This past week the owner of the Miami Marlins, Jeff Loria, shocked the baseball world by promoting his general manager to club manager.
Dan Jennings’ Inexperience Matters
Being that managers and general managers usually have parallel roles, this was straight out of left field. It’s not common for a team to move someone from the front office to the dugout. In addition to the unusual move, there are many qualified people the Marlins could have looked at. Wally Backmen, for example, has been quietly waiting for an opportunity as he successfully manages the Las Vegas 51’s in the New York Mets’ organization.
Experience was also another concern. The last managerial experience Dan Jennings had was when he managed a high school team in the late 1980’s. In his professional playing career he never even made it out of the minors.
Should any of those qualifications matter, though? After all, former owner Ted Turner stepped in and managed a game once for his Atlanta Braves. Turner was later told by MLB that owners can’t be in the dugout, and the planned 10 game stint ended after just one game.
“They must have put that rule in yesterday. If I’m smart enough to save $11 million to buy a team, I ought to be smart enough to manage it.”, said Turner to reporters the next day after losing the only game he managed.
In today’s sabermetrics world, you can argue that it may not be necessary to have a qualified manager, especially in a sport that seems to popularize a new stat every year to measure a player’s ability on the field.
Before the sabermetrics craze, some used to say that Joe Torre could have been easily replaced in the dynasty years of the New York Yankees. With a team that was 114-48 in 1998, how can you not put anyone into the manager’s uniform and expect the same results?
To put it simply, baseball is more than numbers, and the Yankees didn’t just win on the will of their players alone. Joe Torre was a fundamental piece in keeping that team on track to victory.
I only played Little League for two years growing up. While both of my coaches were complete polar opposites from each other, I respected them the same. No matter what position I was at, what the signs were at third base, I listened and trusted that they knew what they were doing more than anyone else. I played for my team, but I also played for the gratification of taking advice from my coaches and succeeding from it.
Higher levels of baseball are no different. A great player wants to succeed for his manager and earn that spot in the lineup. The only difference, is that professional players don’t respect just anybody. With the money they make, a player will only take orders from someone who’s been there.
Managing the ego is a task within its own. Just like my coaches had to listen to me whine about not getting to play first base (I was a short lefty and wasn’t a fan of playing outfield), a MLB manager like Don Mattingly has to figure out how to play five outfielders every day when there are only three spots.
If the manager is respected, the players will concede to the bench if it means the team has a better chance at winning. If the manager isn’t respected, the player is convinced his career is at jeopardy and bad morale in the dugout begins to spread like cancer. A good respected and experienced manager, who is autonomous to the front office, can control and mitigate that.
Let’s not forget the mediating between players and umpires. Imagine a Washington Nationals without Matt Williams to calm Bryce Harper when he is arguing with the umpire? How many times more would Harper be thrown out?
Bruce Bochy is a great example in how managers help their teams succeed. Many times in their three World Series championship runs, the San Francisco Giants were on the ropes. Yet somehow, Bruce Bochy was able to revive the club house and get them to take one game at a time. Bochy has proven himself again already this year. The Giants started off ugly, and are now giving a strong push for first place in the NL West.
Not only is it the job of the manger to keep the team focused and motivated, the manager also has to coach fundamentals. Yes, even big league ball players need a talking to on fundamentals. A guy who has played at the big league level, or has spent years coaching and managing in the minors, has eyes for things that can’t be seen on stat sheets.
As I submit this for review, Jennings is winless thus far since taking over the manager role for the Marlins. Every MLB manager who has come up the traditional way in baseball is rooting against this experiment, and the Marlins organization has a found another way to look like a circus act.
If the losing streak continues, it may be time for Loria to get a reality check and start looking at some real options. The Mets and Wally Backman are just a phone call away.
