Here are three things we’re monitoring around baseball today…
1. NLCS Game 2:
The Phillies took the first game of the National League Championship series, winning last night’s contest 5-3 to take a 1-0 lead in the series. The second game goes tonight at 7:07 pm Central, with Merrill Kelly starting for the Diamondbacks and Aaron Nola for the Phillies. Can Arizona even the series or will the Phils take a 2-0 lead out west? Kelly tossed 6 1/3 scoreless innings in his one postseason start thus far while Nola, an impending free agent, has a 1.42 ERA in his 12 2/3 innings so far in this year’s playoffs.
2. ALCS travel day:
The Rangers managed to hold on to a 5-4 victory yesterday, giving them a 2-0 lead in the ALCS. That puts the defending-champion Astros in a tight spot, heading to Arlington for three straight games there. They will need to win two of those three contests on the road just to stay alive and send the series back to Houston for Game 6. Game 3 is tomorrow night with Cristian Javier set to square off against Max Scherzer, who will be making his return from an injury that once seemed season-ending. A situation worth monitoring will be Yordan Alvarez, who has been sick and was almost held out of the Game 2 lineup. As relayed by Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic, Alvarez insisted on playing and ended up hitting a pair of home runs yesterday. Ideally, the off-day will give him a chance to get over his illness but it certainly didn’t seem to hamper his performance.
3. What’s next for Kim Ng:
Yesterday brought the surprising news that the Marlins and general manager Kim Ng would not be continuing their relationship for another year. The club reportedly exercised a mutual option for 2024 but she did not trigger her end, seemingly motivated by the club being unwilling to give her a longer extension and because they planned to install a president of baseball operations above her. Given that the Marlins have fared well during her tenure, she figures to get interest from other clubs, but it’s unknown if she wants to immediately jump into a new job or take some time to mull things over. The Mets are looking for a general manager, but one that would work under president of baseball operations David Stearns. The Sox are also on the hunt for a GM but reporting indicates it’s not the most attractive job in the league, for various reasons.
I’m NG lie, I thought Texas would definitely lose to Houston in this series. I may be wrong. The 2015 team got super lucky in 1-run games and then ended up losing a few of those in the playoffs. It seems this team may be the opposite. Btw, it’s odd Jose Leclerc has pitched in every game so far.
I like Ng, she built that roster against the grain of the prevailing TTO obsession, and had unexpected success doing it, all while having an ineffective and eventually lost season from their Cy Young ace. It’s probably why she lost the job. She deserves another chance.
To be clear, Ng declined her side of the ’24 option year on her contract. The Marlins did not.
I think that’s pretty clear.
She was demoted with all her decision making ability stripped. So she could stay on in title only, but just for one year.
And they did that after she led them to the playoffs for the first time in a real season in the past 20 years.
Yeah, I don’t think anyone with self-esteem would have chosen to stay. Let’s be real here. She was told to leave or go sit in an office for a year and do nothing.
She didn’t lose the job she left.
When you get effectively demoted after doing as well as you can possibly do in your job, then whether you technically quit or get fired is just a matter of semantics.
The decision was made by her bosses and they knew what the likely outcome would be.
Would be cool if y’all (and every other reporter but especially the smart ones like you) would start calling the Ng incident what it is: a demotion.
The Marlins owner rewarded the first female GM leading their team to the playoffs before anyone ever expected it with… a demotion. It’s a lot simpler to explain it to the general public when you say it like that, plus it helps people understand exactly how depraved their FO is for doing it.
Is it really a demotion when you retain the same job title and pay? They are looking to fill a position that had already existed and was left open from a previous departure. It’s not a demotion. It’s also clear they were not willing to give her a promotion to that opening. That would tick me off, too.
It might actually be worse. They essentially put a ceiling on her.
We think you’re doing a good enough job that we want you back, but we’ll never consider you for anything more.
Yes it’s effectively a demotion when you have a new person inserted between you and the top of the organization. Maybe not technically speaking, but definitely de facto.
One of the other articles mentioned that the owner did not approve of her changes for the scouting department, so that is another issue. It doesn’t sound like a great place to work.
That’s actually a really big deal as scouting is every franchises top priority and marlins have had success in recent years leading to the core of this roster.
So if true, it’s likely the #1 reason ownership wanted to put someone above her and rightfully so until her people are proven which takes several years. Possible clarity on why it all feel apart.
