The Marlins, Managers, and the Changing Game
On Sunday, the Marlins fired manager Mike Redmond. It’s what teams do when they find themselves performing worse than expected, even if expectations of contention were probably less realistic than the hype would have suggested. The manager is the fall guy when things go badly, though, and things are going badly in Miami, so Redmond was shown the door. It’s how baseball works, especially baseball in Miami, and Redmond certainly knew what he was signing up for when he took the job.
On Monday, though, things took a turn away from the norm. Instead of promoting a minor league manager, or one of the team’s remaining coaches, or even turning to a former player who was being groomed as a manager-of-the-future, the Marlins just put their General Manager in charge of the clubhouse. Dan Jennings, the guy who built this roster, is now tasked with trying to turn it into a winner on the field. After years of ranting that analytical GMs were undermining the value of the manager’s role, it turns out to be an old-school scout who is going to try to run everything all at once. The irony is delicious.
But while I’m no big fan of the Marlins organization, I’m also hesitant to cast too many aspersions against this decision. The narrative is really quite easy and lends itself to scorn and ridicule, but I remain convinced that we, as outsiders, have very little to evaluate the quality of a manager even after we’ve seen them perform at the job, so when it comes to evaluating managerial prospects, I just don’t know that we can say anything with any kind of credibility.
Does experience managing in the minors help? You would think so, but then again, you would also think that pitchers vary dramatically in their rates of hits on balls in play, or any other number of logical-sounding things that have been exposed as untrue through the lens of data. Will players respect and play hard for a guy who has spent his career on the road and in the office instead of on the field? I would think not, but then again, I don’t know Dan Jennings or his relationship with any of the Marlins players; maybe the fact that he has the power to trade or cut them at any moment will engender enough respect on its own? I feel like the only thing I can say about this is maybe it will, maybe it won’t, and I don’t have enough information to hold a strong opinion either way.
The reality is that the background of today’s manager is dramatically different than the previous generation, and almost every recent hire has skewed away from experience in favor of perceived intelligence or outside-the-box thinking. The Marlins might be going down a new path, but that path is traveling in the same general direction as everyone else, as they are the latest to acknowledge that perhaps the way baseball managers have been selected previously was not ideal. This shift in managerial candidates is among the most prominent changes in the game, and the Marlins aren’t alone in betting on a guy who wouldn’t have been considered a candidate even a couple of years ago. This is MLB now, and it doesn’t look like MLB used to.
All around the game, things are being done differently. A half dozen teams are running bullpen-by-committee right now, and it’s probably not a coincidence that the closer role is losing its hold as new types of managers are being hired. Teams are positioning their infielders in non-traditional locations, even against hitters who never used to get shifted against. The Rays and Astros took a lot of heat for starting and expanding aggressive defensive alignments, but now, it’s weird if a team isn’t shifting aggressively. Maybe Jennings will turn out to be a pretty decent manager — as best as we can tell, anyway — and having a front office guy in the dugout will turn out to be a net positive when it comes to organization cohesion. I don’t think I’d bet on that being the most likely outcome, but are we really going to say it’s not possible?
The Marlins have done a lot of silly things over the years, and Jeffrey Loria is far and away the least likable owner of any Major League team, so it’s easy to criticize any unusual thing the Marlins do. Giving Loria and this particular organization the benefit of the doubt has turned out poorly in the past, and Occam’s Razor with this franchise is generally just that they’re being intentionally cheap in order to maximize profits; that may even be true here, as expanding Jennings role might be cheaper than promoting someone from the minor leagues.
But if the move was primarily driven by cost-reductions, then the team wouldn’t have fired Redmond in the first place, since keeping him is cheaper than replacing him. And while I don’t trust Jeffrey Loria to do the smart and/or ethical thing in almost case, I also don’t think it’s particularly fair to assume every move he makes is dumb and/or shady simply because he makes it. So while I retain a healthy skepticism for Loria’s ability to run a quality baseball franchise, I just find that I don’t have enough information to really come down on the Marlins for this move.
Baseball teams are doing new things when it comes to selecting managers, and this isn’t a Marlins-specific revolt against the traditional candidate. Jennings may not be qualified, but I don’t think we’re really in a position to judge who is or isn’t capable of running a clubhouse from an outsider’s perspective. Baseball has been doing things the same way for a very long time, so I think it’s actually a sign of progress that teams aren’t just sticking to the same old formulas they had used for a very long time.
