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Manager changes hardly pay off
Four teams -- the Expos, Rangers, Marlins and Devil Rays -- have already fired their managers. The rumor hounds are now hot after Houston's Larry Dierker, Oakland's Art Howe, Kansas City's Tony Muser and even the Mets' Bobby Valentine. Everyone knows managers are hired to be fired, but how often does a managerial change lead to a playoff appearance? According to the Society for American Baseball Research, just nine teams have reached the postseason after changing managers in midstream since divisional play was instituted in 1969. Just four times in that span has a World Series participant changed managers during the same season. Just one team, the 1978 Yankees, has won it all under those circumstances.
The last team to win the pennant after making a change was the 1983 Phillies, the "Wheeze Kids" of Tony Perez, Pete Rose, Joe Morgan, Garry Maddox, Steve Carlton and Tug McGraw. Over the last 11 seasons, only the '96 Dodgers have made the playoffs after a managerial change. Bill Russell replaced Tom Lasorda after the latter had health troubles. The last firing that led to postseason play came with the 1989 Blue Jays, who replaced Jimy Williams with Cito Gaston.
Jimy-dandy jobThe quote of the year? It just might have come from Boston general manager Dan Duquette when he said, "By and large, Jimy Williams has done a good job for the Red Sox."Duquette, of course, was fresh off signing a two-year, $3 million contract extension that made him the game's highest-paid GM. Williams, in the final year of his contract, appears to be a lame-duck manager. He deserves much better. This year alone, Williams has overcome the loss of his best everyday player, shortstop Nomar Garciaparra, the two-time defending AL batting champion; another mid-season breakdown by the game's best pitcher, Pedro Martinez; a potential season-ending injury to starting catcher Jason Varitek; near-daily grousing about playing time from fading veterans; a handful of spring-training showdowns with Carl Everett; and repeated sniping from Duquette on the GM's Boston-area radio show. Oh, yeah, did we mention the Felipe Alou -to-Fenway rumors? Lesser hurdles have caused better teams to implode. Not Williams' Red Sox. They entered the weekend leading the AL East by a game and a half. "From a players' perspective, Jimy and Dan are two of the furthest things from our mind," Red Sox catcher Scott Hatteberg told me. "As far as their little whatever going on, it has no bearing on us." Williams, 57, is a master at minimizing distractions. He does not complain, for instance, that Duquette has basically handed him another team filled with designated hitters. He does not remind you he has already run through 34 players this year after using 52 last season and 49 the season before. He just ... manages. In every sense of the word. The Red Sox have finished second in the East three years' running. They missed the playoffs last year, but in 1998-99 made back-to-back post-season appearances, something the Red Sox hadn't done since 1915-16. Williams was voted AL manager of the year in '99 and was runner-up in '98. "You've got to give Jimy a lot of credit," Hatteberg said. "We were picked fourth or fifth and went to the playoffs both years. They said we had the worst outfield ever a couple years ago, but we would win. We just kept winning." Now, inexplicably, they're doing it again. If Williams indeed hits the free agent market this winter, it will take him all of 10 minutes to get a new job.
Yankees miss Nelson in penThe Yankees have been rearranging the deck chairs all season long, trying to find the right combination to ignite a fifth championship run in the last six years. This week they brought in Gerald Williams, he of the .306 career on-base percentage, an extra outfielder who wasn't good enough to stick with the abysmal Devil Rays. Before that, the touted acquisition was reliever Jay Witasick, a failed starter who entered this season with a career ERA of 5.76.Obviously, injuries to David Justice and Orlando Hernandez haven't helped. And it's never easy for a contending team to break in a rookie on the infield, even if he's as talented as Alfonso Soriano. But the biggest difference between the championship Yankees and these Yankees is Jeff Nelson. Nelson, the towering right-handed setup man, left New York after five seasons to sign a three-year, $10.65 million deal with his hometown Mariners. The Yankees refused to take their offer north of $9 million, only to toss away a combined $2.7 million in recent weeks when they had to eat the contracts of Henry Rodriguez and Joe Oliver. With Nelson, Seattle has baseball's best bullpen. He had already appeared in 35 games and was allowing a .130 batting average. Without Nelson, the Yankees' pen has blown seven of 34 save chances, even though its 3.03 ERA is more than a run lower than the starters' 4.22. Asked if he could have imagined the Yankees would miss Nelson this much, first baseman Tino Martinez shook his head. "I wouldn't have envisioned it, no," Martinez said. "At the point we're at now, we miss him a lot. He's a guy who's always been very tough on right-handed hitters. He'd get that strikeout when you need it. He's a workhorse. He can go out there and throw every night. He's not afraid to get the ball. He's never tired, never says his arm hurts. "We miss him, but we have guys that need to step up and do the job. We have guys that are capable of doing it. Yankees management believes in them, and now they have to go out and work for it." Ramiro Mendoza could be that guy, but his historically balky throwing shoulder would have to hold up. Lefty Mike Stanton has done a nice job taking up Nelson's slack, but he needs help against certain right-handers. Who knows, maybe Witasick is the new Nellie, but that's hard to believe. One thing's for sure: The Yankees would be far better off had they spent a little extra and retained Nelson. Mike Berardino covers baseball for the South Florida Sun-Sentinel and is a regular contributor to CNNSI.com.
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