That was sort of my point by my post. This decision was made by the owner. What I was debating was whether it's that he WAS a below average GM throughout most of his tenure and that long leash created an average GM, no different than giving too much opportunity to a player like Motte, who by pure force and opporunity, actually resulted in a pretty good player, at that point, you shut up and keep him. How long his leash was or how many large mistakes he made during his tenure does not determine whether he is at this very point, a decent option moving forward.
Considering the mistakes he made as recently as this last offseason, letting prime assets who wanted to stay walk to division rivals. He is not a decent option going forward. I'd much rather prefer someone like Gilman, Lombardi, Hextall (too late) or McFarland at this point to Jim. The fact he chose, even at the eleventh hour, to qualify Jake Virtanen (who is right now benched and on the trade block for peanuts) and not re-sign Tanev or Toffoli is a fireable offense and irredeemably horrific asset management.
Youre putting things under a microscope and singling out one thing to make a point. As a whole, his pro scouting has improved and has actually won trades recently, his rate of success is much improved in that very department. Sure that one specific case has minimal improvement. He also traded Gudbranson for Pearson
I'm looking at the wider context of his moves and what they meant for our cap space. taking into account the whole picture to make the point. Benning is death by a thousand cuts. His pro scouting has not improved (Myers and Ferland in the 2019 offseason), his personnel decisions has not improved (losing Malholtra and Brackett), the drafting remains to be seen in a post Judd world.
Also, how is it any less microscopic when I point these moves in the context of a wider strategy (personnel, drafting, contracts, cap) but in the next sentence you're asking me to focus on individual tranactions like Motte and Pearson?
How he handled the managerial side is purely speculative and fans are not aware of the details and negotiations and peoples view of this will simply be based on their general view of him based on other factors and most of which is based around the past poor decisions this GM made that have greatly impacted the team for several years and having to suffer through a steep learning curve while he makes large mistakes.
Again I want to point to Motte as an example. Nobody is complaining about him now, was it a bad target in the first place, very likely, was he played too much in most scenarios, yeah sure possible. With too much opportunity, a pretty respectable player was born
of course, we are fans and we are working with the same public information. This is all speculation. It's just that there has been enough smoke to at least tell me something is burning, and the front office turnover and the moves this team has done is enough to tell you something. I don't need to be an insider to know that we let Tanev, Markstrom, Toffoli walk to a division rival.
I have a calculator, a calendar and capfriendly.com to know for years that we were headed down a cap squeeze regardless of covid.
Is 'he is learning on the job' still a valid excuse after you've been at the job for seven years?
Are you not being microscopic with Motte? For the record, I was very much against that trade, Vanek should have been a draft pick. Do i like Motte? Yes. Same way i liked JT Miller as a player but was able to still criticize the timing of the trade in the broader view of the competitive window and ages of this core, along with the strength of the 2020 draft and UFA classes.
You dont think his drafting has improved, you dont think his pro scouting/trading has improved and you dont think he's more aware of cap management and term?
Correct. He's too focused on the short term, limited goal of making playoffs. As for Cap management, He's definitely aware of it now, not by choice. I don't trust him enough to dig us out of the cap hell he's put us in.
And honestly, the bleeding of talent in the front office (Gilman, Brackett, Malholtra) tells me enough. he's not a good manager, he's not able to delegate and surround himself with people that are smarter than him. And even if I acknowledge his drafting has improved, it's useless if he trades the picks away or gives the assets away for rentals.
There is a saying once about a Roman emperor who got so jealous and paranoid of his best general that he had him assassinated, the adage goes like this:
"Whether well or not, I do not know. But know that you have cut off your right hand with your left."
That's really GMJB's tenure in a nutshell.
As a side note:
I don't mean to sound like I'm railing on you. I know the internet can amplify our emotions and it comes off differently from a keyboard. We're fans of the same team after all, and I respect your conviction, I don't expect you to change your mind. This is more to just get my thoughts out. Either way, neither of us have control of this team. All we can do is watch and cheer for better or for worse.
