Breaking the gender barrier behind the scenes

July 7, 2008 by Benjamin Kabak 12 Comments

In 1997, the Yankees hired Kim Ng as an assistant general manager, and in doing so, they became the first team to offer such a high position in the front office hierarchy to a female. Eleven years later, Ng, one of the sharpest baseball minds in the game, still awaits the call to ascend to that coveted General Manager position. Last week, Tim Brown wondered when that call might come for Ng, now with the Dodgers, or Jean Afterman, one of the Yanks’ assistant GMs and only other female in the game with such a high title in baseball ops. Baseball has long been male dominated, but Ng is qualified enough to get her shot. One day she will.

http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=594331910 Jamal G.

Yeah, people think Damon Oppenheimer would be the top choice if Brian Cashman is unfortunately not with the Yankees past this season. I’ve always thought that Kim Ng would be a big name in the discussion within the organization for replacements overall, inside and outside the organization.
whozat

Wasn’t/isn’t Afterman in charge of Asian scouting and such? The subtext being…wasn’t she the one who perhaps dropped the ball on getting Igawa appropriately scouted?
- stefan
  
  I’m pretty sure Afterman’s forte is primarily contract negotiations (she used to be an agent and Cashman was so impressed by her tenacity that he had to hire her). I doubt she had anything to do with Kei Igawa. Honestly, that was a complete Front Office failure, so I’m not sure why we’re looking for specific people to blame.
Babe’s Ghost

It boils down to results… if Kim Ng is in charge of the farm system then judge her on how the farm system produces. I know they produced Kershaw… but I don’t follow the Dodgers and I’m not going to invest the time.. but you could probably do a simple analysis of farm systems over past four years and see how many advanced to majors and weight by VORP and draft position, so you’d get more credit for a high quality player than a journeyman and more for a low pick than a first rounder
- Chris
  
  Andre Ethier, Matt Kemp, James Loney, Russell Martin, Clayton Kershaw, Chad Billingsly, Andy LaRoche.. the Dodgers have a lot of young talent that came up through the system.
- http://riveraveblues.com Mike A.
  
  All those young players are Logan White’s work, not Kim Ng. White was the scouting director for many years before being promoted to assistant GM a year or so ago.
Mark B

The Dodgers have one of the best farm systems in all of baseball, if that was all due to Kim Ng, then she definitely deserves a shot at any of the open GM jobs this winter, the Yankees included if Cashman walks away or is forced out
Sidney El Panson

it’s taken way too long for to get the job. the sport should be much bigger than this. she deserves the shot.
mooks

I could see Kim Ng being a GM.

I can’t say the same for Afterman.

Actually, I wouldn’t be surprised if she gets canned after this season.

That said, the question to ask, isn’t just would you hire a female GM.

Its also would you Fire a female GM, and would there be any negative repercussions.

GM’s get hired and fired all the time, you’d have to evaluate what the possible aftermath would be. I think Kim Ng would be a good GM, I’m trying to remember how she left the yankees, I know they were happy with her.
- stefan
  
  And……………..why exactly would Afterman get fired? For being a good contract negotiator? Clearly it was her fault that the Yankees bats have been terrible this year………………………………….
  - mooks
    
    She is one of the people who does contracts. While she is a former agent, her main specialty is the pacific rim. Scouting and analysis.
    
    Her credit was her involvement with Matsui, her detriment was her involvement with Igawa.
    
    She (and this might be unfair, but she may be the scapegoat) took alot of the blame for failures to find and sign more players from the rim.
    
    She doesn’t get credit for Wang (I don’t know why).
    
    Its kind of like having someone in charge of/for latin america, only you don’t find and sign anybody. She isn’t in charge now though for the pacific rim, and her involvement is pretty small now (they’ve gotten someone else to do it full time).
    
    Just looking at the organization chart, the writing is on the wall. She no longer has the involvement in the pacific rim that she used, which was her specialty, someone else does, and they hired another assistant GM whose role keeps growing.
    
    Her job description is whittling down to nothing, if thats a not a sign your going to be out of job, you better have some very good photo’s of people doing very bad things.
tommiesmithjohncarlos

I can’t wait for Kim Ng to be a GM and make a great trade, so that sportswriters can call it a “ballsy” move…