Bavasi On Trading Choo

[NWinAZ]

I just read this on Dispatch from the GM who traded Shin-Soo Choo - Baseball Nation

Thursday, Bavasi e-mailed me:

More than anything else, the trades that year were just good old-fashioned disasters.
There was no specific pressure from above to make any specific move at that time. But I was not operating on the same platform they are now. Without going into great detail ... When I got there it was made REAL clear they didn't want any five-year plans … and that I'd get a mulligan in 2004 but, from then on they'd expect consistent improvement toward a postseason. When I say "improvement" I mean relative to our record. So even though we operated under some pressure to tangibly improve on a regular basis, the Choo and Cabrera trades were a product of my own stupidity and good work by the Indians.
By the way, I'm not complaining about the "no five-year plans" attitude. Again, without going into detail ... I knew the score going in.
We had good things to say about Choo at the time. We certainly didn't know what we know now -- what a star he'd be -- but our people liked him, knew he had skills, great make-up and a high sense of responsibility. We had good, smart people. I just blew it.
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Man I hate the fact he owns up to it. It isn't as much fun throwing darts at his picture now.

 

[Thisnamewasntaken]

I like that he took responsibility...it's like numerous little things are falling in place for this team and news being uncovered. I'm loving this offseason.

 

[dude82]

It's nice that he owned up to it and took responsibility for it when he didn't have to (he was getting the blame for it anyway), but it's been nearly 6 years since he was fired and after that much time, it doesn't really mean a whole lot. It's like when Bill Leavy owned up to his crew's officiating mistakes during XL and apologized to the Seahawks organization a few years ago. It was certainly nice of him to do it, but so much time had passed since that game took place that it didn't really do much good except to maybe give him and his crew some peace of mind.

 

[seahawksfan234]

Happy that he owned up to it. Bavasi could have easily made up some excuse for it but he completely just went out and said that he messed up. Classy move by him to just admit he screwed up.

 

[wazzu31]

Bavasi wasn't actually that bad. Gillick left him shit and Bavasi's inexperience showed when handling the organization. Had he had the experience he would've seen there is a balance between going for broke and building a farm system.

 

[davealbert]

It certainly takes away some of the fun in "hating" him but his ineptitude was undeniable and his career has already taken a downturn so he had nothing to lose. The fact that we still haven't had a good team has kept the sting in tact.

 

[NWinAZ]

I am a conspiracy theorist so I truly believe he was being paid by the Angels to come and dismantle the Mariners and set them back a decade....job accomplished.

 

[cezero]

Bavasi taking advantage of some free press by stating the obvious. Nothing more.

Keep on trying, Bill. I'm sure somebody will hire you to GM again!

 

[wazzu31]

I am a conspiracy theorist so I truly believe he was being paid by the Angels to come and dismantle the Mariners and set them back a decade....job accomplished.

Then what is the conspiracy for Jack Z. The Angels had a motive but the Brewers didn't.