The Historic Ineptitude of Cam Bonifay and Dave Littlefield

by Charlie Wilmoth on Sep 25, 2008 2:54 PM EDT

Jonah Keri, ranking Bonifay and Littlefield the sixth worst general manager (both of them) in the history of professional sports:

No GM had more of a knack for trading great talent and getting so little in return than Littlefield. From getting next to nothing for established stars such as Jason Schmidt and Aramis Ramirez, to selling low on players who blossomed elsewhere such as Chris Young and Oliver Perez, to a parting shot in which he traded for Matt Morris with $9.5 million left on his contract, Littlefield's six-year track record will go down as one of the most extraordinary in MLB history. Only Sandy Koufax's run in the '60s was more impressive.

Of course, the Ramirez trade was ordered by ownership, Schmidt was not an "established star" (or even a star) when he was traded, and Morris had much more than $9.5 million on his contract when Littlefield acquired him. But sixth worst in the history of professional sports seems about right for these two guys.

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Comments

Nice, but . . .

Always feel a sense of vindication in seeing something like this, but DL was far, far worse than Cam — which is a comment on DL, not Cam. Keri also, like most writers, cites the wrong reasons with DL. Trading Schmidt when he was leaving in two months anyway was hardly a major blunder, and he couldn’t predict that Vogelsong would blow his arm out. The real harm DL did was to the farm system, combined with his abysmal talent evaluation at the major league level.

by WTM on Sep 25, 2008 3:16 PM EDT reply actions

Personally

I was offended to see that they lumped the two of them into one entry. They were bad for different reasons. The each deserve their own spot in the top 10.

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by whygavs on Sep 25, 2008 4:40 PM EDT reply actions

Yeah, you’re right. And honestly, Bonifay wasn’t really in Littlefield’s league. I’d have ranked him a bunch higher.

by Charlie Wilmoth on Sep 25, 2008 5:28 PM EDT up reply actions

I dunno...

I say putting them together is fine, as long as they’re in the number one spot. Really, Matt Millen is #1? He was only there for 7 seasons. If he stayed long enough, he might have come up with a winning season. Elgin Baylor had two winning seasons as GM. M. Donald Grant went to two World Series and won one. Randy Smith…ok, he might be worse than those two, but not by much.

What about Harding Peterson? Sure he presided over a World Series win for the Pirates, but that was shortly after the retirement of Joe L. Brown who spent the late 60’s turning the Pirates in to a power house. Peterson inherited a great team and was lucky to get Madlock in that mid season trade. After that though, trading Bert Blyleven for nothing, signing washed up old players like Sixto Lezcano, George Hendrick and Amos Otis. Trading Jay Buhner for the Yankees to get Steve Kemp and Tim Foli. There’s a long list of really dumb decisions. Besides Buhner, the only notable draft picks during his time were John Smiley and Barry Jones. He made a lot of stupid moves that destroyed the Pirates during the early 80’s and left their farm system just as empty and useless as the one DL left for Huntington…

by IAPiratesFan on Sep 26, 2008 2:12 AM EDT up reply actions

The common denominator

McClatchy. He’s both cheap and stupid.

Steve Z

by steve_z on Sep 26, 2008 4:36 AM EDT up reply actions

They made a lot of really dumb forays to acquire hitters in the early 80’s, but I think early in the 70’s, on Brown’s watch, the organization fell for the “pitching, speed and defense” mantra. The farm system didn’t really cough up many big hitters between Parker/Zisk/Armas in the mid-seventies and Bonds/Bonilla/Buhner in the mid-eighties.

by Arnold Rothstein on Sep 26, 2008 12:22 PM EDT up reply actions