UTK Special: Title Insanity
MLB Needs Standards in the Front Office
When I was first working in media, I learned quickly that some of the best people to talk to were the ones under the surface, that don’t get as much attention. While medical personnel, the targets of my beat, could seldom speak on record, others could. While General Managers and even Assistant General Managers were often too busy and too important to talk with some guy from *checks notes* Baseball Prospectus, I’d often get passed on to someone else.
I noted that in several organizations, this was someone with the title “Director of Baseball Operations.” One person pronounced the abbreviation out, as “Dee-Bop”. The thing I noticed quickly is that in any organization, the DBOp seldom did the same tasks as the DBOp in another. I would often start conversations by asking “So what do you do in your organization” and to a man, they would respond “what do you think I do?”
That title still exists in baseball and is still as varied, but figuring out where the people that have that business card fit on the organizational chart is even harder these days. The corporatization of baseball front offices has undergone a ridiculous growth in headcount and in titles that are roughly meaningless.
Nowhere is that more clear in the title of the person that runs things. It used to be the General Manager. Occasionally, that person would get a Vice President title, like a banker. Today we have Chief Baseball Officers, Senior Vice Presidents, President of Baseball Operations, and even General Managers. Often times, one person will carry two titles. And naturally, we’ll see them all next month … at the General Manager’s Meeting. I guess MLB didn’t get the memo.
Inside baseball, the titles don’t really matter. People know who their counterpart in other organizations are, who they can call for things, and who’s above their level. There’s usually very little question about who can make trades, or even who’s involved in trades, but it’s very confusing to the outside. Brian Cashman is the GM of the Yankees (as well as a Vice President), but John Mozeliak is the President of Baseball Operations. Do we not think those two had discussions when the Harrison Bader for Jordan Montgomery deal went down, despite the fact that Mike Girsch has the exact same title as Cashman?
(That said, I’m sure Girsch was involved, as were the three AGM’s from St Louis and the Yankees’ meager two AGMs. To make up for that shortfall, the Yankees have 13 Senior Vice Presidents, 9 Vice Presidents, and 38 people with the title Director somewhere in their title.)
The reason for this is simple. As baseball has gotten more complex and more competitive, these aren’t jobs for life. Staff hop around, wanting more responsibility, better perks, and more power. Sometimes, people get ‘bumped upstairs’ in order to keep a lower exec who might have to look elsewhere otherwise. Sometimes a bigger title is needed so it doesn’t appear to be a lateral move, one which could be blocked, such as what happened with David Stearns and the Mets last year.
Rob Manfred could solve all this by standardizing organization charts. While it would seem like something that would be too small to worry about, it would solve some issues and clarify things for the public. While corporate VP titles could be kept as add-ons, things like “GM”, “AGM”, and such are part of baseball tradition. Branch Rickey was a GM, not a Senior Vice President.
Wait, actually Rickey was Team President, when he went to Brooklyn, and Executive Vice President when he went to Pittsburgh. But which do you remember? Do you remember Theo Epstein as the GM that broke two curses, or the President of Baseball Operations who did the same? Tradition matters in baseball and so should titles.