Author Topic: Next GM for the Cubs  (Read 28402 times)

craig

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 13097
Re: Next GM for the Cubs
« Reply #30 on: August 25, 2011, 12:09:40 pm »
If Sandberg felt like he didn't get a real shot, then that tells me that his ego or sense of entitlement is out of control.  At least IMO.  Very few managers are in the major leagues after 4 years of minor league managing experience and no major or minor league coaching experience.  If it takes less time than that, it's usually someone who had been pegged as a future manager since he was a 24 year old rookie player (Girardi, Scioscia). 

I only know what's in the press, obviously...so maybe there was more behind the scenes.  But I think it's probably easier to argue that Sandberg didn't even deserve the token interview he got than it is to argue they didn't give him enough consideration.  Most managers with 4 years experience (who had also never shown serious interest in coaching before he got his first managing job) wouldn't even get a sniff from a major league team. 

I agree with this entirely.  Everybody is unique, and perhaps there are some extraordinary qualities that Sandberg has that make him freakishly qualified.  But to get even an interview only four years into a coaching/managing career is extraordinary indeed.  To expect to not only be interviewed but to also be hired, that's pretty amazing.  No idea what or why he would be so exceptionally qualified that he'd be the best candidate.  Perhaps he is, of course, what do I know. 

It would be surprising, though, since he never was a very good interview or was particularly articulate as a player.  Since communication skills are probably pretty important for a manager, I'd think he'd start out with a strike against him.  So to be a supreme manager candidate after only four years despite that would require being a pretty extraordinary teacher and leader and scout and decision-maker in other ways.  Maybe he is, beats me. 

Clarkaddison

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 1789
Re: Next GM for the Cubs
« Reply #31 on: August 25, 2011, 12:25:24 pm »
My choices:

1. Hahn.  He knows Chicago, has 9 years with a successful organization, gets the SABRmetrics approach to baseball
2. Friedman.  Has done lots with little, although he had the advantage on high draft choices early on.
3. The Red Sox asst GM.
No on Cashman.  He's had unlimited $$$ to work with.
No on Colletti.  He's Hendry lite.   

Reb

  • Guest
Re: Next GM for the Cubs
« Reply #32 on: August 25, 2011, 12:39:58 pm »
Agree on Colletti.  He is the least attractive candidate of those mentioned in the basebal media.

Billy Beane would be fun, but I'd like to hire one of the young, smart candidates out there. 

JeffH

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 6154
Re: Next GM for the Cubs
« Reply #33 on: August 25, 2011, 12:42:36 pm »
Where does Byrnes fit in for you, Clark?

Jes Beard

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 17183
Re: Next GM for the Cubs
« Reply #34 on: August 25, 2011, 12:50:11 pm »
Sandberg seems like a very unusual, perhaps even unique, case.  He's a Hall of Famer whose entire major league career was with the Cubs, and someone who is known for his devotion to "playing the game the right way."  How may HOFers have ever managed in the minors, for one year, much less four?  I have no idea.  Hendry told him to go get minor league managing experience in order to prove he could manage.  And his record managing in the minor leagues has been very good, at least, it seems to me.  If he was told, as one interview said, that he wasn't even in the top several candidates being seriously considered, from his point of view, I can see why he would not only be disappointed, but perhaps feel a bit disrespected.

Hendry has always been someone who valued lots of experience.  Maybe four years in the minor leagues just didn't rate high enough for serious considerations, when compared to guys with major league experience and even Quade who had lots more years in the managing and coaching trenches than Sandberg.

I think Ron pretty much nails it.

I am not saying that Sandberg should have been hired to manage the Cubs this year, but Sandberg appears to be quite sincere about his desire to manage the Cubs, and if his dealings with Hendry caused him to believe that he never would get that shot from Hendry, or at least not any time in the reasonable future, it is perfectly understandable that he left, and also understandable that with Hendry gone he might return.

I don't recall Sandberg ever trashing Hendry (or anyone), or ever even saying anything particularly negative about him, but simply indicating that he felt the way he was handled when the Cubs were looking for a permanent manager last fall made him feel Hendry would never have him manage in Wrigley.

Jes Beard

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 17183
Re: Next GM for the Cubs
« Reply #35 on: August 25, 2011, 12:53:20 pm »
if (Sandberg's) ego/sense of entitlement about the manager's job is so big that he can't get along with one of the most popular guys (personality wise) in professional baseball, that doesn't give me much hope that he'd be successful at managing the people side of a major league team.

