With new landscape, general managers work 24/7

Maybe 10 days following his surprise retirement announcement last October, former Los Angeles Angels general manager Bill Stoneman performed a simple act that thousands of other men happily carry out every night of the year.

Brian Cashman has been with the Yankees since 1998, the fourth-longest current GM tenure. (Getty Images)

He took his wife to dinner.

"Out of the blue, she looked at me and said, 'Boy, you've changed,'" Stoneman says. "I looked at her and said, 'What?'

"She said, 'You've changed. You're relaxed now.'

"I said, 'Come on, it's only been 10 days. Was it really that bad?'"

For GMs across the game, the answer to that question is becoming more and more inevitable.

It's either a "yes" now, or a "yes" eventually.

When spring training opens next week, nearly one-third of baseball's 30 clubs will start camp with a new man in charge. And since the end of the 2005 season, 15 teams have hired new GMs.

And not all are leaving involuntarily, either.

Baseball always has been a game of change. But in the current era of astronomical payrolls, corporate ownership, intense and practically 24-hour media scrutiny and great fan expectations, more and more, change is finding the men in the GM chairs.

The three longest-tenured GMs from a year ago all are out. Atlanta's John Schuerholz (who held the Braves job since Oct. 10, 1990) and Minnesota's Terry Ryan (Twins GM since Sept. 13, 1994) resigned, each citing the job's grind as a major part of the reason. Schuerholz accepted Atlanta's offer to move up to club president; Ryan remained with the Twins as a special assistant to new GM Bill Smith.

The third, St. Louis' Walt Jocketty (Cardinals GM since Oct. 14, 1994), was fired over philosophical differences with owner Bill DeWitt.

Traditionally one of the most desirable and high-wire-act jobs in the game, today's GM lives a meat-grinder existence in which the perks of running a big league club can be counter-balanced by the pressures of not mishandling a payroll of probably $70 million or higher and by the venom often spewing from talk radio stations and Internet blogs.

"There is a shelf life to anybody in the job," says Stoneman, 63, who remains involved with the Angels as a consultant to owner Arte Moreno. "I think we all recognize it. John was in it a long time. Terry was a GM for 13 years. I was only a GM for eight years and I looked at them and, shoot. It's 24 hours a day. And it's not going to get any easier."

Ryan, whose sudden announcement last September stunned even those closest to him, noted at the time that the defeats were getting harder to take and the wins weren't as much fun.

Schuerholz, 67, who was out of the country and unavailable for comment this week, used the word "irritating" last fall to describe some of today's challenges after closing the book on a 26-year career running the Royals and Braves. He has ascended to the presidency of the Braves, leaving the GM reigns to his longtime assistant Frank Wren.

"I'm not so sure individuals have changed, but the money has," said Ryan, 52, this week while driving to a speaking engagement for the Twins' Class A affiliate in Beloit, Wis. "In the late '80s, early '90s, the average payroll probably was $25 to $30 million. Now, the average is $75 (million) to $90 million. Payrolls probably have tripled, and with that type of inflation, you know there's going to be a lot more attention.

"The Internet, cell phones, e-mails, those types of things. There's no chance now of a GM saying, 'I'm going to get away for a day or three. Anytime, anywhere, you can do business as a GM."

Says Stoneman: "I play golf once a week now with some friends. I played probably five games of golf in 25 years when I was working on the office side of baseball. ... being able to play once a week ... that's nice."

Ryan: "What hasn't changed is the games, the players, productivity. Everybody wants to compete and win, have a good farm system. I think all 30 GMs have a huge interest in what goes on in their farm system."

It's just that, now, while managing monstrous payrolls and being held accountable by the ever-expanding media army and fans who are plugged in now more than ever thanks to the Internet and talk radio, sometimes a GM cannot pay as much attention as he would like to the minors. Milwaukee's Doug Melvin, who, at 55, already is the second-oldest GM in the game to Philadelphia's Pat Gillick (70), says that, "Last year, I went to every minor league city. Two years ago, I only got to three."

"Terry loves to go to high school games (to scout), go to minor league parks, and when you're the GM, that's become harder and harder," Melvin says.

Part of that is because, unless you're running a club blessed with a ginormous payroll in the neighborhood of the Yankees ($195 million in '07), Red Sox ($143 million) or Mets ($116 million), you can't take your eye off the ball at the major league level. You've got to be relentless in trying to overcome the financial disparity with creativity and smarts.

The Yankees can hand Carl Pavano $40 million, get only five victories in three seasons in return, and cover up that mistake by re-signing free agents such as Andy Pettitte and Roger Clemens. The Twins, Royals, Brewers or anybody else in their neighborhood errs like that financially and the franchise is set back for three or four years.

"Our clubs can't afford that," Melvin says. "Prior to me coming here, Jeffrey Hammonds got $7 million a year over three seasons and (former GM) Dean Taylor was kicked in the teeth for years over that."

Meantime, while Blackberrys and cell phones make so many things about the job easier, it also puts the GMs in a state of perpetually living physicians' most hated weekends: On call. Today's GMs spend far more time returning media calls and making speeches and appearances in the community than their predecessors did.

"The scrutiny of what you do is omnipresent," says Stoneman, who was regularly blasted on talk radio and Internet sites for failing to trade for a middle-of-the-order hitter the past few seasons despite the fact that his team won a World Series as recently as 2002. "You can't escape it, and that wears on you after awhile.

"And the players make a lot of money, but it seems like whatever it is, they want more. I started to get tired of that. Just the fact that you're thinking about it 24 hours a day. You're literally thinking about it in your sleep."