Is this a weird hire? Sure, but baseball is doing some weird things now that the adherence to traditional decision making is losing its influence. And so I’m not really up for crucifying the Marlins for blazing their own path; the old path wasn’t working, and it’s not clear anyone has really figured out the right way to find consistently great managers, so trying something new isn’t so crazy. Jeffrey Loria has done plenty of things that deserve criticism; I’m just not sure we know enough to say this is one too.
Dave is the Managing Editor of FanGraphs.
Dave, can you reconcile this article with this tweet from yesterday:
David Cameron @DCameronFG · May 17
Congratulations to Mike Redmond, who no longer works for a clown shoes organization.
Give the article a quick read.
Why would he need to when the article pretty much matches up with his tweet? Also, your tweet in response pretty much makes it clear that you don’t understand the level of shenanigans the Marlins have pulled the past few years:
Kevin W ?@K_Town19 May 17
.@DCameronFG hating on the Marlins, I see. I didn’t see this coming but calling them a “clown organization” is dumb.
That’s a clown tweet, bro.
That wasn’t my tweet. There is more than 1 Kevin on Twitter, I’m sure. But nice effort, Sherlock.
On the other hand this article preaches a reluctance to judge the Marlins too harshly, while his tweet reflects that same rushed judgment, calling the Marlins a clown shoe organization.
The two positions are diametrically opposed.
Not really Kevin.
And I thought Dave made it clear in his article. He does view the Marlins as a clown shoe organization. But as he says clearly in his article, that does not mean everything they do is stupid and silly.
Basically, he is saying, for this particular decision, our knowledge of managerial moves is still very nascent, if not still in the process of birth, and thus we can’t just call it a dumb move just because a clown shoe organization made the move. But he’s not calling it a good move either, he’s just being open minded that this could go either way.
He literally linked to the tweet you’re talking about, then explained his thought process.
It’s not a “rushed judgment” to say the Marlins are run by skeevy people with a history of being cheap and short-sighted and embarrassing themselves and the organization. That shouldn’t be news to anyone. Dave’s just saying he’s reserving judgment on the decision to move the GM to manager. Showing some restraint there doesn’t invalidate previous criticisms of the organization.
Truly bizarre.
My criticism wouldn’t be that he doesn’t know what he’s doing or that he’d make a bad manager. My concern would be how the players will view him. As a guy who doesn’t have a background in playing/coaching, will the players listen to him at all? Did the Marlins consult the players on this hiring decision?
I also think this is a sign that maybe the Marlins don’t put much importance in the GM role. They’re now on their 3rd GM in a year and a half. Obviously, who you sign/trade/release/draft/etc has way more importance than pitching changes and hit-and-runs. Who is really making player personnel decisions in Miami?
I still don’t understand this very well. These men are professional players. They are playing for millions of personal dollars if simply trying to win or their own ego isn’t enough to drive them (even though all this drove them to get to MLB in the first place).
How much worse would not liking or respecting a manager cause them to play?
As I said above, I’m not suggesting that he’d be a bad manager. I’m not suggesting that he’d make bad decisions or that the players would play worse.
I’m suggesting that it’s bad management and bad PR to install a supervisor who your employees don’t respect or don’t want to listen to. I don’t know if that’s the case here, but I wouldn’t be surprised if this were to result in some bad clubhouse mojo.
Can you really say that having a boss who you despise won’t affect your performance at work, no matter how professional you are about it?
They don’t have a choice to listen to him or not. He’s the mngr he calls the shots. How hard is it to fill out a lineup, replace a pitcher, double switch, challenge a call, or place a player on the DL. These are things most diehard baseball fans could do well. My question to Dave is when do we get to see mngr WAR? Sure we can watch a full season and everybody has their own opinion on whether or not a mngr is “good” or not but isn’t there someway to rate every one of them?? If so when is that coming because Vegas had the Astros at a 50:1 longshot to make the playoffs Hinch must be doing something right. There are others too. The twins, Mets, and even the royals were not expected to be this good. Then there’s the other side the Indians, Brewers, Marlins, Nationals, and Pirates were supposed to be better. Sure you can point to some injuries on some of these teams but the Mets have had their share too and are still winning. I would love to see some kind of rating system for mngrs. The other day Mike Scocia took out Garret Richards in the 7th with 2 outs at 104 pitches in a 1 run game his replacement came in and before he got out of the inning he gave up 2 runs. This to me was a bone head move. Richards didn’t look tired and was upset he was being pulled. If I had been mngr I would have let him get the last out he is by far the angels best pitcher. I realize little scenarios like this are very difficult to rate , but I hope in the future we have some sort of tool to see how every mngr in the league stacks up…
Gotta be careful about judging single-event situations like that based on results. A fresh reliever is very likely your better choice over a 100+ pitch starter heading through the lineup for a 3rd or 4th time. Will it work every time? Of course not. Is it the better bet in the long run? Very likely.