If Sandberg felt like he didn't get a real shot, then that tells me that his ego or sense of entitlement is out of control. 

Going to the minor leagues for four years, when he was financially secure and had no need to return to baseball, and certainly could have done so somewhere as a coach in the majors, does not shout of a "sense of entitlement."


ben

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 2227
Re: Next GM for the Cubs
« Reply #36 on: August 25, 2011, 03:14:05 pm »
Billy Beane has significant equity in the A's...don't know why he's been mentioned as a possibility for our next GM.

I'll agree that Freidman and Hahn both appear very interesting and a major upgrade!


CurtOne

  • Administrator
  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 27243
Re: Next GM for the Cubs
« Reply #37 on: August 25, 2011, 03:15:19 pm »
Just askin'.  How have Beane's teams done since they **** down on roids?  Just askin'.

brjones

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 25868
Re: Next GM for the Cubs
« Reply #38 on: August 25, 2011, 03:28:49 pm »
I don't think steroids are to blame for Beane's loss of competitiveness.  Sure, he had some high profile steroids suspects when they were competing (Giambi and Tejada), but it was the loss of Hudson, Mulder, and Zito that killed that team.  He hasn't been able to build a competitive team since they left.

Plus, as usual, I'm going to point out that (A) we don't have any idea how much steroids help (but there is good reason to think it is less than is generally assumed), and (B) the decline in offense was small after drug testing began until they got serious about amphetamines.  Then offense crashed.

CurtOne

  • Administrator
  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 27243
Re: Next GM for the Cubs
« Reply #39 on: August 25, 2011, 04:30:59 pm »
I agree with this entirely.  Everybody is unique, and perhaps there are some extraordinary qualities that Sandberg has that make him freakishly qualified.  But to get even an interview only four years into a coaching/managing career is extraordinary indeed.  To expect to not only be interviewed but to also be hired, that's pretty amazing.  No idea what or why he would be so exceptionally qualified that he'd be the best candidate.  Perhaps he is, of course, what do I know. 

It would be surprising, though, since he never was a very good interview or was particularly articulate as a player.  Since communication skills are probably pretty important for a manager, I'd think he'd start out with a strike against him.  So to be a supreme manager candidate after only four years despite that would require being a pretty extraordinary teacher and leader and scout and decision-maker in other ways.  Maybe he is, beats me. 

Ah yes.  All those years spent in the minors by Girardi, Piniella, Dusty Baker, Don Baylor, Terry Francona, Bob Brenly, Bobby Cox, Tony LaRussa.  Sorry, I forgot.  Fact is, few with Ryno's pedigree even look to manage, knowing it's a thankless job.  Both of your arguments may have merit, but all I was pointing out is that there was something...perhaps something that Sandberg learned that he wasn't supposed to know or some agreement between the two men that was broken...we don't know, but clearly Sandberg is glad Hendry is gone.  Just as some wanted to deify Jimbo when he came on board as gm, some want to deify him in departure.  There are lots thankful that he's gone.

CurtOne

  • Administrator
  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 27243
Re: Next GM for the Cubs
« Reply #40 on: August 25, 2011, 05:22:03 pm »
Sorry, br and craig, I just don't accept this argument about going down to the minors to learn how to manage.  The number of great managers who went that route are few and far between.  Gardenhire may be the only one I can think of at the moment.

For years this was the argument used against Blacks.  Dese black folk just don't have the essentials...I think that's how it was put.  There was an implication that they didn't have the work ethic to go to the minors and learn their craft.  Meanwhile white guys were using the good old boys network to land prime coaching and managing jobs.

The only concern I would have for someone like Ryno was whether he had the temperament to tolerate some of the things we see the Cubs doing.  Any of us on this board could manage a team and probably win 50 games.  A HOF player who has seen baseball inside and out for as long as Sandberg doesn't really need to go to the minors to learn how to ride a bus or fill out a scorecard.  That's the crap you hand someone when you're stalling.  And Sandberg called his bluff and went and did it.  End of story.

So, this nonsense about expecting a job after only 4 years in the minors?  Lots of managers, most of the great ones as a matter of fact, never smelt a minor league locker room.

There may be solid reasons why Ryno shouldn't manage the Cubs.  I'm still not convinced that I'd want to see it, but you'll have to do better than the swill you're serving.

