Offseason Thought Experiment - The Theo Epstein Front Office Tree

ookami7m

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Jul 15, 2005
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In the NFL for years there has been a ton of conversation around coaching trees - most notably the Bill Parcells lineage from which the modern day Belichik Tree sprouts. Reading through some team offseason plan type articles and recognizing names from Theo's run here as GM starting in 2003 got me thinking - Is the Theo Tree the MLB equivalent?

Points in favor:
  • In this comparison Theo is probably more Belichik than Parcells, where you can arguably put Sandy Alderson (pre-Met's insanity)or Kevin Towers as Parcells the original mentor level with other smaller trees alongside Theo's.
  • Theo lieutenants who have moved on to other GM/President jobs: Cherrington, Hoyer, The Incomparable Peter Woodfork, Hazen amongst others
  • Generally speaking those who have branched out have had better than average results both in comparison to predecessors and to their contemporaries

Is there a better tree out there in MLB?
 

jon abbey

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Is there a better tree out there in MLB?
Yes, pretty sure Andrew Friedman runs away with this. From Wikipedia:

"Friedman has trained and developed a number of successful baseball executives and coaches. Among the executives are Chaim Bloom, Chief Baseball Officer for the Boston Red Sox; James Click, general manager of the Houston Astros; Alex Anthopoulos, general manager and president of baseball operations for the Atlanta Braves; Farhan Zaidi, the president of baseball operations for the San Francisco Giants; Matt Arnold, assistant general manager for the Milwaukee Brewers; and Erik Neander, senior vice president of baseball operations and general manager of the Tampa Bay Rays. Managers and coaches include Joe Maddon who managed the Rays during Friedman's entire tenure with that club; Dave Martinez, manager of the Washington Nationals who worked as the Rays' bench coach under Maddon; Charlie Montoyo, manager of the Toronto Blue Jays who also coached under Maddon while Maddon was the Rays manager; and Rocco Baldelli, who after serving as a special assistant to Friedman was hired as the manager of the Minnesota Twins.[25] Gabe Kapler, current San Francisco Giants’ manager, served as the Dodgers farm director from 2015-2017."
 

voidfunkt

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Theo gets a lot of ball washing on here and rightfully so for 2004 and 2007 but he's produced a lot of FO duds or guys who just continue to work under him because they haven't been good enough to succeed without him propping them up.

He's nowhere near Belichick or Parcels in terms of developed GM/FO talent.