Street Cred
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Q. What do you think of the M's decision to fire Chambliss?
A. There are SSI posts that know what they're talking about. Below that, you have SSI posts that are mostly guessing. Below that, you have complete and utter baloney. 50 yards below that, you have this post.
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Chris Chambliss? For our purposes, suffice it to say that there are a whale of a lot of guys who are in ML clubhouses because they add street cred. The "presence" of a Chris Chambliss type of person, looking eye to eye, is immense.
You've heard about Tim Johnson, who became a MLB(TM) manager because of, literally because of, stories he could tell about Viet Nam. Both to his players, and to his superiors, making hiring decisions. Well, Chris Chambliss can tell stories: stories about Catfish and Ron Guidry and Sparky Lyle, about Billy Martin, about how the Yankees recovered from Thurman's death, about how he won the Yankees that one Series, or was it that other one?, and in Chambliss' case those stories UNDERstate his experiences.
The Mariners have always been particularly susceptible to having people around because of their auras, such as with their Silva-Washburn-Batista-etc rotation. Five MLB(TM) starters, man, and that March, the people in the M's org who had NOT played baseball were practically giggling. About the auras. (Contrast Billy Beane's level of concern about having MLB(TM) street cred in camp.)
I'm not saying there's no place for street cred in the game. You've read SSI; you know that we respect accomplishment, respect intuition, respect a place in the game fairly earned. But it's also good to be aware of the fact that Hisashi Iwakuma was frozen out in 2012 because MLB(TM) union vets presumed that he was a wussy.
So when the Mariners bring in a hitting coach with six rings, my default assumption is that he's there for his aura. That's just an assumption, of course. It seems to take a lot to get a 26-year-old MLB(TM) ballplayer to listen to anybody who doesn't play any more. Six rings constitutes --- > "a lot."
But if you can bring in a coach who is actually very expert at what he does, who lacks Tim Johnson's street cred, but who can actually fix a hitter with rubber bands and stuff... well,t he question is whether the MLB(TM) players will deign to listen to him despite the fact that he doesn't himself play the game. If so, great.
I don't know how good Chambliss was or wasn't technically. I have my assumption. The Mariners just made a public statement -- the dismissal -- that would seem to corroborate my assumption. If the players would deign to listen to the new guy, I'm sure he could help. Probably Zduriencik figures, the guy has had a pretty good working relationship with them now as a hanger-on, so we'll see how it goes for him when they hit their slumps next May.
Bill James has said, players get far too much coaching as it is. They need to be left alone to hit. In principle, bringing in a guy with a soft voice is probably a good idea.
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