Soccer Dad

The importance of gms

I've been bothered by the lack of interest in analysis displayed by many baseball writers. There are exceptions of course. Thomas Boswell of the Washington Post has always managed to write from an unorthodox sabermetric perspective (he introduced "Total Average" which is essentially a variation on OPS), though he's shown a bit less of his appreciation for statistics lately.
Also Ken Rosenthal of FoxSports often works relevant stats into his columns.
(And of course there are the writers for Baseball Prospectus and alumni of BP as well as Rob Neyer.) But I am referring to beat writers, most of whom seem caught in a world with no analysis.
It's a shame, because statistical analysis forces observers to challenge assumptions and develop new views of what's truly important in baseball. (Getting on base tells more of a player's value than does simply getting hits; RBI are not, by themselves, a good indication of a player's worth; Stolen bases, at least in the current offensive climate, are overrated.)
I'm wondering though if baseball has started to get the idea.
While I can't prove it, I'm getting the feeling that it's the General Managers who are starting to get more of the star treatment in basball than managers.
At least 7 teams will start 2006 with a new General Manager. And two of the biggest stories of this still young off-season were the suspenseful will-he won't-he negotiations between the Yankees and Brian Cashman and the Red Sox and Theo Epstein.
Ex Dodger's GM, Fred Claire made a similar observation at the MLB website.
But what might it mean of GM's are being more highly valued than managers? Could it possibly be that the lesson of "Moneyball" to put it crudely, is starting to gain widespread (or, at least, wider) acceptance in baseball? In other words are the lords of baseball starting to realize that the overall talent of the team might be of greater importance than the in-game tactics? Is it possible that the baseball beat writers are the last to get this?
UPDATE: I must have read Baseball Musings on "GM Stock
baseball, and forgotten.