Diamondbacks' instability stirs potential candidates' skepticism

When the Diamondbacks find the next leader for their baseball operations department, they will be going on their fourth regime in the past six-plus years. They are baseball’s most volatile franchise.

This distinction has not gone unnoticed by rival executives around baseball, some of whom could find their phones ringing as the Diamondbacks search for candidates to interview in the coming weeks. Many of them sound skeptical of the opportunity.

“It’s a situation that I would want to be interested in on the surface,” said one high-ranking official with another organization, an executive whose name has popped up in other team’s GM searches. “But from everything I hear about some of the dysfunction up there, to be quite candid, I would have zero interest.”

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Make no mistake: The Diamondbacks will have an opportunity to hire an extremely talented and qualified general manager. As the industry cliché goes, only 30 of these jobs exist, and enough individuals will look past any questions about organizational structure to take a chance to lead a department.

But there are many around the game who believe the Diamondbacks might have to fight perception issues on multiple fronts, namely that they are too reactionary when things go bad and that they interfere and/or meddle with the baseball operations staff.

Among a handful of rival executives who spoke on condition of anonymity, some sounded highly unlikely to have interest in the Diamondbacks’ job. Others sounded unsure, raising questions about everything from the reporting structure to the personalities of CEO Derrick Hall and Managing General Partner Ken Kendrick.

And others seemed somewhat unconcerned – or, at least, willing to look past any questions they might have, in part because they believe every ownership group provides its own set of challenges.

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The swiftness with which the Diamondbacks have moved from Josh Byrnes to Kevin Towers to, more recently, Tony La Russa and Dave Stewart, whose regime effectively came to an end on Monday, has people around the game questioning the stability of the position. Since 2010, no other club has had more than three front-office regimes.

“Do they give the next person a six-year contract and come hell or high water they’re not going to fire them?” another executive asked. “Or have they demonstrated this is how they do business and if things don’t work out in 24 -36 months they’ll make more changes? Moving your family for that level of insecurity, juxtaposed to the security that some of us have – that’s a tough sell to the family.”

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That is a point raised, in so many words, by several executives. They wonder if those who are in comfortable positions in stable front offices, or those who figure to have opportunities elsewhere when other jobs become open, will want to walk into a situation with so much perceived instability.

During a news conference Monday to announce the firings, Hall was asked if he thought the club’s history might make it difficult to attract the best candidates.

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“It might,” he said. “There’s only 30 of these. And they’re special jobs and there are a lot of qualified people out there who are looking for that opportunity. We’re hoping the next person is in that role for a long time and that will be expressed.”

Hall, who this year received an eight-year contract extension, called the Diamondbacks a desirable place to be with a good workplace culture in a good city.

“I think there are a lot of reasons why people would want to be here, and to have a strong supporting cast with new leadership and direction that hopefully will be in place for a long time, I think it’s an opportunity for someone to come in,” he said. “Obviously, expectations are low at this point, but somebody can come in and make an impact quickly. I think that’s desirable to anybody who has confidence in his or her ability to come in here and make that impact and hopefully sustain it.”

Added Kendrick: “Certainly, it starts with me. We’ve made some bad choices. And I’m going to make some more mistakes, by the way. …

“We’re going to hope we make better decisions and that we learn from the mistakes of the past.”

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He also explained his willingness to change by pointing to the unwillingness of the Colorado Rockies – a team that stuck with Dan O’Dowd as general manager for 15 years despite mixed results – to do the same.

“I look at it from the perspective of spending a good amount of time in Colorado, and they have practiced that (continuity),” Kendrick said. “And while they did make a general-manager change fairly recently, they’ll probably not like me saying this, but continuity in their setting produced seven losing seasons in a row. I don’t think our fans would find that very acceptable.”

After reports surfaced in recent weeks indicating that Kendrick and Hall blocked La Russa and Stewart from making moves, including firing manager Chip Hale and trading right-hander Shelby Miller, Kendrick was asked if he had confidence that the organization’s decision-making structure is sound. He gave a terse answer.

“Ours?” he said. “Yes.”

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After a couple of awkward seconds, Hall jumped in with more explanation.

“It’s very common with all 30 clubs, where if you’re going to have a large decision to make, a very big decision, an impactful decision, it’s going to go all the way up the flagpole and everybody is going to weigh in, whether it is the owner of any ballclub – the owner, president, GM, all opinions are going to be weighed at that time,” Hall said. “It’s a matter of allowing people to do their jobs but also weighing in when there’s a matter of extreme importance, which I think is not uncommon anywhere.”

Another executive with a rival club said he believes the Diamondbacks can create a winning culture, and he said he wouldn’t be scared off by ownership.

“Listen, you have to be skeptical with that amount of turnover,” he said. “But absolutely, 100 percent, you can win there with those guys.”

Reach Piecoro at (602) 444-8680 or nick.piecoro@arizonarepublic.com. Follow him on Twitter @nickpiecoro.