Is the fun over now? Are people in baseball done trying to reinvent the wheel with their wildly unconventional hires? Or is the next step for some team to hire a 16-year-old math whiz as their general manager?
I’m kidding — I think. Maybe Tony Vitello will make a great manager for the San Francisco Giants, along with Blake Butera for the Washington Nationals, Kurt Suzuki for the Los Angeles Angels and Craig Stammen for the San Diego Padres. And maybe the reincarnated Paul DePodesta will be who finally figures out how to make the Colorado Rockies a consistent winner.
Where is the evidence for any of that, though?
All industries should welcome new ways of thinking. Baseball has done a good job of that over the past two decades, benefiting from advances in analytics and technology. Yet there is still risk in trying to be too creative with hires. It’s doubtful all of them will work out as intended.
What exactly is it some teams want, other than to do something different? Beats me. Their supposed boldness goes only so far.
Nine jobs came open this cycle, and barring a shocking move by Colorado, future Hall of Famer Albert Pujols will not land any of them. Great players don’t always make great managers, but in an age when teams harp on collaboration, perhaps executives fear the strength of Pujols’ personality.
Not that Pujols would be a sure thing, either. The typical path to a major-league managing job – yes, even today – is through years of experience as a minor-league manager and/or major-league coach/manager. Some of the recent hires – Texas’ Skip Schumaker, Atlanta’s Walt Weiss, Minnesota’s Derek Shelton, Baltimore’s Craig Albernaz – followed that blueprint. What kind of message do the other hires send to all those in the trenches, trying to work their way up? Or to former managers who might warrant a second chance?
Schumaker, Weiss and Shelton all are getting that second shot. Yet with nearly one-third of the teams looking, former Chicago Cubs manager David Ross and former Orioles manager Brandon Hyde drew little interest. True, retreads aren’t always attractive, but few perceived Ross and Hyde as incompetent in their first tries.
Given the opportunity, Ross and Hyde might become the next Terry Francona or A.J. Hinch, retreads who became great managers in their second jobs. At the very least, they understand the skills beyond in-game strategy that the position requires. Poise. Communication. Organization. Management not just of players but also coaches, not to mention front-office types eager to have their say.
Executives routinely complain that the pool of managerial candidates is thin, helping explain the nontraditional hires. Too often, they forget: The job is hard.
The Toronto Blue Jays’ John Schneider managed eight years in the minors and served three-plus years as a major-league coach before becoming the team’s manager in July 2022. Yet during the postseason, he spoke repeatedly of how he evolved as a manager, how he learned to trust himself, read and react. It rarely happens quickly, but that will be the expectation with each of the new managers.
Vitello, the former coach at Tennessee, put on a professional jersey for the first time at his introductory news conference. He will be the first college coach in more than a century to manage a major-league club with no professional experience.
“There’s going to be uncertainties and risk in any hire,” Giants president of baseball operations Buster Posey said. “I’m betting on the person.”
New Nationals president of baseball operations Paul Toboni spoke in almost exactly the same terms about Butera, who managed four years in the Tampa Bay Rays farm system, all at Class A, and also served as the team’s farm director. At 33, Butera will be the youngest manager in the majors since the Twins hired Frank Quilici in 1972.
“I feel actually very good about betting on Blake in this position, and I think it’s so much that just circles back to the person he is and the leader that he is,” Toboni said.
Like Schumaker, both Stammen and Suzuki took an increasingly familiar route, serving as special assistants, then becoming managers. They are closer to what the New York Yankees’ Aaron Boone was at the start of his managerial career: a candidate with no managing or coaching experience, but possessing baseball knowledge gained through a lengthy major-league career (and lifetime around clubhouses with his father, Bob).
When the Yankees hired Boone in Dec. 2017, I wrote, “I have no idea how he will fare, and neither do the Yankees. In 30-plus years covering baseball, I cannot remember a team hiring a manager with this level of risk.”
I was too alarmist then, and maybe I’m being too alarmist now.
Boone, no matter what some Yankees fans might think, turned out OK. So, obviously, did the Cleveland Guardians’ Stephen Vogt, who was only a coach for one year with the Seattle Mariners before becoming a manager. Stammen, however, will be Padres GM A.J. Preller’s third attempt at a first-time manager. Andy Green lasted nearly four seasons, Jayce Tingler two. There’s also the bizarre process: Stammen, as a Padres special assistant, was helping interview managerial candidates before becoming one himself.
Colorado’s is the one managerial opening remaining. The return of DePodesta to baseball after 10 seasons as the Cleveland Browns’ chief strategy officer was perhaps more shocking than any of the managerial hires. It also only happened because the Rockies failed to land either of their two finalists, Arizona Diamondbacks assistant GM Amiel Sawdaye or Cleveland Guardians assistant GM Matt Forman.
DePodesta was a foundational figure in baseball analytics. He was also fired by the Los Angeles Dodgers as a GM … 20 years ago. True, he later helped bring the New York Mets back to prominence under former GM Sandy Alderson in the 2010s. After joining the Browns, though, he was also part of the hierarchy that made the Deshaun Watson trade, perhaps the worst in NFL history.
Baseball has changed markedly in the decade since DePodesta was last part of a front office. He is undeniably smart, but he is playing from behind with a franchise that is already behind. Maybe he’ll solve the intellectual challenge of winning at Coors Field, baseball’s answer to the Holy Grail. However, he rose to prominence too early by becoming the Dodgers GM at 31, and now he might be returning too late.
Then again, what do I know? I’m just asking questions. Teams seem to have all the answers.