Falls Count Anywhere: Managing the blame of disappointment

 

DNVR Rockies reporters Drew Creasman and Patrick Lyons battle for supremacy discussing various hot topics in-and-around the game of baseball.

Creasman vs Lyons… who you got?

Managing the blame of disappointment

Topic #1: Is the manager most often the blame when a team fails to meet expectations?

Lyons – The firing of Andy Green in San Diego on September 21 signaled the start of the offseason when teams are looking to make their first big improvements for 2020. With a career record of 274-366 (.428) for the Friars, Green’s first gig as a big league manager came with a major caveat: accept the organization’s edict of tanking.

In 2019, with $300MM player on the payroll producing just 3.0 WAR and the NL Rookie of the Year – at least when he was healthy on the field – it was easy for the Padres’ front office to point the finger at the on-field manager for the lack of success.

Scape goat? Perhaps.

However, in today’s day and age, the impact of a manager has been reduced with the rise of analytics taking the guesswork out of certain play calling and lineup orchestration. The role has been more about bullpen management, player management (i.e. keeping a happy clubhouse with an eclectic group of diverse players) and, oddly enough, media relations representative.

Bullpens can often be a crapshoot, but some skippers have lost their gig because of egregious errors throughout the years. When a manager loses the clubhouse, he loses the trust of his players and becomes ineffective, especially when compared to the expectations of the men upstairs making the big decision.

As for the pre- and post-game interviews, the manager takes the brunt of criticism for individual players as well as player personnel, much of which has little to do with the man who hands the lineup card over to the umpires before first pitch.

Creasman – Any time there is a total failure of a team or an organization, it is fair to begin with those at the top who are responsible for setting a direction and tone.

But baseball managers have far less impact over individual wins than their counterparts in other sports and, as you rightly point out, are much more important in a role of “managing personalities”. That’s why logic like “this team under performed expectations and, therefore, should fire the manager” makes far less sense in this sport than in football and basketball.

General Managers have far more responsibility in this game to build a winner. There are a ton of moving pieces to contend with and consider, all of which means there are a lot more avenues for getting creative.

It is a tricky task, though. Typically, in order for a talented baseball team to greatly under perform expectations, it takes a total team effort from the man leading the front office to the man leading in the dugout to whoever is in uniform leading in the clubhouse.

Topic #2: What’s the message to the players when a manager gets fired?

Lyons – Players and coaches can have extremely close relationships. Madison Bumgarner describes Bruce Bochy as one of his best friends. So, for a member of the coaching staff to lose his position, oftentimes the rest of the guys in the clubhouse can feel a sense of responsibility.

Certainly, the relationships between a manager and the front office or the manager and his staff can be the chief cause of a firing, but when an organization is winning there is never any urgency to change something that’s not broke.

Before the Cubs announced Joe Maddon would not return for 2020, he was a lame duck manager that was not given an extension at the start of the season. Since the curse busting World Series in 2016, the Cubs have gotten progressively worse even with a stable roster that incorporated an influx of young talent as well as a few high-profile free agent signings. However, the club with the highest payroll in the National League ($218MM) is not playing in October.

For the Ricketts family and Team President Theo Epstein, the North Siders are broke and the fix better be on the way… or they’ll be next.

Creasman – The message that is sent by firing a manager can be very different depending on the team and the manager.

If a rift has truly recurred, it can be met with a great boost of energy. And that doesn’t always mean that the manager who left was a bad one.

This most famously happened with the Rockies in 2009 when a tough stretch found the team turning off Clint Hurdle, still the only man in franchise history to lead the club to the World Series.

But his act wasn’t working anymore and replacing him with a less-experienced manager in Jim Tracy ended up yielding the best regular-season in franchise history.

That said, if you fire a manager based on results and not because he has lost