Managerial Change?
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Q. How do you know whether it's the manager's fault?
A. We just spent the winter talking about it. You can measure whether a team is Underperforming, Overperforming, or None Of The Above. If there's a way to measure a manager's ability, that's how yer do it. What a team would be doing with a "placeholder" manager, and what it's doing now.
Strike one.
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Q. What is the number one cause of underperformance?
A. Lack of self-belief, lack of confidence, lack of conviction. Overpressing.
Norman Vincent Peale (of all people) quoted Branch Rickey in The Power of Positive Thinking. Rickey didn't care if you were talking about Stan Musial or Ty Cobb; once a player has the wrong mental attitude, that of trying too hard, he was going to be on the bench.
Relaxed power is the name of the game. You could look it up, or you could ax a scratch golfer.
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Dr. D can't count the number of games in which the M's got down 4-1, managed to scramble back to tie it ... and then wilted to a 5-4 loss thereafter. Or needed only a single run over the course of 8 innings, and couldn't get it. Or got runners on 1B and 2B, 0 out, and did nothing with it. It's a lack of conviction.
Strike two.
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Q. What's with the Lloyd quote, "We're shooting ourselves in the foot?"
A. He shoulda taken the fifth on that one, boys ... You couldn't invent a more self-incriminating statement. Go ahead, try. I'll wait.
"I know I have got a good club," the manager asserted when asked what he sees in the Mariners after 40 games. "We haven't hit our stride, but I don't think there is anyone in that locker room that feels like this club is drowning. I like the attitude, I like the way they go about their business."
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And that's stee-rike threeeee.
You could go back to 1981 ... what's that, 35 years now ... when Maury Wills started the season 6-16. He was asked if he was in trouble. Indignantly, he pointed out a hard slide that Tom Paciorek had made that night to break up a double play, in like a 7-3 loss. "When you see guys stop doing that," Wills huffed, "Then you can say I'm not doing my job." Wills was fired about three days later.
We been watchin' this same ol' same ol' for quite a few summers. It's always the same: a team is playing wayyyyy under its ability and the manager starts telling everybody that the club's attitude is great, that they're really going about their business the right way. So if Jack Z gives him a "Vote of Confidence" we can start the office pool on Termination Day.
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Q. Wow. Tough crowd. Dr. D doesn't like Lloyd McClendon?
A. I like him just fine, amigo. Just saying. We've seen this shtick before. We report, you decide. It looks from here like it looks when there's a manager problem.
Which is surprising, considering the overachieving we just got in 2014. But how many good years did Don Wakamatsu have? The one 87-win season, and then you went into the next year all psyched up, and ... he lost the clubhouse in May of the next year.
The worst part of it all, is that there's no one thing to fix, no one person to blame, just a vague feeling that we're snakebit. Like we sez, Dr. D has seen this shtick before.
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Q. Bad day to talk about it. The M's just won two, and on Sunday the MVP was --- > Lloyd.
A. Yep. McClendon put Bloomquist in there as a "matchup" against Buehrle, and Bloomie delivered the big blow. Then he got Ackley in there as a defensive replacement, and that was the ballgame. And the reliever matchups were perfect.
That's when you can assess your job objectively: if you just had a great week, made the big sale, and now you want to quit, then ... quit.
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Q. How do you change managers so as to get a result?
A. Dr. D hasn't the foggiest. Calling Dr. Bombay! Emergency! Come right away!
Our impression is, that in a situation like this --- > if you make a change, you need to bring in a guy so old that he doesn't give a rat's patootie whether the players like him.
In 2003, Jeff Torborg managed the Marlins to a 16-22 record and they powerflushed him. Brought in the age-72 (!!) Jack McKeon, who promptly managed them to a World Series. The timing was exactly this timing: Torborg had exactly one (decent) full year with the club in 2002, then stumbled out of the gate in 2003 despite having World Series talent.
In 2009, Clint Hurdle managed Colorado to an 18-28 start and the Rockies shed him for a grizzled, LA-battlescarred Jim Tracy who ripped off a 74-42 (!) record with the same lousy roster Hurdle couldn't win with. (Not saying I like Tracy. Just saying you don't swap out for a rookie manager.)
You could go on and on. It's not just Dr. D's opinion. Bill "Mr. History" James has written many times that --- > most "Cinderella" runs occur at the point of a managerial change. That's why they do it, y'know.
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Q. Who would the candidates be?
A. No clue. Mayhaps you could take it from here.
No idea who the, um, Tony Larussas of 2015 would be. But we do have a good idea that this is the kind of job ANY manager would gleefully accept.
You could go down the managerial W leaders who don't have a job right now... Dusty Baker, Jim Leyland, Ron Gardenhire, Woody Woodward ... there are always a dozen Jack McKeon's floating around the game. I'm warming to the idea of giving Bill James a baseball cap and a set of Pings.
Needless to say, I haven't heard a single whisper about a change, any more than you have. Obviously McClendon is popular with the sportswriters. No snark intended, but if he had an Erik Bedard personality you'd have been hearing the drumbeat a while ago.
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Q. Is SSI recommending a managerial change?
A. Lemme go all sportswriter here and cop out of any personal responsibility, right after arguing vehemently in my own slanted direction .... SSI is, for once, not volunteering an opinion. Just "reporting" on the common circumstances.
Dr. D likes Lloyd McClendon. But the M's spent a lot of dinero to try to get a couple of good years going here.
My $0.02,
Jeff