Stick To What You're Good At

For those folks out there who are interested in business and finance, Forbes Magazine has always been a pretty good read. But I’m a big believer in the motto “stick to what you're good at” and I think the nice people at Forbes should take my advice.

Reading this made me laugh out loud. Except then I realized that it’s never funny when bad information is passed into the marketplace. Intelligent people read Forbes and they’ll honestly be dumber for reading this garbage.

Since I could literally attack every one of these rankings, I’ll spare you instead and give you the lowlights:

-Kevin McHale(1)/Billy King (3). Has anyone been watching the NBA over the past 10 years? The Timberwolves have only won two playoff series under McHale, famously botched the Joe Smith signing to the point that a bust of a former #1 draft pick set the franchise back a half-dozen years, and the team hasn’t developed and retained a single player of note besides Kevin Garnett. Honestly, HONESTLY, how is McHale ranked #1?

As for King, the Sixers haven’t drafted particularly well, haven’t been competitive since making the NBA Finals in 2001, and are now botching what was a legitimate attempt at throwing the season to get into the Oden/Durant sweepstakes. Again, a total head-scratcher.

-Jerry Angelo ranked #8 overall. I’m not saying he hasn’t come a long way over the past few years, but higher than the guys in New England and Philly? Higher than the GM’s for the Ravens, Colts, and Broncos? I’m just not seeing it.

-Glen Sather ranked #12 overall. I really don’t care much for hockey but living in New York has made me keenly aware of all of Sather’s flaws. Before last year, the Rangers had missed the playoffs for seven consecutive seasons, despite having the league’s highest payroll. They haven’t had a young player contend for the Rookie of the Year award in over a decade. Sather’s consistently gone after past-their-prime veterans instead of developing talent from within. How on earth can Sather be deemed the fourth-best GM in hockey according to this list? What, he’s given retroactive credit for what he did in Edmonton nearly 30 years ago?

-Billy Beane (26)/Omar Minaya (29)/Theo Eptsein (30)/Mike Flanagan (50)/Jim Hendry (58)/Brian Cashman (61)/Kenny Williams (67).

This one just drives me crazy. Billy Beane is the highest-ranked baseball GM on the list. That much makes sense. But why is he so far down? I thought winning and cost-containment were the two biggest criteria here. Wouldn’t Beane seem to be a great candidate for the top spot? Minaya and Eptsein ranked second and third among baseball GM’s. I don’t see where cost containment comes into play with either of them, however. But I’ll move on, because the list gets super-interesting now...

Mike Flanagan, the GM of the perennially fourth-place Orioles; ahead of Brian Cashman? Cashman loses points because of the Yankee payroll – this much I’m fine with. But I thought winning counted here? If GM “X” watches GM “Y” win nine consecutive division titles and both GM’s are in the same division, it’s pretty hard for me to see how “X” ranks ahead of “Y” when we’re measuring wins.

Finally, we get to the most maddening part of the list. How is Hendry ranked ahead of Williams? Not only have the White Sox won a World Series, not only have they pretty much made a mockery of any Cubs-White Sox rivalry (the White Sox – as much as I hate them – have been a far superior organization than the Cubs over the past decade), but can anyone honestly say that Hendry’s done even a passable job here? I’m friends with lots of Cubs fans. Their most familiar refrain is that the minor league system is barren and hasn’t produced anyone of note besides Carlos Zambrano in a really long time. Hendry’s an abject failure as a GM and Kenny Williams ought to be insulted that he’s a whole nine spots further back on the list.

Forbes, when it comes to sports, you don’t know shit.