Coach Minky

by bucdaddy on Sep 16, 2008 1:53 PM EDT Comment 32 comments

"Give me 25 guys who fight. Give me that over talent."

I've seen a hue and cry in some places for the Pirates to keep Minky around as long as they can as a sort of coach on the field, to see if he can impart some of his fire and desire to the other guys on the team, and I'm OK with that, I guess, as long as he's still on the field.

But if he really believes what he said, I don't want him as a coach anywhere else, because he's full of brown stuff. This isn't football, where you can perhaps overcome your physical limitations by being more willing to throw yourself headlong into mayhem than the other guy.

(A side note, I was thinking the other day about a guy I knew in high school who started for our football team as a 5-foot-4, maybe 150-pound linebacker. Like a lot of little guys, he overcompensated: He had a Charles Atlas physique and was one tough sumbitch, but for all that he was never going to win a slam-dunk contest against Julius Erving -- and yeah, I know about Spud Webb, but never mind.)

Baseball's far more subtle than that, and really doesn't call for any physical interaction between opposing players. It requires hand-eye coordination, and timing, and patience, and some thought, and being willing to fight at the drop of a glove means nothing in those areas. There are a million morons in America who think they know how to fight (ask any cop how many he runs into on a weekend), and they can be entertaining to watch, but there are only a few hundred who can hit major league pitching with any consistency.

In short, give me talent, and if we're playing a team full of Minkys we'll kick their asses eight or nine out of 10 times. But I'm not sure Minky understands this. I'd fear that a coach Minky or, worse, a manager Minky would show a preference for guys like him over guys who can actually, you know, play ball well. And we'd have gritty David Eckstein at shortstop.

It's also why I don't get agitated as some of us do when guys like Tracy and Russell never leave the dugout to argue. When someone can offer me more than anecdotal evidence that this sort of grandstanding actually wins ballgames, I'll join the chorus.

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Yeah, that talent quote drives me nuts. I really don’t know about Dougie—sometimes he comes off as hilarious and self-aware (like the Ron Villone “crazed animal” quote from the other day) and sometimes I think he’s an insincere dick. I wouldn’t want him as a manager, but I bet he’ll end up as one.

by EmmaOMG on Sep 16, 2008 2:19 PM EDT reply actions 0 recs

Piniella was an in-your-face kind of guy when he played,

and has managed to do the same as a manager at every stop he has made.

by ElliottBayBucco on Sep 16, 2008 4:21 PM EDT reply actions 0 recs

Mental toughness

Obviously talent is more important, but people who respond well to pressure situations are more valuable than those who crap their pants. I think we have seen more than a few talented players that couldn’t get their head on straight. I’m not defending what he said, I’m just saying, there’s some sense in there somewhere.

charity standing orders

by BadMaafala on Sep 16, 2008 4:29 PM EDT reply actions 0 recs

Personally, I'll take talented guys who can fight.

There are guys with subpar skills who make it on desire (Lenny Dykstra, Larry Bowa), and there are guys with subpar desire who make it on skills (Juan Samuel, Dave Kingman). In the best of all worlds, you want guys who have both.

I think it’s OK for a manager to talk up the importance of desire vs. ability, even if it doesn’t necessarily reflect reality. In most cases, a manager isn’t going to make some dramatic adjustment that’ll turn a crappy player into a good one, but it’s certainly possible for a manager to fire guys up and motivate them. Thus, most managers are going to be biased toward the thing they can control to a certain extent, rather than the thing that comes from family/genetics/God.

by Vlad on Sep 16, 2008 5:20 PM EDT reply actions 0 recs

Good examples

However, I would suggest that being “fired up” or in any kind of confrontational state of mind is not conducive to playing good baseball (unless maybe you’re Roger Clemens). You need your wits about you at the plate, and going up there angry and gnashing your teeth is probably a good recipe for swinging 10 feet in front of the 2-2 change-up.

by bucdaddy on Sep 16, 2008 6:07 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

I could've phrased it better

I wasn’t going for anger so much as motivation, which can come from anger, but also from other things, too (competitiveness, greed, ambition, etc.). Motivation may not help you strike out a particular batter in a particular game, but it can make you focus more intently on self-improvement and thus improve your performance across the board (like Jim Bouton learning a knuckleball after he lost the heat on his heater, or Tommy John trying experimental surgery and rehab to keep pitching after his elbow blew). It’s a macro effect, not a micro one.

by Vlad on Sep 16, 2008 7:27 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

Yeah. Frank Tanana. And another thing...

