In any other business besides baseball, long-term thinking is more important to the health of the company.  Those in the front offices of baseball will also tell you that they think long-term.  Or at least they did in a survey I conducted in 2008.  The problem though is that in other businesses long-term is defined as 10+ years from now.  In baseball, its anything over two years from now- which is not very long-term.

Gwenn Knapp writes today about the danger of waiting to renew the contract of a GM or manager in the final year of their contract.  With only a few months left, each is forced to forget the long-term and only think about the very very short term.  In Bochy’s case, he might choose to sacrifice the long-term health of one of his young pitchers arms for an extra win, or even just lose his patience with a young position player.  In Brian Sabean’s case, he might choose to trade away Matt Cain- a future ace- for a big bat not tied up for very long.

General Manager get nervous when their job is in immediate jeopardy, and they do things that might appease fans for the short-term, in hopes the pay-off is big enough that the owner will grant them a stay of execution.  A great example is when Dave Littlefield, then GM for the Pirates, traded for Matt Morris from the Giants a couple of years ago.  Littlefield agreed to take on all of Matt Morris’ contract, a little less than $12 million for the year and half left on the contract, in hopes that Morris could win enough games and eat enough innings that the Pirates would not finish below .500.  That $12million was at least 4 times (maybe as much as 6 times)  what Littlefield would have made if one-year  was added to his contract and then he was fired.  So, not giving Littlefield the extention cost the team as much or more as buying out Littlefields last year of his contract.

In very few other businesses is a General Manager hired with so little known about his actual skills.  Perhaps someone has gained a good rep as a talent evaluator, so one hopes their decisions will come from that.  Others might have become experts in the ins and outs of player moves (waivers and other transactions) so they could manage to be a good “manager.”  Rarely though does someone in baseball move into the GM position with all the tools in place, and yet they are trusted with a $50 million budget, and the hopes and dreams of the local constiuency.

Knapp makes a great point that it is very hard to “win now” and nurture the young long term health of the club.  The key for the Giants is giving Brian Sabean a reason to care as much about the latter as he does the former.