Grading The Post-Leyland Managers

WTM isn’t the first person to banish Jose K from memory.

I think Mac would have been fine, once he had a few years’ experience, if he hadn’t been in such a bad situation in Pgh. The entire franchise was run in the latter half of DL’s reign of error as if there was no tomorrow, which is what led to a lot of Mac’s bad decisions, especially not playing younger guys. He and DL both seemed to be in save-my-job mode every minute of every day.

It was intended as both, but in many cases it amounted to the same thing. I thought Lamont was especially bad because even when he played rookies, he made it clear he had no faith in them. He carried on a lot in interviews in his last year about how he was jeopardizing his job by playing Ramirez and Hermansen, which showed he had zero confidence in them. He also did stuff like bat them 7th and 8th, and I recall at least once that he pinch-hit for Ramirez with a couple runners on in the 5th inning. When Ramirez came back up from the minors later that year, Lamont immediately announced that he’d give Ramirez a couple starts and that was it. Ramirez luckily torpedoed that scheme by going 5-for-11 in his first three games.

Mac did some similar stuff with Doumit, who at the time was the Pirates’ best hitting prospect, sad though that is to think about. He played Doumit only sporadically when he came up, and when Doumit would do something like go 7-for-12 over a short stretch, Mac would bench him. Mac also wouldn’t play Bay every day when the Pirates first got him. It wasn’t just playing the guys or not, to my way of thinking, it was showing that the team had a commitment to them.

This is harder, because back then I couldn’t follow the team on the internet daily and I was traveling a lot in my job during part of his tenure. I paid little attention between roughly 1992 and 1997, for various reasons. And the success (in the regular season) from 1990-92 colors memory. The best I can do:

Strategy: The Jay Bell bunting stuff was absurd, but he was very good at getting the platoon advantage. He got tremendous mileage by platooning fringy players like Redus, McClendon, Merced and others, and had productive platoons with King/Backman and Slaught/Spanky. I remember more than once watching him manage rings around Don Zimmer. 1992 team played well above its talent, and the 1990 team beat out a more talented Mets team. 5

Talent: Moving Bonds to left and AVS to center seemed odd at the time, but he got two gold glovers out of it. I don’t remember ever thinking he failed to adequately appreciate anybody, except maybe Wakefield. Tended to have pets like Wehner and Cangelosi, but that only really got out of hand after Pgh. 5

Starters: People weren’t conscious of pitch counts and the like then, so it’s hard to judge. Got a lot more mileage out of Drabek than anybody did later. Got a lot out of Tomlin. 4 at least.

Bullpen: Managed to cobble some effective pens out of spare change like Landrum, Gott, Kipper, Bob Patterson, Ted Power, Scott Ruskin, etc. Good at finding the right roles for guys. 5.

Young players: There were two different Leylands, the one who ran season-long tryout camps after the salary dumps in the mid-1980s and built the 1990-92 teams, and the one who couldn’t handle doing it again after 1992. 5/2.

Leadership: Leyland’s players are always extremely loyal, which says a lot. Handled Bonds very well. There was a period where Bonds really didn’t look like he was going to put his talent to use. 5.

It was an outrage when they changed him to “Super Bear”.

even a commisioned salesman kisses the asses of his customers

One of the biggest turnoffs with Tracy for me was when he talked in his first spring about how he couldn’t understand, watching the Pirates when he was in LA, why they didn’t win more with their talent. I suppose he was just trying to pump up the players or something, but I thought that was a classless slap at Mac. I didn’t like Mac as a manager, especially toward the end when he just wouldn’t play Sept. callups and the like, but he was always classy and always fought for his team, and didn’t deserve that kind of crap. I’d far rather see Mac succeeding elsewhere than Tracy.

as long as they dont block the youngsters, just like you said.——— just like some people resent randa being in the lineup when freddy was ready. well, we dont have any “freddy’s” ready just yet.