For me, it’s manifested in an attitude on defense. I want the guy that wants to catch every ball in the air. That sprints to the ball and adjusts if he realizes he can’t get to it. It doesn’t have to mean daring, because usually, if you’re ready (I mean really ready, not standing there like you’re waiting for a bus), you usually do get to those balls. For me, it was the tipping point in the “player of the 1990’s” debate. Bonds cruised on athletic ability. I remember Cook or Smizik or one of those guys defending Bonds’s defensive ability by saying he cut off so many balls in the gap to hold batters to singles. Shyeah. And (young) Griffey refused to let a ball hit the ground. Griffey moved forward on those balls, Bonds moved back.

by azibuck on Sep 16, 2008 9:16 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

Geez, I was 5’8" and was barely able to make it up to 145 (They were nice and listed me at 5’10" 160, though) when I played football. Let’s just say, though, that I didn’t exactly start!

by matskralc on Sep 16, 2008 6:58 PM EDT reply actions 0 recs

Of all of the professional sports...

baseball is by far the easiet to manage. It doesn’t require any real talent which would explain why baseball managers are paid much less than their counterparts in either basketball or football. This also explaines why managers like Don Zimmer, Casey Stengel, or Yogi Berra could manage a baseball team despite having only double-digit IQs. In both basketball and football a coach must be innovative and capable of designing both offenses and defenses that can adapt to changes occuring during the game as opposed to baseball managers who have pre-determined which reliever will pitch in any given situation. Hell, he could lay out his instructions before the season and then fax them to his bench coach without watching the game. Baseball managers no longer think on their feet and simply react to any given situation with their own pre-determined response. If Don Zimmer could do it then so could Vlad. (just kidding)

by Illinois Pirate Fan on Sep 16, 2008 10:07 PM EDT reply actions 0 recs

Tactically, managing isn't hard.

Handling people, on the other hand, is like herding cats, whether you do it in a baseball setting or a corporate one. And dealing with the national media isn’t easy, either. I’d probably struggle a bit if I got the job.

I think it’s kind of cheap to take a shot at Zimmer’s intelligence, given the head trauma he suffered as a young man. They had to drill holes in his skull to relieve the intercranial pressure, and then install a metal plate to tie it all back together. He was unconscious for several weeks, and he lost like 50 pounds while he was in the hospital. He very nearly died. That being the case, maybe it’s OK that he can’t match wits with Isaac Newton, yeah?

And you’ll never convince me that Casey Stengel was dumb. Dumb like a fox, maybe.

by Vlad on Sep 16, 2008 11:16 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

Vlad:

Any 75-year old coach that would attack Pedro Martinez during a brawl is an idiot. I’m sorry you’re offended but the truth cannot be denied. My best friend had a prong from a pole vaulting standard puncture his skull and was unconscious for 2 weeks but he survived and doesn’t say or do stupid things. Stop taking everything I say personally just because you don’t agree with me. This board is about sports and not life and death.

by Illinois Pirate Fan on Sep 17, 2008 10:18 AM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

Yes, he's an idiot.

But there are lots of idiots who didn’t become idiots by virtue of severe, life-altering head trauma. I just don’t understand why, in a post about how an idiot can be a successful manager, you picked as examples two guys who aren’t idiots and one tragic/sympathetic case, instead of three guys who are just dumb.

“I’m sorry you’re offended” is a classic non-apology apology. Passive-aggressive bullcrap. If you don’t think that you did anything wrong (and you evidently don’t), then don’t insult me by pretending to care about my feelings.

by Vlad on Sep 17, 2008 10:34 AM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

Vlad

Relax and stop taking everything personally. Can’t we just agree to disagree?

by Illinois Pirate Fan on Sep 17, 2008 11:58 AM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

Taking Everything Personally

I’m sorry that you’re too obtuse to understand why I take insincere apologies personally.

See why I don’t like it? If you want to apologize, apologize. If you don’t want to apologize, then don’t. Either way, don’t take veiled shots at people under the guise of contrition, and if you do, then don’t be surprised if they take it personally.

by Vlad on Sep 17, 2008 1:19 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

IPF

Any 75-year old coach that would attack Pedro Martinez during a brawl is an idiot.

