, scouting every rookie, etc, etc. maybe its just a case of a rookie manager getting thrown to the lions (harharhar).

i tend to actually support this theory, as millen's life was an unmitigated success prior to joining the lions. more, i'd bet anything that we'll continue to suck long after he's gone. the ford's just know what should be obvious:

"And even if we win, if we win, HAH! Even if we play so far above our heads that our noses bleed for a week to ten days; even if God in Heaven above points his hand at our side of the field; even if every man woman and child joined hands together and prayed for us to win, it just wouldn't matter because all the really good looking girls would still go out with the guys from Mohawk because they've got all the money! It just doesn't matter if we win or if we lose. IT JUST DOESN'T MATTER!
Rest of group: IT JUST DOESN'T MATTER! IT JUST DOESN'T MATTER"

[xanadu]

since radar left a while ago, here is a summary of some of his more famous moves:

Traded top power hitter and fan favorite Cecil Fielder (39 HR, 119 RBI) for Ruben Sierra (traded at end of year for nothing) and Matt Drews (whose minor league era>8 at the time)

Traded Travis Fryman for Gabe Alvarez, Joe Randa, and Matt Drews (the same guy from the fielder trade)

Traded Luis Gonzalez + cash for Karim Garcia.

Traded Phil Nevin and Matt Walbeck for Nick Skuse

Traded David Wells for Mark Lewis, C.J. Nitkowski, and Dave Tuttle

Traded Mark Lewis (the only marginal player from Wells trade) for Jesus Ibarra

Traded Brad Ausmus, Doug Brocail, and Nelson Cruz for Roger Cedeno, Chris Holt, and Mitch Meluskey

note that he traded for aumus, then traded him away, then traded for him again, and finally traded him away again (his common theme was to trade away and reacquire players just for the sake of making trades)

tried to convert his center fielders to switch hitters at an advanced age for no apparent reason

tried to convert shortstop brandon inge (one of his only decent draft picks) into a catcher

Used #1 overall pick on college reliever Matt Anderson

Matt Anderson was actually his second most successful #1 draft pick despite receiving high picks every year. His best pick (Jeff Weaver) had gone unsigned after being drafted in 1st round the previous year.

when given money, he spent heavily on Dean Palmer, Juan Gonzalez (we'd still be paying him if he resigned), Damion Easley, Bobby Higginson, Dave Mlicki/Jose Lima, Willie Blair, Dmitri Young, Craig Paquette, Steve Sparks, Bip Roberts, Gregg Jeffires etc...

[DrRay11]

Yeah, I think it's Randy Smith after reading that. Good grief...

[WTFchris]

I'd say smith. As bad as Millen is, there is hardly every anything on the FA market worth signing. Our crap WR's were evidence of that. In MLB, there are usually at least some guys out there to go after.