For D-Backs' GM, Path Never Lacked Direction

"We worked 24-7," Byrnes said, "and ate a lot of ravioli."

The Indians' front office in the mid-1990s, under then-GM John Hart, was one of the most progressive in baseball, in terms of incorporating video and statistical analysis into the game, and among the young talents working there were not only Byrnes and Mark Shapiro, but also Dan O'Dowd (who took Byrnes with him to Colorado in 1999 when he was named the Rockies' general manager) and Paul DePodesta (who went on to become general manager of the Los Angeles Dodgers, and now works as a special assistant for the San Diego Padres).

By the middle of the next decade, with 10-plus years in the business -- including three as assistant general manager of the Boston Red Sox -- Byrnes was ready to be a GM .

In 2005, as Major League Baseball began the process of choosing an owner for the newly relocated Washington Nationals, speculation arose that one of the groups -- the one led by local financier Frederick Malek and businessman Jeffrey Zients, the latter a St. Albans alum -- might look to hire Byrnes, the hometown kid, as general manager. Byrnes said there was never any "tangible evidence" that the Malek-Zients group would have hired him -- and it soon became a moot point, because the Nationals were awarded to a different ownership group, and the Diamondbacks named Byrnes their GM.

At the time, Diamondbacks chief executive Jeff Moorad said he was most impressed by the way Byrnes answered one question during their interview. The question: Are you a "Moneyball" follower, or an advocate of traditional scouting? Byrnes's answer: Both.

In just his second season as general manager, Byrnes put together a division winner, as the Diamondbacks -- with 15 rookies clocking time in the majors -- won the NL West in 2007 and went to the playoffs for the first time in five years, losing to O'Dowd's Rockies in the NL Championship Series. (In fact, the last four teams alive in 2007 -- Arizona, Colorado, Boston and Cleveland -- were the four Byrnes has worked for.)

This season, the Diamondbacks were a season-best 12 games over .500 on May 18 (28-16, at the time the best record in baseball). Since then, they are 16-29, and limping into Nationals Park with a 44-45 record -- which is still good for first place in the dreadfully mediocre NL West.

"It's been a strange year, no doubt," Byrnes said. "Looking at our offense, we got better and better over the course of last year, and a lot of those guys are in their second year as full-time players [this year]. Then, we had a great April -- we were one of the top two offensive teams that month. But we've struggled offensively since then. And then, uncharacteristically, we've lost some games because of mistakes defensively, or on the base paths."

Despite the slide, the organization is held up as one of the best-run and most effective in the game. Last year, its farm system produced five key pieces of Arizona's division-title-winning squad (Chris Young, Justin Upton, Micah Owings, Tony Peña and Mark Reynolds), plus five more prospects who helped land all-star right-hander Dan Haren from the Oakland Athletics this winter.

There is every reason, in other words, to believe the Diamondbacks will outlast the rest of baseball's weakest division. And then, Byrnes, their general manager, can rest comfortably again, never needing to worry whether he should have pressed harder, on that afternoon 15 years ago, for a job as an agent.