The GM Game.
You sit idly in the bullpen with nothing to do. You’re tired of hustling the locals with quarter toss games. Verbal sparring with drunks has lost its fun. Even the thrill of scouring the stands for hot chicks via your handy-dandy bullpen binoculars is gone.
This listless afternoon could be for a number of reasons. Maybe it’s close to the end of the season and you’re worn out? Maybe you miss your dog? Maybe that one night stand resulted in a rest of your life alimony payment? The possibilities are endless…
Let us, however, assume that today you’re not interested in the standard pleasures of your minor league world because you’ve got something else on your mind, something that could change your situation altogether, if you could just make sense of it. Someone got hurt two levels up. Someone got released. Someone is pitching badly and it’s just a matter of time before they run out of chances to redeem themselves. Change is coming. Turnover, injuries, waiver claims and moves, moves, moves— they all mean something for you and the rest of your half minor league, half domino brothers… but what?
That’s the million-dollar question, and the reason for the most popular game among all aspiring minor leaguers: The GM Game.
What does the GM Game look like? Well, chances are you’ve played it yourself and you just didn’t know it. Or maybe you’re managing a fantasy baseball league right now and play it every day? The GM Game is the prediction of the moves that will be made around the organization if YOU were the man in charge. It can look different depending on where you stand and how much information you have, but here is how it looks if you’re a player.
“If I was Freedmine, I’d move Mateo Mas up right now. He’s like the biggest name in the minor leagues when it comes to left-handed reverse hitting. Makes sense to do it: you gotta push him, huh?”
“I dunno, bro. You know the Beams, they don’t like to rush their pitchers. They’re all about development here. It’s how they keep costs down. It would be someone’s ass if they pushed him and he breaks.”
“Bah, don’t be fooled. This team and every other team are about money. Wins mean money. If he can help them win, then they should push him, or at least get someone else up there.”
“Well, I could help them win but they’re not going to make room for me on the 40 man because they don’t like me. I think I should take my out and find a team that’ll pay me while I’m hot.”
“No, no. Hold out. That’s my play. Hold out cuz if Frankenstein keeps scuffling, you could be the next arm called up. I wouldn’t risk it.”
“Uhg. If only I knew what they are thinking?”
Yes, if only. But no one knows what “they” are thinking accept them, the brass, the men on top who get paid to think large, risky, game changing thoughts that they themselves don’t really, truly know until what they’ve thunk happens.
These thoughts, when thought by the untrained and unempowered, are dangerous to get caught up in because, all to often for the player, they mutate into unfounded beliefs. Then, when those beliefs don’t come true, they give way to bitterness. A player starts to feel management has screwed him, or forgotten him, or is lying to him, or doesn’t care about his future. This is how you lose at the GM game.
I know you’re thinking that you shouldn’t be able to lose what is basically a game of guessing and fantasy, but you can when you’re the player and you interpret the decisions made about you as personal. That being said, I wont tell you not to play the GM game because, in all fairness, you have to play, though it’s best you remove all the emotion when do—you’ll be less pissed off this way.
In this career, you will eventually be faced with a situation of should I stay or should I go? There are only so many spots at the top, and that’s where the real money is. Every day you’ll reevaluate your chances of getting there based on current information, like some real-time baseball sock exchange. Maybe your hitting well but the team you’re with has a log-jam of good players in line for your big league position? Maybe they don’t have an immediate need for you but someone else does? Maybe they think of you as nothing more than trade bait, but just aren’t willing to tell you that? Maybe you’re arm hurts but there Japanese scouts don’t know that? You have to calculate because there could be a possible cash-in in over seas, an opportunity with the Astros, a coaching position at your old college, but none of these things are going to wait around forever. You need to act on what’s in front of you before it changes again. When it does, there is no going back.
Sometimes the possibilities are limitless, a real brain scramble that renders you paralyzed. This, by the way, is another way to lose at the GM game.
Actually, there aren’t many ways to win the GM Game short of getting the call up you want. That’s why, when you play, you should only do so with the intent to calculate what you need, and not much else. You’ll never know what will be or what could have been, so go on what you do know and relax about the uncontrollable—that’s life. If it’s something really important, call your agent. Beyond that, you’ll just frustrate yourself. After all, just because you can rationalize why you should be the go to guy doesn’t mean it’s going to happen. On the flip side, in a game of failure, you can always find a reason to quit. Both are dangerous.
This makes the GM game sound like more trouble than it’s worth. However, when you’re predicting the future of other players, it’s different. Nothing is quite as fun as trying to figure out the fate of others, filling in the old, “if I was him” scenario with your two cents. That’s what makes all those baseball websites you visit so fun. Conjecture, prophesy; it’s addicting. It’s also a lot of BS because no one really knows what’s going on for sure, or if the moves will work. But hey, you’re not a scout, your job doesn’t depend on making the right guesses. Go ahead, invent some reasons for why you think the guys you cant’ stand are going to get released. Make up some reasons for why the Beams should move to Charlotte North Carolina while you’re at it. A little delusion might make you feel better about your own situation. Besides, your teammates are probably doing the same thing, if they were in your shoes.
for more minor league survival tips, check out my book The Bullpen Gospels, A NYT Best Seller.