once they changed ownership and rid themselves of the ben grieves and greg vaughns and randy winns and aubrey huffs of their roster, you know… the guys who end up making more money than their worth? anyway, they build their team through the draft and they hope they have replacements for the stars who end up leaving. -———as far as adding veterans, the Rays added Pena who only got the starting job because Norton got hurt. they traded for bartlett because lugo wasnt getting it done. they signed cliff floyd, eric hinske and traded for gabe gross. they added the old farts without hurting the core players.——- but the key was getting the HOME GROWN arms to come up and perform. shields and sonnanstine came into their own. kazmir was still effective. garza and jackson, both now gone from the team, were aquired elsewhere. now they have studs like hellickson, davis and niemann in the rotation, with mcgee, moore and many others coming up in the near future. they even have 10 picks in the 2011 draft before the second round even starts!!!

long story short: (too late)— keep building the system the way NH has done and maybe your positions are filled by average to better than average players. look at the steinberg regime in tampa; hes only signed one true allstar, and thats Longoria. hellickson has that potential. maybe even brignac becomes one, but more than likely a solid every day player.—— not every player that NH aquires has to be a star, they just have to play “well” enough.

they even griped when toby hall was let go… TOBY HALL!!!!…. see the similarities yet?

Also, college ball Danno loves himself some John Bowker…who was acquired through a trade.

I would again remind you to refrain from too many cocktails.

hahahahahahaha – I get it – it’s from my screen name, so it’s “funny.” And you got it from somebody else who is a jackass. You can lay off that, please – I don’t see you saying such things to Vlad or WTM or JRoth or others.

NH is the ONE who ultimately makes the decision on who to sign or trade for…does he listen to his scouts? I dont know

So – what you’re saying is that your constant denigrating of NH’s talent judgment (or lack thereof) is… based on… a feeling, I guess. And that’s okay, as long as you know that that’s an opinion, and not fact-based.

wasnt the signing of lopez and carrasco and even dotel considered, by yinzers, to be huge wastes of money, and that NH wouldnt know his ass from his ass?

but aren’t most (but not all) of the Pirates scouts and advisors the same ones from the previous administration??

There are a few holdovers, but the majority of the people in place under Littlefield have gone and been replaced by others.

Here’s the front office staff as of the start of 2007. Guys in bold are still with the team in the same capacity, guys in italics are with the team but have been reassigned.

Robert Nutting Chairman of the Board Owner
Dave Littlefield Senior Vice President and General Manager
Doug Strange Assistant General Manager Assistant GM
Jack Bowen Special Assistant to GM Special Assistant to the GM
Jesse Flores Special Assistant to GM Special Assistant to the GM
Jax Robertson Special Assistant to GM Special Assistant to the GM
Louie Eljaua Special Assistant to GM Special Assistant to the GM
Roy Smith Special Assistant to GM Special Assistant to the GM
Pete Vuckovich Special Assistant to GM Special Assistant to the GM
Jon Mercurio Director, Baseball Operations Baseball Operations
Bryan Minniti Coordinator, Baseball Operations Baseball Operations
Brian Graham Senior Director, Player Development
Ed Creech Senior Director, Scouting Scouting Director
Jeff Banister Field Coordinator Minor League Operations

So. Nutting’s still the owner, Huntington held onto two out of six special assistants, Banister moved into coaching, and Strange and Bowen stuck around but got knocked down a pay grade or two (Strange to DPP and Bowen to advance scout).

Seems like a fairly clean sweep to me. There’s been a comparable amount of turnover among the low-level scouts as well, if not more so.

Well, I already tried to figure out Hurdle’s tendencies in those earlier posts. Beyond that, you’d have to follow a team every day to get a clearer idea of game strategy. It’s hard to judge his use of pitchers, too, partly due to Coors and partly because his bullpens most of the time there really had no talent at all.

I was encouraged by the fact that he platooned, or partially platooned, some guys right from the start, like Hawpe until he became a semi-star. And he seems to have done OK breaking in rookies, although his reluctance to bench Garrett Atkins for Ian Stewart is a red flag, even more so because the Pirates have Atkins now. (If he makes the team, that’s a very bad sign, like Tracy/Jose Hernandez type bad.)

Hurdle at least clearly won’t be asleep at the wheel. There were a lot of times where Russell’s teams gave me the impression of a third-grade class when the teacher’s out of the room. Hurdle reminds me a lot more of Mac in that area, which I think is probably good.

A lot of this has to do with the players that each manager had. Jim Tracy could have managed the 91 squad to the playoffs.

Especially when you have a payroll cap and equally shared broadcast revenue.