Kim Ng is the new Miami Marlins’ GM. She is the first woman and first Asian American to hold that position in MLB. Ng is a fine hire. Her credentials are impeccable.

She also has an advantage no GM in history has ever had: She is above criticism.

Given her pioneering status, Ng won’t be subject to merciless and painstaking scrutiny like all other GMs in all other sports. Not for years, if ever. Anyone who dares find fault, be they media or fan, will be pilloried tenfold in return. This is how society currently operates.

Penguins GM Jim Rutherford is lambasted every time he makes a move by those who don’t understand that his team’s decline is organic and inevitable. If Rutherford were somebody breaking important social ground, those criticisms would be silenced.

Except for signing Jack Johnson, that is.

Every GM gets fired. Ng’s wiggle room is much, much bigger. Ng will have to fail cataclysmically to get canned. (Miami’s projected payroll for 2021 is currently MLB’s lowest, which provides a different kind of wiggle room. But the Marlins did make the playoffs this past season.)

When Ng is someday sacked, the decision will be universally blasted.

The Marlins’ record won’t matter. Which way the arrow is pointing won’t matter. The state of the Marlins’ farm system won’t matter. The trailblazer got fired and wasn’t given a fair chance. That’s years away, but that will be the narrative.

Here’s hoping Ng succeeds. Here’s betting she does as well as possible given the constraints existing with that franchise. She’s a good baseball person, though not yet good enough to use the Tony LaRussa defense if she gets pulled over for DUI. (That won’t happen.)

Miami isn’t exactly the New York Yankees when it comes to expenditures or ambition, so Ng also serves as good PR to drum up interest in the team.

Ng’s hiring is a welcome step for diversity and equality. The next big step will be when she is treated the same as every other GM in every situation, both good and bad.

It’s important that Ng do well. If Jackie Robinson hits .200 in 1947, things go sideways after.

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