I can’t blame Zimmer for going after Pedro after his personal history of having his career ended after getting hit in the head by a pitcher. I have to question Zim for not going to the bat rack first to let Pedro have a dose of his own medicine.

by ElliottBayBucco on Sep 17, 2008 1:06 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

EBB

I’m no fan of Pedro either and wouldn’t mind seeing him get “whupped”. I just didn’t think it was very wise of Zimmer to do that considering his age and condition.

by Illinois Pirate Fan on Sep 18, 2008 9:59 AM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

Yeah, very unwise.

Put Pedro in a pretty awkward position, too. You can’t hit a guy like that, but you can’t really let him smack you around, either.

by Vlad on Sep 18, 2008 11:21 AM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

IPF

So managing a baseball team requires no “real talent,” eh?

I was going to say more, but I`ll just let your post speak for itself.

by patthatt on Sep 16, 2008 10:30 PM EDT reply actions 0 recs

Well, after last night's display by the Pirates...

I’d rather see Doug managing. The team has quit on JR. And I think JR quit on them, especially considering the comments on the blown call at first. The players likely do not feel that JR is in the foxhole with them. It’s easy to be a nice guy and a manager…it’s very difficult to be a nice guy and a GREAT manager. Look at many of the great managers…and a lot of them appear to have been Grade A jerks. About the only one I can think of that falls in the nice guy and great manager category is Walter Alston.

by Thunder on Sep 17, 2008 8:29 AM EDT reply actions 0 recs

Danny Murtaugh?

And Torre doesn’t seem like a jerk. Of course, Torre wasn’t a very good manager either, based on his win %, until he got teams that had, you know, actual talent.

But just to have another go-around at this, Bobby Cox has been thrown out of more games than almost anybody else (and maybe he’s got that “record” by now, BFD, I don’t care enough to look it up), and he’s been a great manager when he’s had Maddux and Glavine and Smoltz in his rotation, and sometimes even when he didn’t. But now that he doesn’t have much talent, he’s not such a great manager, right? And he can get tossed as much as he wants and his team will still suck because he doesn’t have the talent. Do you think fans in Atlanta are saying, “Bobby needs to get tossed MORE, that’ll fire up the team, show them he has their backs”? No manager in history, with the possible exceptions of McGraw and Durocher, maybe Weaver, ever had his team’s back better than Cox, and his team is … lemme look it up … 67-84, a whole four games better than the team whose manager never leaves the dugout.

I’m baffled by this need to have somebody throw a fit to prove he cares. You want end zone dances and spiked balls and in-your-face histrionics and 22 guys tussling in the dirt, go watch football. That’s what football is for, to give you an outlet for your rage and craziness.

Give me a team of 25 librarians, and if they all hit like Barry Bonds I will destroy you.

by bucdaddy on Sep 17, 2008 10:10 AM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

I will go at this a different way...

What have you seen from John Russell this year that indicates he MIGHT be a good manager? Where is the improvement from ANY player that it wasn’t already expected (McLouth, Doumit, Maholm)? Where is the hint that this team has anything positive in the way of fundamentals. We’ve still got guys throwing to the wrong bases (when they don’t bounce it 50 feet in front of them), not running things out and generally making stupid decisions, and we are 150 games into the season. We should be seeing SOME improvement from SOME players…but it isn’t happening.

I understand and accept that the talent level is considerably lower with Bay and Nady gone, what I don’t accept is the general lack of effort and lack of fundamentals that has become the norm over the past few weeks. THAT starts at the top.

by Thunder on Sep 17, 2008 11:32 AM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

Why take McLouth and Doumit off the table?

Both had to compete for jobs in the spring, and Russell picked the right guy in both competitions. That’s worth something. And while I know a lot of people expected improvement from both, I don’t know that anybody expected quite that much improvement (probably not even Russell).

After Lloyd and Tracy, I’m never going to take the ability to put the right goddamn players on the field for granted again. Though if Russell keeps playing Nyjer over Pearce, he’s going to burn a lot of his credit there.

Yesterday’s lack of effort was disturbing. Today’s response will tell us a lot about whether Russell is in control or on his way out.

by Vlad on Sep 17, 2008 1:29 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

I took McLouth and Doumit off the table

because it was obvious to most of us that McLouth should have been ahead of Duffy and Morgan, and that Doumit should have been ahead of Paulino, but the Tracy regime had their favorites.

