OC Register: Angels narrow list of GM candidates to five

[AngelsWin.com]

The Angels are down to five candidates for their GM job, including four candidates who would be running a baseball operations department for the first time.

Seattle Mariners assistant GM Justin Hollander, Arizona Diamondbacks assistant GM’s Jared Porter and Amiel Sawdaye and Chicago Cubs vice president of player personnel Jason McLeod are four of the five finalists, a source confirmed on Tuesday night.

The fifth finalist is unknown.

The group of four were first reported by Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic, paring down a list that had included at least 14 confirmed candidates to have one interview.

Hollander worked for the Angels under both Tony Reagins and Jerry Dipoto before following Dipoto to Seattle.

Porter and Sawdaye both worked with the Boston Red Sox when they won the World Series in 2004, 2007 and 2013.

Porter and McLeod both worked for the Chicago Cubs when they won the World Series in 2016, while Joe Maddon was the manager.

Porter and Sawdaye have each spent the past four seasons with the Diamondbacks under GM Mike Hazen, who also came from Boston.

Although the fifth finalist is unknown, the Angels also interviewed former Marlins president of baseball Michael Hill, former Giants GM Bobby Evans, former Phillies GM Ruben Amaro Jr., Washington Nationals special assistant Dan Jennings, Milwaukee Brewers assistant GM Matt Arnold, Oakland A’s assistant GM Billy Owens, Kansas City Royals assistant GM J.J. Picollo, Royals assistant GM Scott Sharp, Padres special assistant Logan White and Royals special assistant Gene Watson.

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[Second Base]

Notice how many times Porter is referenced in such a small space in this article. It's like he's trying to tell us something.

[Angel Oracle]

This sucks!!!!

No Owens or White???????

 

[arch stanton]

I'm not going to pretend to know enough about any of them to get worked up about it

[Docwaukee]

43 minutes ago, Second Base said:

Notice how many times Porter is referenced in such a small space in this article. It's like he's trying to tell us something.

I've had a gut feeling from the beginning that it was going to be Porter.  

[Warfarin]

6 hours ago, arch stanton said:

I'm not going to pretend to know enough about any of them to get worked up about it

Yeah.  I mean we all have our favorites and preferences, but in truth, we don't really know much about these candidates.  Great GMs can emerge from all sorts of places, so I won't rush to judgment either way.

Whoever it is, I hope they are allowed to build a strong FO with the necessary scouting and analytics department.  More than anything else, I think that is what will be the key aspect to our FO's success - having the financial resources to build what is necessary to create a sustainable winner.

[DMVol]

7 hours ago, Dochalo said:

I've had a gut feeling from the beginning that it was going to be Porter.  

Like @Warfarinand @arch stanton, I'm not going to pretend that I know enough about these guys to offer much more than a casual "eye test" thought.....but, the one thing we do know is that Porter would be the 4th straight first time GM we've hired....I want the right guy, don't care about optics or hiring based on a particular type, i.e. scouting, analytics, whatever background....but I have to admit that it does give me a little bit of heartburn to be following the same path again....cross fingers if he's the hire....

[Stradling]

My only thought on this is, if the goal is to go away from being so analytically driven to a player development driven team, then why not hire more than one of these guys, to different roles or different titles?  

[Second Base]

13 hours ago, Dochalo said:

I've had a gut feeling from the beginning that it was going to be Porter.  

It would be interesting to see his team building philosophy and plan for the team.

[Lou]

5 hours ago, Stradling said:

My only thought on this is, if the goal is to go away from being so analytically driven to a player development driven team, then why not hire more than one of these guys, to different roles or different titles?  

Because they wouldn't leave their current positions for a similar role here?

[AngelsLakersFan]

6 hours ago, Stradling said:

My only thought on this is, if the goal is to go away from being so analytically driven to a player development driven team, then why not hire more than one of these guys, to different roles or different titles?  

Why can't we be both analytically and player development driven?

[Revad]

8 minutes ago, AngelsLakersFan said:

Why can't we be both analytically and player development driven?

Too complicated for most organizations.  Or most owners.

[Stradling]

1 hour ago, AngelsLakersFan said:

Why can't we be both analytically and player development driven?

I have no idea.  I’d prefer to be both.   Hell we probably were both under Eppler.  With the emergence of late round picks or “career” turn around guys like Fletcher, Walsh and Ward you’d have to think some of that is caused by player development.  

[AngelsLakersFan]

8 minutes ago, Stradling said:

I have no idea.  I’d prefer to be both.   Hell we probably were both under Eppler.  With the emergence of late round picks or “career” turn around guys like Fletcher, Walsh and Ward you’d have to think some of that is caused by player development.  

Yeah, that was my take as well. It's disconcerting to hear this process described as being too analytical and requiring a shift towards player development. I'm guessing the analytics department Eppler built gets sacked or significantly scaled back, of course Im just projecting based on the post in this thread.

[DCAngelsFan]

21 minutes ago, AngelsLakersFan said:

Yeah, that was my take as well. It's disconcerting to hear this process described as being too analytical and requiring a shift towards player development. I'm guessing the analytics department Eppler built gets sacked or significantly scaled back, of course Im just projecting based on the post in this thread.

Which of the reaction gifs say "I agree with this take, but hate it so much?"

Arte's comments (that anecdote about how analytics ruined player development is kinda weird),  and tellingly, the list of candidates who *didn't* advance to the final round tells me we're not gonna like what happens - he's obviously looking for someone who'll accept the GM job with lots of limits on budget and control, things that top-tier candidates probably wouldn't accept.   Sounded like he thinks GM's need someone looking over their shoulder by someone who's smarter than they are - "him."   

We definitely need to improve player scouting and development - but sounds like he's going to sacrifice analytics to do it - no expansion of the operations staff or budget.