Ron

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 8430
Re: Next GM for the Cubs
« Reply #41 on: August 25, 2011, 05:42:54 pm »
This is getting serious.  I think this may be the third time Curt and I are in basic agreement in as many (or fewer) days.


Should I be worried?  Or should he?

Deeg

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 16919
Re: Next GM for the Cubs
« Reply #42 on: August 25, 2011, 05:55:21 pm »
No to Colletti.  He's the one name I've seen that holds no attraction at all.

Jes Beard

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 17183
Re: Next GM for the Cubs
« Reply #43 on: August 25, 2011, 06:16:32 pm »
Sorry, br and craig, I just don't accept this argument about going down to the minors to learn how to manage.  The number of great managers who went that route are few and far between.  Gardenhire may be the only one I can think of at the moment.


Well, according to their wikipedia entries, that number would seem to include the following:

Earl Weaver: Weaver started his minor league managerial career in 1956 with the unaffiliated Knoxville Smokies in the South Atlantic League. He joined the Orioles in 1957 as skipper of their Fitzgerald club in the Georgia-Florida League. The Orioles moved him to their Dublin, Georgia franchise in 1958, and to their Aberdeen, South Dakota club in 1959. 1960 found Weaver in Wisconsin managing the Fox Cities Foxes in the Class B Three-I League. He moved up to with the AA Elmira Pioneers in 1962 and to the AAA Rochester Red Wings in 1966.
As a minor league pilot, he compiled a record of 841 wins and 697 defeats (.547) with three championships in 11½ seasons. He was promoted to the Orioles as their first-base coach in 1968, and spent a half-season in that role before taking the managerial reins in July. 


Tommy Lasorda  Lasorda's first off-field assignment with the Dodgers was as a scout from 1961–65. In 1966, he became the manager for the Pocatello Chiefs in the rookie leagues, then managed the Ogden Dodgers to three Pioneer League championships from 1966–68. He became the Dodgers AAA Pacific Coast League manager in 1969 with the Spokane Indians (1969–71) and remained in the position when the Dodgers switched their AAA farm club to the Albuquerque Dukes (1972). His 1972 Dukes team won the PCL Championship. Lasorda was also a manager for the Dominican Winter Baseball League team Tigres del Licey (Licey Tigers). He led the team to the 1973 Caribbean World Series Title in Venezuela with a series record of 5 wins and 1 loss.

Tony LaRussa The White Sox gave La Russa his first managerial opportunity in 1978 by naming him skipper of their Double-A affiliate, the Knoxville Sox of the Southern League. La Russa spent only a half-season at Knoxville before being promoted to the White Sox coaching staff when owner Bill Veeck changed managers from Bob Lemon to Larry Doby. But Doby struggled in the managerial role and was fired at the end of the season; Don Kessinger, former star shortstop of the crosstown Cubs, was named the White Sox' player-manager for 1979, and La Russa was demoted to manager of the Triple-A Iowa Oaks of the American Association.
But Kessinger was not the answer, either. The ChiSox were only 46–60 when he was fired and La Russa was summoned from Iowa, two-thirds of the way through the 1979 season. 


Bobby Cox -- Cox began his managerial career in the Yankees farm system in 1971. In 1976, he led the Syracuse Chiefs to the Governor's Cup title. This team featured such future major leaguers as Ron Guidry, Mickey Klutts, Terry Whitfield and Juan Bernhardt. Overall, Cox had a highly successful six-year tenure as a minor league manager, compiling a record of 459 wins and 387 defeats (.543) with two league championships. He then spent the 1977 season as the first base coach on Billy Martin's staff with the World Series-winning Yankees before beginning his MLB managerial career.

Jim Leyland -- Leyland then served as a coach for the Rocky Mount Leafs in the first half of the 1971 season before receiving his first managerial experience with the Bristol Tigers the same season. He managed for 11 seasons at the minor league level in the Tigers organization (1971–81), advancing to the postseason six times and claiming his respective league championship three times. Leyland was selected as the manager of the year in the Florida State League in both 1977 and 1978 with the Lakeland Tigers; and in the American Association in 1979 with the Evansville Triplets.
Leyland left the Tigers organization for the first time in 1982 when he became Tony La Russa's third base coach for four seasons (1982–85) with the Chicago White Sox, including the team's 1983 AL West division title, before being named the 33rd manager in Pittsburgh Pirates history on November 20, 1985. 


