League Divisional Series Update
Written by
Peter Schiller on October 6, 2008 – 1:44 pm - Over the weekend, we saw the Dodgers send the favored Cubs home packing after playing the minimum. This is the perfect time for them to get hot and they’re on fire right now! I thought that Red Sox fans had it tough with their 86 year drought, but I was wrong. I feel for Cub fans everywhere. Here’s a peek into the thoughts of Cub fans everywhere I would think.
Meanwhile, it looks as if overworking CC Sabathia finally caught up to the Brewers this weekend as he didn’t even last 4 complete innings this weekend. I wonder how former Brewer’s manager Ned Yost is feeling today? After non being in the playoffs since 1982, the team formerly owned by Commissioner Bud Selig have been eliminated in the first round by the Phillies. Will Robin Yount be their manager in 2009? To hear the outcry from Milwaukee, please check out Brewers Bar who have an easy going approach to the end of their team’s playoff push as written HERE and Brew Crew Ball was pretty laid back, too; check it out HERE .
Both NL Central teams are out if it early!
Both the White Sox and the Angels have stayed alive for one more game as both teams won their game 3’s against the Rays and the Red Sox. I still think that the ALCS will be an AL East rematch for the pennant between the Red Sox and the Rays. It should be a great series. The Sox should win tonight with Lester going against Lackey, but the Rays might have to go to 5 with Sonnanstine going against Floyd this afternoon. We’ll just have to wait and see…
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Tags: Angels, Chicago Cubs, LA Dodgers, Milwakee Brewers, Philadelphia Phillies, Rays, Red Sox, White Sox
Posted in Baseball, Managers, Playoffs | No Comments »
Around the Horn
Written byPeter Schiller on September 29, 2008 – 1:58 pm - Here are some new items to fill in your day from around baseball.
The Seattle Mariners are said to be interested in interviewing the Dodgers assistant GM. Why would this be newsworthy? Because Ms. Kim Ng would be the first woman to become a GM in Major League Baseball! What does USS Mariners have to say about this?
The Brewers beat out the Mets for the NL Wild Card! The Mets have now NOT made the playoffs after having a 3½ game lead with 17 games to go fo two years in a row!
With Yankees starter Mike Mussina’s win yesterday, he has become the oldest pitcher to record his first 20 win season.
The Angels notched their 100th victory this weekend! They end the regular season with the best record in baseball for 2008!
The Washington Nationals fired 5 coaches after loosing 102 games, leaving only manager Manny Acta and pitching coach Randy St. Claire in place for 2009.
The Mariners lost 101 games in 2008. Look for more coaches to loose their jobs there as well.
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Tags: Angels, GM, ington Nationals, Kim Ng, Mike Mussina, Milwaukee Brewers
Posted in Baseball, Hot Stove Baseball, Managers, News, Off Season | No Comments »
MLB Opinion Poll
Written byPeter Schiller on June 26, 2008 – 8:29 am - 
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Posted in Baseball, Managers, Poll | 1 Comment »
Generals of the Diamond, Baseball QB’s, baseball’s Iron Men: the Catcher
Written byPeter Schiller on January 3, 2008 – 2:01 pm - Is Catching the most important position?
Let’s take a look…
In my opinion, you have 4 types of catchers:
- The defensive minded catcher: He can’t hit his way out of a paper bag so why is he north of Single A? He can field the position better than most!
- Some examples of this sort of catcher would be (sorry guys): David Ross, Yadier Molina (even though he hit .275 in 2007), Miguel Olivo (who admittedly does have some pop in his bat), etc.
- The offensive minded catcher: He can hit the seems off the ball, but when it comes to fielding the position, a 90 year old grandmother would be more suited for the job!
- Some examples of this sort of catcher would be (sorry again guys): Mike Piazza, Jason Kendall, Michael Barrett, etc.
- The catcher that can handle a pitching staff, knows opposing batters, etc. This catcher often can’t hit his way out of a paper bag either.
- Some examples of this sort of catcher would be (sorry once again guys): Brad Ausmus, Yorvit Torrealba (even though he came up big in the 2007 playoffs), etc.
- Then there’s the catcher that can do it all! These are diamonds in the ruff! So sign them to long term contracts, but be aware that the production might go south at a rapid pace and without warning due to the beating these guys take year in and year out.
- Some examples of this sort of catcher would be:Johnny Bench, Carlton Fisk, Ivan Rodriguez, Jason Varitek & Jorge Posada, etc.
Sometimes categories 1 and 3 are the same player and sometimes categories 2 and 3 or even 1 and 2, but rarely does a player provide a team with all three attributes!
The Catcher’s Position:
The baseball catcher has the best view in the park. He can see everything from where he squats. The only person with a better spot on the field is the home plate umpire (what a waste 
). Some of the best baseball managers have been catchers in their playing days (see this article from MLB.com for some neat tidbits on this topic). Men like Joe Torre, Mike Scioscia, Clint Hurdle, Joe Girardi, Eric Wedge, Bob Melvin, Jack McKeon and Bob Brenly to name a few of the more recent examples.
Look at it this way, they have to study the game, especially their opponents batters if they are going to call a good game. They need to know what to call in a given situation, because you need to pitch to certain hitters differently in different counts and game situations. A good catcher needs to know this! He needs to optimize the scouting reports and put in the time and effort to hone his craft, giving his team an edge. He is likened to a football QB. He calls the shots and he will usually take the blame for requesting the wrong pitch on a gopher ball and the pitcher will often admit to shaking off his catcher as being the reason why he gave up a big hit (like Boston’s Curt Schilling did after losing his no hitter in Oakland in 2007). Current players like Jorge Posada, Pudge Rodriguez and Jason Varitek all have the makings of being real good major league managers once their playing careers are over.
