Managerial speculation (but not from me)
Ken Rosenthal, in a piece at Foxsports (which, like ESPN, is apptly MSN-associated… why?):
Bob Melvin, Mariners. First-year general manager Bill Bavasi exercised Melvin’s option for 2005 on May 4, temporarily quelling speculation about the manager’s future. Melvin, however, continues to draws criticism within the industry for his bland persona.
Again with the personality thing. Anyway… Steve Kelley, possibly the worst in the Seattle Times’ cavalcade of awful writers, offers “Uninspiring Melvin must pay price for lifeless M’s“. You know it’s obvious when Steve Kelley’s writing about it. He offers some suggestions for replacements that are — I’m not actually sure if he’s serious or not, to be honest. Maybe his whole column’s a sarcastic send-up of the kind of attack on Melvin we’ve been reading elsewhere (like Rosenthal) and his suggestions are supposed to give away the joke.
I would bet not.
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16 Responses to “Managerial speculation (but not from me)”
FYI FoxSports replaced ESPN as the supplier of sports feeds and stories and what not to MSN. Thus the co-branding (and http://msn.espn.com/ doesn’t exist anymore)
I figured it was obvious when Prav-er, KOMO Mariner post-game show hosts were saying Melvin’s gone.
Sheesh. I guess it would be too hard for a Seattle sports columnist to, say, watch games and take notes on the numerous occasions when a) when Melvin uses up outs through sacrifices to put a runner in scoring position, only to see Raul Ibanez or Dan Wilson pop out or ground into a double play to kill the rally; b) Melvin puts in a second-rate reliever into the eighth inning of a tie game because he believes his best reliever should only be used in the ninth inning to protect a lead; and c) Melvin forces left-right batting-pitching matchups by a strict platooning book when objective analysis shows that a particular batter or pitcher performs from one side better than the conventional platoon side.
Nah, that’s too much like actually working for a living. God forbid a columnist be any other than a personality … and therefore judge others strictly on the basis of personalities.
Well, Gammons also threw out Joe Maddon’s name on Baseball Tonight last night. He thought, though, the M’s would want a “name” and go with Jimy Williams.
Of course, we know how often Gammons is actually right about anything.
Without getting into speculation of who I think should be hired (because, honestly, I’m not sure), I’ll say that Dave Brundage is probably the most likely candidate if the M’s go in-house. The organization has a man crush on the Missions manager, and he’s joining the team for September. I’d be hard pressed to see anyone without major league managerial experience getting the nod over Brundage. If the M’s decide to go with another rookie manager, he’s the best bet to be the guy.
More awfulness from Kelley: “the unexplained collapse of Shigetoshi Hasegawa…” How about, the completely predictable, analyzed-to-frickin’ death collapse of SH? Ever heard of BABIP? Pick any random reader of USSM, and you would get better analysis than Kelley.
Brundage i take it youve never seen him manage?Alls this guy does is steal bases against young catching…I know he won 2 titles with layup teams.Rohn is the only canidate in the system and they wont take him anyway.
Mike: it’s true, “Jimy Williams” is a name. Like “chair” is a noun. Other than that, what in the world recommends Williams as a manager for the team the Mariners will field in the next couple of years?
JC: Dave said only that the M’s organization liked Brundage, and he speculated that if they went for a rookie manager, they’d go for him. Dave made no statement about the merits or qualities of Brundage at all, so I guess I don’t understand what Brundage stealing or having lay-up teams has to do with that.
If you’re arguing that Rohn *should* be the leading candidate, that’s different than what Dave’s saying, which is that he thinks Brundage is the leading candidate if they go with a rookie manager.
Steve! Whitey Herzog! Steve! Whitey Herzog!
Problem solver & ass kicker extraordinare!
Kowtows to nobody!
Lincoln & Bavasi would love, um , no, wait
Steve! Rene Lachemann! Steve! Rene Lachemann!
On a more ominous note, when, unaccountably, I couldn’t think of Mr. Lachemann’s name, I went to the M’s Official Site and did two searches: the first, “Mariner coaching staff” found no Mariner coaching staff and the second, “Mariner coaches” found no Mariner coaches. Undismayed, I used Google and came up with the elusive name. However, after thinking over the results, I’m half-convinced the M’s site has it right and Google has it wrong.
“Pocket Lint” Finnigan isn’t the SeaTime’s worst baseball writer? Kelley has to be better, if for no other reason than he only torments our sport in a fraction of his output.
How about Davey Johnson?
“How about Davey Johnson?”
Read the recent book on the ’86 Mets and wince. Lost control of that team, which was very very fortunate to beat both Houston and Boston despite having vastly more talent. Should have won in ’85 but beaten out by a weaker Whitey Herzog team and of course the ’88 fiasco losing to an inferior Dodgers team. In ’86, he basically turned his back on obvious signs of drug use by Gooden and Strawberry and other players.
With Balt. there’s Davey fining Robbie Alomar and sending the fine to his wife’s charity.
The main reason it won’t be him is that he is costly and won’t be patient enough to want to start on a rebuilding job.
tede — totally agree on Johnson. He’s got such a history of burning organizations out on him it’s not worth it. Johnson was great at finding the thousand tiny advantages he could use during the course of a season, but not being hated’s a pretty important job skill for a manager and that makes Johnson more of a candidate for bench coach than manager.
Also, last time his name came up for a job he didn’t jump at it, said he’d rather fish. That may have been the job, but it’s not like he’s trying to actively get back in the game.
The sad thing about how pathetic Steve Kelly is as a writer/columnist is that the Times will never, ever, ever fire him or let him go. Why?
Because he was a scumbag scab who crossed the picket lines during the relatively brief newspaper strike a few years back.
From his point of view, it was probably the smartest career protection move he could have made. The guy is so far out of the class of… well, nearly anyone, that it’s almost a joke.
When he tries to be provocative, he’s just annoying. When he tries to be insightful, he’s vapid. When he tries to scoop or hint at new stuff, it’s old news.
In short, he’s horrible, and other than the strikebreaking thing I have no clue why the Times keeps him on. Of course, I don’t know why they hired him in the first place; he’s always sucked.
Enumclaw,
Right on about Steve Kelley. The guy constantly calls out people for having the “wrong politics” yet crosses the picket line. Has job with Blethen for life after scabbing since Blethen doesn’t forget.
Another phenomena in the media (and other businesses) is the issue of the “boomer hack”. That is due to demographics, baby boomers landing into plush jobs and/or good situations in the 1970s (newspaper columns, university professorships, business heirarchies etc), doing a little bit of good work early on and then coasting for the second half of their careers.
I feel sorry for the Gen Y’ers who will be have to be slaving away paying off these hacks pensions.
I’m not sure how Kelley can be referenced as *possibly* the worst among the *Times*’ baseball writers, when imho it’s blindingly clear that he’s the worst writer for either of the Seattle papers’ sports sections–a dishonor which he wins clearly against extremely strong competition. IMHO, the TNT ought to expand north; on the sports side, at least, if you took both the Seattle papers and combined them, you still wouldn’t have enough decent writers to fill out a section.
I like Dan Rohn, btw; but I’m deathly afraid the M’s will wind up having to promote Bryan Price or else he’ll walk, and either way, if that happens, we’re in trouble.