This spring, San Diego's Kevin Towers, entering his 13th season as the Padres' architect, has replaced Schuerholz as the game's most tenured GM. San Francisco's Brian Sabean (Sept. 30, 1996) is second, Oakland's Billy Beane (Oct. 17, 1997) third and, in what would have been an upset a couple of decades ago, the Yankees' Brian Cashman (Feb. 3, 1998) fourth.

"It's a tough job, and there's so much pressure today on winning," says the legendary Buzzie Bavasi, who served as the GM of the Brooklyn/Los Angeles Dodgers (1951-1968), Padres (1969-1972) and California Angels (1977-1984), and whose son, Bill, now serves as the Seattle Mariners' GM. "They're not having the fun that I had.

"The players all want more and more money, and they can't get close to them like I could. Every day now, I get e-mails from my former Dodgers players -- Carl Erskine, Duke Snider and, until he passed away, Johnny Podres.

"I had to worry about tickets, concessions, traveling. All they worry about today is winning, and only one team in each league today can win. There are 28 losers."

Signs of big business are everywhere, from the salaries to the number of people involved. From club employees to agents to media, the sheer volume has increased exponentially.

"They tell me there are 150 people working for the Dodgers now, not as scouts, but in their offices," Bavasi says. "When I started, I had six people working for me in Brooklyn. You don't need that many people."

Says Melvin: "Just over the past three years, there are so many new agents. I don't know who represents who anymore. You need a scorecard to see which agents represent which players, and which agents are now working with other agents."

Part of the changed landscape in the GM world also is a result of a shift toward the so-called "Moneyball" philosophy by some clubs -- valuing statistical analysis over scouting -- though all teams have evolved to where they utilize some mix of each.

One reason Towers, 45, not only has survived, but thrived, is because his passion for the game is fueled by a chameleon-like ability to adapt to new people and different ways of doing things. When the Padres hired Sandy Alderson -- the Godfather of "Moneyball" -- as president two summers ago, many thought Towers immediately would become a short-timer.

Instead, last week he signed a two-year extension with the club through 2010.

"I don't really view it as a grind," he says of the GM job. "I love the game. I enjoy watching baseball every day. Major league, minor league, amateurs. I like the people in the game. Scouts, my peers. I feel like I have a good relationship with agents and with the media.

"It's consuming, but if you have a great passion for the game, it's no different from any other job. Any job can be a grind.

"I like being surrounded by people with new ideas, with new ways of doing things. I'm still learning. Even though I'm the longest-tenured GM, I feel like I've still got a lot to learn. I learn new things every day, new ways of viewing players."

The most difficult aspect of the job to Towers?

"The grind my family has to go through. That part is tough," he says. "We don't have kids. If I had, it might be different. I'd want to be a father, be home, be a part of their lives.

"If it becomes too much of a grind on my wife, I'm out. That's the only thing that scares me."

There can be no underestimating the toll the job takes on families, either.

"You're under scrutiny all the time," Stoneman says. "Instead of a couple of beat guys calling ... boy, you get a lot of calls. Everybody's looking for an angle."

Sometimes, those angles are interesting and refreshing. Sometimes, they're fiction.

"My wife would go off to church, or go do some of the community work she does, and she'd come home and say, 'Gee, is this true?' And I'd say, 'Where are you getting that?'"

Eventually, it becomes wearing. The only question is, what is each man's tolerance level?

"I never had a chance to do anything other than baseball," Ryan says. "I was always worried about free agents, and arbitration, and then draft choices, and where I was (traveling to) next.

"I never had any chance to live. If you want to put a good team out there for your market, it's a 24-hour ordeal. The calendar never stops. I can do things now that I never did before."

Why, on Monday morning, Ryan was outside shoveling his driveway and sidewalk after a Twin Cities snowstorm -- a task for which he was often unavailable. He's read more. He's run more. He's watched his son and daughter play soccer and basketball.

And on several occasions this winter, yes, he took his wife, Kathleen, out to dinner, too.

"Historically, we'd probably go out once a winter," Ryan says.

If she immediately fingered him as being more relaxed over burgers and beer, or salmon and wine -- as Stoneman's wife did -- Ryan didn't say.

Meanwhile, as for Diane Stoneman's instant assessment of her husband 10 days into his retirement -- "You've changed. You're more relaxed" -- Bill, after recovering from the shock, looked across the table and came up with a pretty good answer.

"I was worried I made the wrong decision," he told her. "Maybe I made the right decision."

New GMs, or in new front offices

Of the eight new general managers heading to spring training next week, six are rookies:

• Atlanta: Frank Wren, who spent the past eight seasons as an assistant to Schuerholz.

• Florida: Michael Hill, an assistant to Larry Beinfest for the past five seasons, replaces Beinfest, who has ascended to the role of Marlins president.

• Los Angeles Angels: Tony Reagins, who spent the past seven seasons as the Angels' director of player personnel, replaces Stoneman.

• Minnesota: Smith, who spent the past 13 seasons as a Twins' assistant.

• Pittsburgh: Neil Huntington, who has worked in Cleveland's scouting and personnel departments for the past several years, replaces David Littlefield.

• St. Louis: John Mozeliak, an assistant Jocketty for the past five seasons, replaces Jocketty, who was fired after a dispute with owner DeWitt Jr. involving the influence of Jeff Luhnow, Cardinals vice-president of amateur scouting and player development, on the organization.

And two of the eight new GMs this spring are old faces in new places:

• Baltimore: Andy MacPhail, former president of the Cubs and GM of the Twins, was named as the Orioles chief operating officer and president last June and essentially is acting as GM as well after Jim Duquette departed last summer.

• Houston: Ed Wade, the veteran Philadelphia GM, has replaced Tim Purpura, who was fired late last season.