**I could probably go on and on, but we’ll stop here and open it up for further discussion in the comments. If they’re good, I’ll try to add them to the bottom of this post as they come in.**
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Posted in Baseball, Managers, Pete’s Perspective | No Comments »
What Makes a Good MLB Manager?
Written byPeter Schiller on November 3, 2007 – 2:33 pm - A reader, Pete’s Rose’s Mom, asked the following question in a comment back in October:
“I’d be interested in learning more about the managers of the 8 teams who made it into the playoffs. How do they compare with one another? What does it take to become a manager let alone a good manager?”
First, sorry for the late reply, but the first 4-8 weeks of starting a blog like this one, they say, are real time consuming & you find yourself working on the look & feel of your site more than you do about posting to it. I’m at about week 4 so please bear with me for a few more weeks or so. 
I will try to answer this question by breaking it down into sections. I’ll have to admit that I’m not an expert at this or else I wouldn’t be writing this blog, I’d be a major league manager myself!
What does it take to become a Major League Manager?
Honesty, I don’t know for sure, but I do know this: Some men get into it simply by being a former major league player who happens to know every aspect of the game. They sometimes are seen as having an advantage to someone without that experience. Some people become major league managers after working in popular High School & College/University programs. Others get into an organization, work hard and climb the ladder until they get a position as a minor league coach, then manager until they move up to a triple A manager & the next step from there is a major league coach or right into becoming a major league manager. In one bad season or decision, it can all be lost. It can be a thankless job that often becomes a scapegoat.
What does it take to be a good Major League Manager?
This depends or changes from situation to situation. In my opinion, a “good” manager is one who does well in any situation they find themselves in. I’ll explain this point in more detail later in this section. For now, let’s define some of those situations a big league manager might find himself in.
- A Young Team – a team that is mostly comprised of younger players & there are possibly a number of rookies in the starting line up on a daily basis (like the 2007 Diamondbacks)
- A Veteran Team – a team that is mostly comprised of veteran payers & probably doesn’t have any rookies in their starting line up (like the 2007 Yankees)
- A Team in a
- A Team in a
A “good” manager would be able to manage in any of these 4 situations, but not all managers are god managers. Jimy Williams (former major league manager for the Red Sox & Astros) was known for being great in the fundamentals & his teaching skills which work well with a young team, but caused some problems when managing a veteran team that no longer needs those managerial skills. They already know, or “should” know the fundamentals. It becomes more complicated when dealing with a big or small market team.
A small market team has to be wise with their spending & also need the backing of ownership & upper management (Baseball Operations & the General Manager) to build a team that will work best in this setting. Oakland GM Billy Beane does a good job at this by optimizing statistical analysis known as Sabermetrics (see the definition of this term in my definitions page). To learn more about Sabermetrics, I recommend the book Moneyball, which was written in part by Bill Beane or better yet, it is a sort of biography of the operations of the Oakland organization during Beane’s tenure as GM (a position in which he still holds with the team). To sum it up, you need to get the most out of your players without spending a lot of money. To do this, you need to figure out your team’s philosophy to winning games. Once that’s done, you build your team around that premise, looking for bargains in the player pool & especially in the draft. There are not usually a lot of star players here; therefore, a manager is typically dealing with players without much of an ego (which seems to haunt star players like a plague sometimes). Some teams build around base running & speed, while others around on base percentage & even others rely upon the long ball (home runs), while still others rely upon good solid pitching & above average fielding. These just name a few.
A big market team usually has more star players who make considerably more money & with that usually comes bigger egos. What it also attracts are more intense media coverage & sometimes that can be the biggest intangible that a big league manager has to deal with. The dizzying egos & the often relentless baseball media can make even the toughest men want to find a rock to crawl under when things go bad. Likewise, if they are not good with handling people, they are probably not going to fare well with the egos some of these superior athletes have. Terry Francona & Joe Torre both do an excellent job with these elements!
But again I will stress, a “good” major league manager will do well no matter what situation they find themselves in while others are much better suited for just one or possibly two of these styles. You be the judge! If you want my take on a certain manager, post a comment & I’ll reply with a comment of my own!
Also, I find that former catchers usually make the best managers (see Torre, Scioscia, Girardi, etc.)! They are generally good strategists if they are good at handling a pitching staff!
Who were the 8 managers in the 2007 Playoffs?
- Bob Melvin –
- Terry Francona –
- Joe Torre –
- Eric Wedge –
- Charlie Manuel –
- Clint Hurdle –
- Mike Scioscia – Los Angelas Angels of
- Lou Piniella –
How do they compare with one another?
I honestly do not know much about Melvin, Hurdle & Manuel so I can’t really speak much about them. If anyone has an opinion of them they’d like to share, feel free to comment below.
Torre is great at managing the media & egos of a team and is not a bad strategist, but I don’t care for his handling of a pitching staff, especially his bullpens. I think he over uses them. I don’t care much for how bullpens are used these days in general with lefty specialist, et al. But that’s a post for another day!
Scioscia is also very good and would be even if he managed a NL team. The Angels have a good bullpen and he typically manages it well. He plays small ball very well (manufacturing runs).
Wedge is also very good but has a young team. I expect his skills to only get better along with his team.
Piniella: let’s just say that he is very experienced, but I don’t care for his temper & antics with players or umpires.
Francona seems to shine in the playoffs. Most of his moves work, but in the regular season he sometimes gives me fits. He can stay with a player too long (for example, Kevin Millar in 2005), but this year, sticking with the rookie Pedroia, Francona looked like a genius to stick with him after Pedroia gave such a poor showing in April. He also handles the players’ egos & the baseball media very well.
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Posted in Ask Pete, Managers | No Comments »
