Ken Davidoff's baseball insider

Greetings from Orlando, where I'll be situated all week at the general managers' meetings. These are traditionally viewed as the kickoff to the Hot Stove League. There probably won't be a lot of business transacted this week, but the foundation will be established for deals that will be completed weeks or months from now.

There will be many an introduction made at these meetings, with myriad newcomers and veterans in new places. Since last year's GM meetings, an incredible eight teams have revamped their front offices. In the American League, you have Baltimore (new president Andy MacPhail is running things), the Angels (GM Tony Reagins replaces the retired Bill Stoneman) and Minnesota (GM Bill Smith replaces the retired Terry Ryan). In the National League, you have Atlanta (GM Frank Wren replaces the promoted John Schuerholz), Florida (GM Michael Hill replaces the promoted Larry Beinfest), Houston (Ed Wade replaces the fired Tim Purpura), Pittsburgh (Neal Huntington replaces the fired Dave Littlefield) and St. Louis (John Mozielak replaces the fired Walt Jocketty).

If I were doing a list of the Top 10 GMs a year ago, it would have been topped by Schuerholz (pictured above) and also featured Ryan, Jocketty and Stoneman. So it makes sense to do a Top 10 now, given the new landscape.

Here is the opinion of one person:

1. Pat Gillick, Philadelphia. Perhaps his batting average isn't as strong as it once was, as he heads into what he says will be his final year, but he deserves the top spot simply because of career achievement _ having built the Blue Jays from an expansion club to two-time World Series champs and retooled the Orioles, Blue Jays and Phillies into playoff clubs. The Adam Eaton and Freddy Garcia acquisitions were stinkers, but Gillick traded Jim Thome for Aaron Rowand two years ago, which opened up an everyday job for Ryan Howard. And the Phillies wouldn't have edged the Mets if not for the arrivals of Kyle Lohse and J.C. Romero.

2. Billy Beane, Oakland. He looked less smart in 2007, and '08 could be tough, too, as the A's build with their new stadium in mind. Nevertheless, Beane has revolutionized the industry by getting the most out of miniscule payrolls _ and publicizing his beliefs. Remember that ace Danny Haren arrived from St. Louis for a fading Mark Mulder.

3. Mark Shapiro, Cleveland. If you take the time to inspect how Shapiro built this year's AL Central champs, you'll see the textbook approach to rebilding and retaining. Shapiro made some amazing trades (the Bartolo Colon deal with Omar Minaya's Expos and the Travis Hafner deal with Texas) and exhibited patience with homegrown players like Fausto Carmona and Jhonny Peralta, both of whom were procured by Shapiro's predecessor John Hart.

4. Kevin Towers, San Diego. Like his pal Beane, Towers consistently takes a low-end payroll and produces contenders. Towers' gift is bullpen construction; in last year's masterpiece, he took Heath "Norfolk Shuttle" Bell off the Mets' hands, and the next thing you knew, Bell was setting up for Trevor Hoffman.

5. Theo Epstein, Boston. The least experienced GM on this list, and he'll always have his short-lived Boston departure _ featuring the Gorilla Suit Escape _ on his resume. Nevertheless, with two World Series rings, Epstein ties Gillick for second place (behind Brian Cashman's three) among active GMs. Epstein has made four phenomenal moves, in particular, that place him this high: 1) The original signing of David Ortiz in January 2003; 2) The Curt Schilling trade in November 2003 (check out this letter that Epstein and the other Red Sox big-wigs wrote to Schilling, in trying to persuade Schilling to waive his no-trade clause); 3) The trade of Nomar Garciaparra in July 2004; and 4) The signing of Hideki Okajima in November 2006. Moreover, Epstein has backed his vow to turn the Sox into a "player development machine."

6. Doug Melvin, Milwaukee. Melvin has done nice work with two teams (Rangers and Brewers), making them far better than when he arrived. The Brewers have drafted tremendously well under his watch, and Melvin enjoys selling high on players, like Dan Kolb and Scott Podsednik, who turn out not to have long-lasting success.

7. Dave Dombrowski, Detroit. He has essentially taken over two expansion teams _ the 1993 Marlins and the 2002 Tigers (who were run into the ground by Dombrowski's predecessor Randy Smith) _ and brought both of them to the World Series with a mixture of player development, trades and smart, high-impact free-agent signings. He also possesses the humility to hire a great, larger-than-life manager like Jim Leyland and let him do his thing.

8. Brian Cashman, Yankees. The hardest one to evaluate. He has been the Yankees' general manager for 10 years, yet he has been a "real GM" for only two and a half. So what do we do about the first seven and a half years? Ignore them fully? Figure out which moves Cashman made and which he didn't? That has been done, to some extent. In any case, Cashman has a clear vision for retooling the Yankees, and so far, it has worked pretty well. Now we'll see how his most important decision works out, and what he'll do about third base.

9. Omar Minaya, Mets. He deserves as much blame as anyone for the team's historic collapse. Yet let's not forget all of the good work that Minaya did in making the Mets relevant again. Even if it was just a matter of smooth-talking the Wilpons into spending huge dollars on Pedro Martinez and Carlos Beltran, that is a skill that has served the Mets and their fans quite well. This is a crucial offseason for Minaya.

10. Ken Williams, White Sox. One of the most aggressive GMs in baseball, Williams won my 2007 AL Kevin Malone Award for his poor performance in constructing this past season's White Sox. Nevertheless, Williams' resume, highlighted by putting together the 2005 World Series champions, merits inclusion on this list.