@Big Whiffa you have it precisely backwards, the issue is she wanted to get rid of some of the people in the scouting department and elsewhere who have been sucking, and ownership wanted to protect them. As reported in the Athletic:
“Ng, who people within the Marlins organization lauded for helping change the culture, was also having trouble getting rid of some of Miami’s holdovers from previous regimes. While the club did part ways with polarizing vice president of scouting and player development Gary Denbo midway through 2022, and senior director of international operations Adrian Lorenzo did not return when his contract was up last year, sources say Ng wanted to make changes in some other high-ranking leadership roles in scouting and player development, which ownership seemingly was not receptive to.”
Sounds like Ng fan section wrote that article lol.
Proof is in the results. Any player brought into the organization prior to her being there is responsible for current group of players. And that’s a whole lot of talent ! So maybe it’s not a good thing to get rid of all those guys and ownership apparently agreed to an extent and that’s why they demoted her.
Also, I’m not ready to loud Ng for culture change and apparently no one else is willing to put their name on it “people within”. There’s a winning culture that she brought and can’t deny that, but that doesn’t mean there’s unity nor the proper pipeline of talent.
Do u know why the pirates always suck ? It’s bc they can’t scout.
Do u know why the padres can consistently trade away elite talent ? It’s bc they are so good at scouting – they’ll replace it.
She got out of her lane and paid the price for it.
Agree to disagree on Ng, but you’re wrong on the Pirates. They scouted Gerritt Cole and Tyler Glasnow, they’re just too cheap to keep their best players.
They drafted both of those dudes more than a decade ago lol. Then, due to their terrible scouting, traded away Glasnow in one of the worst returns in baseball history
The last two GMs for the Marlins walked away. Let’s see how long the new POBO lasts.
We should note here that amateur/international scouting is a different discipline, with different personnel, than advance scouting. A team can be good at scouting players before they arrive in professional ball, then lousy at evaluating them in minor/major league settings.
This is the same organization that fired Girardi after he won Manager of the Year. Success isn’t rewarded with them.
Girardi didn’t have a good relationship with then owner Jeffrey Loria (who did?), and I remember reading that the straw that broke the camel’s back was Girardi giving Loria a “dirty look” on his way back from a mound visit. Different ownership has only brought a different brand of dysfunction.
From what I have read, some of her free agent signings and draft picks were suspect, so I don’t think it is unusual to want to have someone keep an eye on her.
I don’t know that i’d call it a demotion but it’s definitely NOT a good look, and undeserved to suddenly put her beneath a President of Baseball ops. She did the job and did it well. You do start to wonder if it was a man, would they have promoted him or let things play out.
Either way, she deserves to be a top decision maker. The fact that she only has a couple of years of experience, though, puts her in a tough spot. Had they given her even just one more year on her own, it would probably be easier for her to go to a team and be a sole GM, or even get a promotion to President.
She’s been an actual GM for 3 years. An AGM for forever. Rolling that into a POBO position feels like a hell of a stretch. You only see literally the most accomplished GMs in the last 20 or so years getting that spot. She is not that. At least not yet.
So I don’t blame the Marlins for not promoting her to that spot. And I don’t blame her for leaving. Nobody wants to feel like a lame duck. Especially after your team just made the playoffs in a non shortened season for the first time in a long while.
Would be cool if y’all (and every other fan commenter but especially the smart ones, if they exist) would start calling the Ng incident what it is: a resignation.
Wonder what the chances are of the Mets pulling an “Uno-Reverse” and signing Nola a la the Wheeler deal.
*Tosses down a Red Skip*
*Tosses down a Yellow Skip*
*Tosses down a Green Skip*
*Tosses down a Wild Draw-4*
Blue!
I win! No more cards.
Oops i forgot to say UNO.
UNO!
Ng got them to the playoffs without a director of baseball ops so why would she ever agree to the mutual option? I admit that to me, sometimes the gender discrimination thing can be a bit eye rolling, but in this case I believe it’s legitimate to ask- Would they have done that if she was a man?
All I can say to that, is, for their sake, I really hope they hire someone with a helluva lot more than 3 years experience as a GM+ to the position. Otherwise they’ll be crucified. Anything less is not a good look.
I heard Billy Eppler is available. 😉
Derek Jeter. a man, was employed with the Marlins and left due to a disagreement over how the team should be run. I don’t think gender matters. I think the owner likes to constantly look over the shoulder of his staff and question or disapprove of the decisions that they want to make.
The owner meddles too much. Those are the worst people to work for. You want the autonomy to do your job and not have your decisions, that you have been given the power to make, questioned or denied.
Just because the owner meddles with everyone doesn’t mean gender wasn’t a cause. When Jeter left they hadn’t gone anywhere. Ng helped bring them to a playoff spot before anyone thought the team would be ready.
Jeter may have made some good moves, but the results weren’t there yet when he parted ways. Ng delivered.