And is there anything that Russell can point to that shows he had anything to do with the stats either one put up, other than putting their name on a lineup card every day?

by Thunder on Sep 17, 2008 1:49 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

Russell worked with Doumit on defense.

And Doumit’s defensive progress (real or imagined) this spring is one of the things that allowed him to wrench the job out of Paulino’s flabby hands in the first place.

I’m not necessarily persuaded that Russell is the right choice going forward, but I think it’s ridiculous to pretend that he hasn’t done ANYTHING right.

by Vlad on Sep 17, 2008 2:01 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

Not much

by bucdaddy on Sep 17, 2008 4:27 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

Nice managers can succeed.

We won a World Series under Chuck Tanner in ‘79, and Chuck’s one of the consistently nicest guys in baseball. I don’t think I’ve ever seen him trash anyone in the press. He even likes Dick Allen.

That said, there are definitely times and places to be nice, and times and places to let the claws come out. Bill James wrote one time that teams go through cycles where their type of ideal manager oscillates: A mean hardass whips them into shape, they get angry and tight and rebel against the hardass, a nice guy takes over, they relax and play well in the calm atmosphere, they relax too much and get lazy and sloppy, a hardass takes over, and the cycle begins again.

by Vlad on Sep 17, 2008 1:33 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

Managing

It is hard to tell whether they are keying off his low-key approach, or the loss of Bay and Nady deflated a young team that had just lost 25% of its starting eight, and the piling up of losses has worn them out. I don’t mind his not running on the field to argue calls. What is bothering me is that, as Vlad says, he is making some seriously indefensible decisions about who to put out there. I am also concerned that a team with this many young players needs a manager who is capable of modulating his approach to deal with twenty-five different personalities. Murtaugh was far better at that at the end than he was at the beginning, and Tanner was superb most of his career, until saddled with a bunch of stiffs. While I was writing this, I read Vlad’s post. He is right about Tanner, but one thing many people don’t know is that he had a fierce temper, and Al Oliver and Richie Hebner both old me that after a bad loss during the pennant races in 77 and 83, respectively, he lit into players, actually standing one guy up against the wall by his shirt collar. He ripped Bert Blyleven a new one in the press in 1980, before he traded him, actually calling him “Cry-leven” for leaving the team and demanding a trade, because Tanner pulled him regularly in the eighth inning.

Leyland also was good at it toward the end, although sometimes far too tough on kids in the beginning. I think how Russell does these last dozen games is going to affect how management and fans view him, fair or not. Last night was brutal, and after the articles this morning, if it happens again I can only conclude that the players are sending a message. Whether or not it is appropriate for the monkeys to run the show, if he has lost them then it is what it is, and they will probably need to bring in a Coonelly with a uniform.

by RichieHebner on Sep 17, 2008 1:40 PM EDT reply actions 0 recs

In general

All I can really think is that regardless of the manager, anyone who doesn’t realize that his is really going to take time is delusional. I think I read a post from Vlad that we are probably three years away from .500, and that sounds about right to me. We need a couple of years to get any enduring sense of what we have with LaRoche (optimistic re: above average starter), Moss (optimistic as to starting corner outfielder or excellent fourth outfielder) and the pitchers (no clue—some good and a lot of bad so far, but far too soon).

Already, I am really optimistic about Tabata, and no matter how Alvarez gets resolved, they will have a couple of more solid first and subsequent round draft choices in the low minors by this time next year. If they can pull off another decent draft, things will look a damned sight better at the beginning of 2010 than today, and a third good draft in 2010 pretty much restocks the system and sends us on the upswing.

I know that isn’t saying much to anyone who has endured the past decade and a half, but this crap began long before people seem to believe it did. This franchise began its descent into baseball hell the day Carl Barger fired Syd Thrift. Sid made mistakes, Syd had an ago and Syd was cranky, but he had vision. There has been nothing close to a plan since, and although Huntington is learning on the job, I like what I’ve seen and we really don’t have any choice but to give the guy a chance. Would I prefer a new owner? Yeah, absolutely. I think we will be condemned to doing this on the cheap, with no margin for error, as long as he owns this team. At least I now believe what finite resources exist are being more wisely spent.

Now, if someone can persuade John Russell (or whomever is making this decision) to stop wasting at bats and field time on Nyjer Morgan…

by RichieHebner on Sep 17, 2008 1:46 PM EDT reply actions 0 recs