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The hot seat cools off Managerial turnover will be at a minimum this offseasonPosted: Wednesday September 11, 2002 12:51 PM
Click here to send a question to Tom Verducci's Baseball Mailbag As we look at the 20 or so teams that have already shifted their gaze toward 2003, what kind of managerial turnover can we expect in the offseason? Are the Cubs going to hire someone like a Tom Kelly, who can nurture young talent while still having some cachet (unlike Don Baylor, who coddled the veterans, or Bruce Kimm, who seems to be the second coming of Jim Essian)? Does Bobby Valentine survive? What about Grady Little?
Wow, a Jim Essian reference. I'm impressed. Very esoteric. I had forgotten about his reign, as did most of the free world. Valentine, Little and Jerry Manuel seem to be coming back because they have contracts. Dusty Baker, who doesn't have one, may choose to leave for a sabbatical or another job. Luis Pujols hasn't wowed anybody in Detroit, and the same can be said of Jerry Royster in Milwaukee and Kimm in Chicago. There are always rumors that Lou Piniella, who is frustrated with the Mariners' lukewarm commitment to winning (i.e., spending money to win a pennant), may want out, though he's likely to fulfill his contract which runs through 2003. I can't imagine Frank Robinson will be back to babysit the Expos for another year. That's about it -- maybe three teams wind up with openings for a manager. Let's remember we've had a dozen jobs turn over in less than a year, so we're due for a lull. I keep hearing that this could be the last year for both Dusty Baker and Jeff Kent in San Francisco. Why is that? I know Kent and Barry Bonds don't get along, but both are vital to the Giants' winning. How is this going to play out?
Yes, Baker and Kent could both be gone. Maybe Baker has a change of mind, but he has had a long run in San Francisco as well as a health scare last year, and the talk before the season was that he might re-assess things there. Kent's future depends on what kind of market he finds. The Giants won't pay Kent huge money, especially after he used up whatever good graces he had with owner Peter Magowan with his ridiculous "washing my truck" fib in spring training. Paying Bonds and Kent, a couple of players in their late 30s, $35 million a year might be too much for San Francisco to stomach. The Angels look the best they have in years, yet there is not much talk about their chances for the postseason. Anaheim has opened a gap in the wild-card race and stayed in close range of the A's, despite Oakland's winning streak. How do you view the Angels' playoff chances, given that they have home and away series with both the Mariners and the A's down the stretch?
I'll take the team with the lead any day, so I like Anaheim's chances to outlast Seattle. The general rule of thumb is for clubs to stay within as many games of the team they're chasing as weeks left in the season. So the Mariners, even with the head-to-head games against the Angels, can't afford to slip up much at all. Anaheim has a better offense and has been more successful in one-run games this year than Seattle. Why is everyone jumping on the A-Rod-for-MVP bandwagon? Don't you think his numbers are inflated by playing in Texas? (Home/Away thru Tuesday: Avg: .342/.285, HR: 32/21, RBIs: 78/53). Shouldn't an MVP play well in all ballparks?
Those splits don't bother me nearly as much as the fact that A-Rod hasn't played a meaningful game since April, while Torii Hunter, Miguel Tejada, Jason Giambi and Alfonso Soriano have played on contenders. That should rate as an edge. Giambi, by the way, has been a much better hitter in his home park, too. Home/Road splits are important, but be careful not to place too great an emphasis on them. In your recent article on how to save baseball, you said that the mound should be rasied to "give the pitchers a chance." I think this is the only really bad idea in that article. Raising the mound would mean faster pitches, higher strikeout rates (which are already at record levels), more rockets off bats and plunging batting averages. The recent Kazuhisa Ishii incident should also serve as a warning. If you speed up pitches by raising the mound, some pitcher is going to get killed. Better ideas would be requiring a minimum bat thickness, moving the batter's box back an inch or two (and enforcing it), wrapping the ball a little less tightly, raising the seams on the ball slightly -- all subtle changes that would mean less power and fewer strikeouts and more emphasis on putting the ball in play as well as more contests between runners and fielders. What do you think?
I think each of your ideas has merit, but taken together they may be too much. One reason I like the higher mound is I believe it could keep pitchers healthier by having them throw on a greater downward plane -- at least this is what some baseball executives think. A raised mound would help curveball pitchers, too. I wouldn't expect that all of a sudden pitchers would be throwing so much harder that they'd be putting themselves at great risk of getting hit by line drives. Tom, what would you do with the Yankees' starting rotation in the playoffs if you were Joe Torre? None of the five starters are having dominant seasons, yet only Mike Mussina has pitched poorly enough to not get a postseason start. How would you set up the playoff rotation?
I can't believe I'm even suggesting this, because I'd love to give this guy the ball any time in a big game, but I'd put Orlando Hernandez in the bullpen. Why? He seems to be best equipped to pitch there. (See: Division Series, 2000.) Yes, he's been sharper than Mussina, but Mussina is the kind of guy who needs everything to be just right to pitch effectively. (Remember how the extra rest ruined him for Game 1 of the World Series last year?) I don't believe Mussina, Roger Clemens, David Wells or Andy Pettitte would be worth much out of the pen. I'd probably use a quicker hook with them, knowing I have Hernandez waiting. Do the Yankees have any chance of winning the World Series if Mariano Rivera isn't 100 percent? Is there any way a combination of Steve Karsay and Mike Stanton could get the job done when the money is on the line?
Karsay has done an excellent job filling in for Rivera. I still don't trust him there in October, though. Karsay's track record as a closer isn't good and he doesn't know what it's like to nail down a game in October for the Yankees. So, yes, I believe New York is very vulnerable if Rivera isn't his usual self. And even if Rivera is on the roster, Torre probably won't be able to use him for five-out saves as he typically has in the past. What do you see the Mariners doing in the offseason if they don't make the playoffs? Will they spend money on a big bat and a No. 1 pitcher? It seems that they have more to improve than most people think.
They should see if they can pry Bartolo Colon from Montreal, depending on what the ownership situation there is. And even then, the Mariners will need another bat. Which would be a more entertaining World Series: A's-Diamondbacks or Yankees-Diamondbacks? I think the pitching in an Oakland-Arizona series would be more exciting to watch. Would you also say that the D-Backs are the favorites to get to the World Series?
Yes, I think Arizona probably has the best chance of getting to the World Series because of Johnson and Schilling, and because the A's and Yankees are likely to face a more difficult path to get there. A's-D-Backs would be awesome, but you still can't beat the wow factor of having the World Series in Yankee Stadium. Love 'em or hate 'em, the Yanks create more of a national buzz, especially among casual fans, than Oakland. Sports Illustrated senior writer Tom Verducci covers the baseball beat for the magazine and is a regular contributor to CNNSI.com. Click here to send a question to his Mailbag. |
