It appears Terry has held a grudge against the league for its recommendations on senior management hires to help him in the transition. He now, like Chain points out will not consider recommendations from “hockey people” aboit “hockey people” and insists on hiring his way like he did at East. OK, its his money.
But he is intriqued by the shiny penny, ala the new age thinking ( see Krueger, Ralph). So why not have someone from outside the sport take a look? Someone who can look at the general attributes of what it takes to ice a competitive product consistently.
I had a chance to sit with Theo Epstein at a meet greet for sponsored by the University of Chicago Booth school of bus. He was a speaker. Extremely interesting conversation at the table after he spoke.
Three highlights:
1. Everything organization can identify a path to success. Where they fail is identifying the value required from each element identified in the plan. Many organizations do not want to break down the analysis to its most basic level. The analogy he used was drafting pitchers. He said the numbers indicate that the investment in developing a top 3 starter isn’t warranted. It is more efficient to buy them on the market. Let someone else pour money into a low,probability of success.
2. Success in a sports organization can only be defined by competitive excellence. It drives the business side. It drives revenue, it drives brand value and all the financial fruits come from that.
3. Players, managers, trainers are commodities. Not investments. Buy what you need. Not every position need be the luxury model. Build a base of productivity as measured against the league average and tailor to suit the individual clubs needs. If you have a short right porch and play 81 home games, leverage that with a sufficient number of guys to take it over the wall in those 82 games. The best rh hitter in the league will not overcome the advantage of the lh hitter having an easier threshold of success. Thus having a midland lh hitter and a enough of them gives you more value from a competitive standpoint than an all star rh hitter.
I mention this because I think the only way Terry gets outta the way is if he had someone with a similar vision that could be the liaison between operations and ownership. Theo had Jed Hoyer running the day to day, inquiring on trades etc. he just compared proposals to the plan and used the agreed upon measuring tools as arbiter of whether to make a move. The reality is likely to not change if he is in the decision making process going forward.