Walter Alston -- After returning to the minor leagues for several years as a player and then as a manager – including a stint as the player-manager for the first U.S.-based integrated baseball team after 1898, the Nashua Dodgers of the class-B New England League – he was named manager of the Brooklyn Dodgers for the 1954 season.

Gene Mauch -- He first became a manager at age 27 in 1953, when the Braves named him the player-manager of their AA Atlanta Crackers farm team in the Southern Association. From 1954-57, Mauch was strictly a player, first for the Pacific Coast League Los Angeles Angels, then the Red Sox. In 1958-59, he managed the Bosox' AAA affiliate, the Minneapolis Millers of the American Association, reaching the Junior World Series as American Association champion each season, and winning the 1958 JWS championship. He was slated to begin a third season as the Millers' boss in 1960 when, in mid-April, just prior to the start of the American Association's season, the Phillies chose him to replace Eddie Sawyer, who had resigned after the club's opening game of the regular season.

Ralph Houk -- Houk's last years as an active player were actually spent as the Yankees' full-time bullpen coach, thus beginning his managerial apprenticeship. In 1955, he was named manager of the Yanks' AAA affiliate, the Denver Bears of the American Association. Following three highly successful seasons at Denver, Houk returned to the Bronx as Stengel's first-base coach from 1958 to 1960. From late May through early June 1960, Houk served as acting manager of the Yanks for 13 games while Stengel, 70, was sidelined by illness. (The team won 7 and lost 6.) Then, after the Yanks lost the 1960 World Series to the Pittsburgh Pirates — and with Houk one of the hottest managerial candidates in baseball — the Yankees "discharged" Stengel (to use Stengel's own words) and promoted Houk.

Dick WIlliams -- On October 14, 1964, after a season during which Williams hit a career-low .159, the Red Sox gave him his unconditional release. At 35, Williams was at a career crossroads: Richards gave him a spring training invitation but no guarantee that he would make the 1965 Astros' playing roster; the Red Sox offered Williams a job as playing coach with their Triple-A farm team, the Seattle Rainiers of the Pacific Coast League. Looking to begin a post-playing career in baseball, Williams accepted the Seattle assignment. Within days, a shuffle in 1965 affiliations forced Boston to move its top minor league team to the Toronto Maple Leafs of the International League. This caused Boston's Triple-A manager, Edo Vanni, a Seattle native, to resign in order to remain in the Pacific Northwest. With an unexpected opening for the new Toronto job, Williams was promoted to manager of the 1965 Leafs. As a novice pilot, Williams adopted a hard-nosed, disciplinarian style and won two consecutive Governors' Cup championships with teams laden with young Red Sox prospects. He then signed a one-year contract to manage the 1967 Red Sox.

Sparky Anderson -- In 1964, at the age of 30, Anderson accepted Cooke's offer to manage the Leafs. He later handled minor league clubs at the Class A and Double-A levels, including a season (1968) in the Reds' minor league system.
During this period, he managed a pennant winner in four consecutive seasons: 1965 with the Rock Hill Cardinals of the Western Carolinas League, 1966 with the St. Petersburg Cardinals of the Florida State League, 1967 with the Modesto Reds of the California League and 1968 with the Asheville Tourists of the Southern League. It was during the 1966 season that Sparky's club lost to Miami 4–3 in 29 innings, which remains the longest pro game played (by innings) without interruption.[5]
He made his way back to the majors in 1969 as the third-base coach of the San Diego Padres during their maiden season in the National League. Just after the 1969 season ended, California Angels manager Lefty Phillips, who as a Dodger scout had signed the teenaged Anderson to his first professional contract,[6] named Anderson to his 1970 coaching staff.


I mean other than those bums, I can't think of any.  All of those guys are in the top 20 in all-time wins, and the only other managers on that top 20 list all ended their careers by 1956, with the exception of Casey Stengel (who managed in the minors before reaching the Yankees, after having started as a major league manager and getting fired a couple of times and then built a name for himself as a minor league manager) and Joe Torre, who started as one of the last player managers.

So, yea, other than those guys, I guess there haven't been any good major league managers who came up thru the minors.

JeffH

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 6154
Re: Next GM for the Cubs
« Reply #44 on: August 25, 2011, 06:47:15 pm »
Just get the GM hire right.  Load up on talent and even a dopey field manager can win.