"A question that's sometimes posed goes something like this: "Should you run a organization with scouts or statistics?" My answer is the same it would be if someone asked me: "Beer or tacos?" Both, you fool." - Dayn Perry
Buster Olney (of the ESPN Olneys) reported via Twitter yesterday that the Diamondbacks desire an "old-fashioned scouting/player development type of GM, rather than a numbers guy". Multiple reports suggest former San Diego Padres general manager Kevin Towers or current interim janitor and television star Jerry DiPoto remain finalists, with Towers having more experience and DiPoto allegedly willing to show up for mere seven-figure peanuts.
If you're counting at home, this is salvo #124390894 at Josh Byrnes, Miserable Human Being and Noted Poo-Poo Head, from the Diamondbacks organization. Nearly all of them have been lobbed through side and back doors, from bringing on an older interim manager who played baseball at one point or another and an interim GM that was a scouting director and former ballplayer himself. Men of the game!
Of course, this move doesn't just separate the current folks in charge from the stench of the current player development and free agent failures. It blatantly panders to fans that identify more with baseball players than algebra. It encourages eyes to turn to the minor league system from the execrable major-league product for the short-term. It focuses on inherently cheaper players, clearly the top priority for the franchise.
None of the above goals are essentially bad, but they are inherently cynical. DiPoto only stays if no one will take the low-ball GM salary. Gibson only stays if he can remain stink-free after the season. The best possible investment in the next three years (and any year, frankly) is down on the farm, but you actually have to sign players to mature them.
And it's all besides the point. Beer and tacos. Not beer or tacos. And especially not, "only beer because beer is cheaper per ounce and it will get people drunk so they forget we don't have tacos or players but on the positive side we still have beer".
In fact, forget Kevin Towers and Jerry DiPoto. Contact your local Derrick Hall and demand that beer is installed as the next general manager of the Arizona Diamondbacks. The team might be singularly unattractive for the next few years, but no one will notice when beer is around. Just don't get the munchies until 2013.
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