> Ng helped bring them to a playoff spot
> before anyone thought the team would be
> ready.
In your opinion, what were Kim Ng’s top 5 transactions for the Marlins as a GM?
Jeter was the CEO. More the business and operations side, which included hiring, such as Ng. He had GMs, including Ng, making the moves.
Trevor May is my new favorite non Mariner
I thought Jessie Winkler was.
Or was that your GF’s?
(;
FISHER: Sell the team instead of moving to Vegas for easy marks.
She was only the GM there for 3 years. How much of her finger prints could really be on this current roster? I’m not a Miami follower so I don’t know a lot of details, but her drafts couldn’t have made an impact on the Major league roster yet. They don’t spend much in free agency. So this teams roster wasn’t exactly put together by her as much as previous regime.
I’m guessing there were things going on behind the scenes we don’t know about that was the real problem.
No matter how much of the roster is technically her doing (and both Luzardo and Arraez are 100% her doing), when else has a GM been effectively demoted after taking their team to the playoffs years before anyone expected them to? It has simply not been done and it’s highly questionable if it would have been done in this case were she a man.
Yeah. Play the “if she was a man “ card. Like you know this as factual. lol
I literally said it is “questionable,” which is nearly the opposite of stating it as a fact.
Walt Jockety is on line 1.
Really surprised that Houston isn’t showing up for this series yet. Seems like the Rangers are the team of destiny from the AL. Maybe a Phillies-Rangers tilt?
Ng should have traded alcantara, you already got 100s of innings out of that guy and his value could have never been any higher.
So act like a small market team and get top returns by selling off talent at peak value. If she would have done that – she wouldn’t/couldn’t have got demoted then
Trading the reigning CY who is already signed to a team friendly long-term deal is some really good hindsight.
Yeah she should have definitely foreseen Alcantara getting hurt and dealt him before that happened.
That’s easy to say in hindsight in light of his injury but Alcantara’s contract is very team-friendly. I don’t imagine you’d say the Braves should trade Acuna bc he’s healthy. The Angels should not have extended Trout, etc… etc. All signings are risks.
I did say it before last year as he was at his peak value and that contract made him all the more valuable.
And if Acuna pitched w over 700 innings under his belt on the roster then yeah, trade him too. But he’s not, he’s making 10% of his true value. So u don’t trade him bc he’s no where near the peak of his value
Even though I think Philly wins the series, Arizona and Texas picked second and third in the 2022 draft, and might both be in the World Series one year later. That’s crazy.
1. An exciting matchup with implications for both teams in a finely balanced series.
2. The Astros face an uphill battle, but postseason baseball often brings unpredictable twists and comebacks.
3. A departure that raises questions about organizational commitment and the evolving landscape of baseball management.
“Finely balanced”???
@In Seager/Bauer We Trust
5-3 is finely balanced.
Arizona had a – run differential. Philly has top talent. I disagree. If you meant Houston cs Texas, I still disagree since Houston > Texas by a good bit imo
@In Seager/Bauer We Trust
Oh, absolutely, a negative run differential is clearly a sign of a championship-caliber team. Forget about those pesky stats and actual performance on the field; who needs that? And Philly, oh boy, they’re just overflowing with talent. They’ve got talent coming out of their ears; it’s a shame they haven’t won a World Series in over a decade.
And you’re right, when you say Houston > Texas, it’s like comparing apples to oranges. I mean, who cares about Texas when Houston’s there, right? Texas is just a whole state, and Houston is clearly superior in every conceivable way. Yep, makes total sense! 🙂
I was talking about matchups. Random teams do win, but this certainty isn’t evenly matched. Now, you would say LAD vs AZ was evenly matched based on the possibility that one of those teams wins. Lol
Also, “stats” are included in run differential.
@In Seager/Bauer We Trust
What’s not finely balanced? It’s not like AZ is a pushover.
Let’s be honest. The only reason people are talking about Ng is because she has ovaries. Unless she doesn’t anymore?. Whatever. You get the point. If the Marlins would have parted ways with a male GM, it would get a blip and a paragraph.
Also RIP Astros. Good riddance to you and that backwards fan base
Ok weirdo. Agree on the Astros though
After the new information, I view this as here’s a one year contract. Can you help the new guy we’re hiring above you to get aquainted with the organization? That would be great.
Does anyone know what a GM does once there’s a president of baseball operations? I bet half the Cardinals fans couldn’t tell you who is the Cardinals GM. Randy Flores the scouting director seems to have more impact on team success than Girsch.
News Flash: She was a C+ at best at roster construction. That will never win you a ring. Good decision by the Marlins. She can go back to the Yankees where she belongs.