Wake up Cincinnati, your GM is gone...

In the front offices of one of the league's oldest ballclubs, changing is in the air. New ownership, in the shape of Bob Castellini, has stepped into the box and decided to shake things up, beginning with the firing of Reds GM Dan O'Brien. "Hooray!" cry the Ohioans. Maybe now they can get back to building a ballclub good enough to merit the beautiful ballpark they've got over there. But what's this? There are already candidates for the GM job? And one of them is *gasp* JIM BEATTIE! Why?!The same thing happened in Boston when Theo left. As soon as there was a vacancy, possible candidates popped out of the ground faster than jackrabbits after a flood. I guess that makes sense. What doesn't make sense is that the "leading candidates" were always middle-aged balding white guys with terrible GM track records, and the first name of Jim. Beattie, Bowden, both of them have run franchises into the ground. Baltimore, Washington, both were just pile-driven into oblivion by these guys. Their advantage didn't make sense when there was a spot in Boston, and they still don't make sense in Cincinnati.

What would make sense, in my opinion, would be someone different, someone outside the convention GM mold. Someone young, someone who isn't as whitebread as they come, a woman! Can anybody give me a legit explanation as to why Kim Ng was not given serious consideration in Boston as Theo's replacement? She's relatively young, she's Asian, and she's a woman! Think about how great that would be. Finally there would be someone with a whole different perspective, with the ability to shape a ballclub and not succomb to the pitfalls of their predecessors. Cinci should do their darndest to get someone of this caliber, maybe promote someone from within their own FO, or even pursue Ng and others. Heck, I'd say even Jed Hoyer or Ben Cherington would be stellar replacements for O'Brien. And since they just got screwed out of the GM post in Boston, I'm sure they'd love to get the chance to jump back in the ring.