Also try not to read too much into the starter being upset that he was pulled; most starters don’t want to be pulled and would pitch until their arm fell off if they could. That’s what you have a manager for, to objectively evaluate who his best option is rather than relying on the starter to “ask out” (which will rarely happen).
Sure the cheapest route for the Marlins was to simply let Redmond finish out the year but this still smells like a decision that’s at least partially driven by money. They are still paying Guillen and now Redmond to not manage the team. Hiring another guy or promoting from within would have meant paying three managers. I don’t know what kind of pay bump Jennings got, if any. My guess is that Loria is trying to have his cake while eating too. He wants the performance spike that’s often associated with changing managers without having to actually pay (much) for the change.
i thought the marlins would go no manager, forging the money needed to pay one, and just decentralize the position to several coaches. the end result is somewhat similar and makes me think of other quirky in-between roles a team could have.
how about a 25th man on the roster that’s the last bench/bullpen piece who’s also a data wiz in the front office?
Could we attempt to at least build some rough metrics to evaluate a manager? What about comparing projected WAR of a team with actual WAR? The managers job is to get the best out of the team he is given, so if a team over or under performs their projected WAR, then could we assign at least some of that discrepancy to the acumen of the manager?
I realize that many many other factors contribute to differences between projections and actuality, but noisy data is better than no data?
I’ve been thinking about this. It’s a tough one. There are some managerial decisions we can quantify. Intentional walk %, bullpen usage stats, maybe if certain players steal more or less under different managers. I wonder if there is a way to translate manager decisions into WPA.
Great ideas! Also: optimal defensive shift % (there’s got to be a way to quantify this); optimal batting line-up usage; sac bunt usage.
This of course wouldn’t cover everything, but a list of these comprised into a managerial WAR could be at least somewhat useful and a conversation starter. I’m in!
Is anyone concerned about the racial issue here? Apparently Loria notified MLB that there was “no time” to interview a minority candidate, because they needed a manager too urgently. But Dan Jennings was not given an “interim” tag – he’s the full-blown manager, handed the job without competition, at least until winter.
To quote Jon Morosi’s tweets at length: “Loria said he called Rob Manfred yesterday to explain change had to occur immediately and there was not time for interviews/full search. Loria said, if managerial job is open after the season, search will be thorough and include minority candidates. Loria referenced having three Latino managers in last decade (Guillen, Rodriguez, Gonzalez) and African-American president of baseball ops.”
Since you asked: I’m a rather progressive person on these matters, and no I’m not concerned about the racial issue here.
Whew. Glad we don’t have to be concerned about this anymore.
I bet I’m more progressive than you! neiner neiner neiner
Since you asked: I don’t much care about these issues, and I find it rather troubling.
Ugh. Not glad that we do have to be concerned about this more.
I’m a rather ambivalent person about these things, and I don’t particularly care.
Phillies did this twice with Paul Owens. Quite successfully.
Everyone knows that Jennings is Loria’s guy, and it seems that the thought process from the Marlins’ front office seems to be that having Loria’s guy closer to the players will keep them on their toes. This move seems to be based on the idea that Redmond wasn’t getting the best out of his players, and that having them come into contact with the front office every single day will motivate them to do their best. In other words, Loria seems to believe that his players are lazy and need to be constantly in fear of losing their jobs in order to perform at their best. [His tendency to keep managers on a very short leash seems to also reflect this idea.]
I don’t know whether there’s any basis in fact to your theory. But I’ll buy it simply because that’s the kind of idiocy that Loria would subscribe to.
It does jive with the low opinion we all have of Loria, and if so I feel even worse for the players than I would have before. What a terrible situation to work in.
Nice article, enjoyed reading it.
I would note that Bobby Cox was Braves GM before being installed as manager for his long run. Big difference was that he was MLB manager before. Jennings really has no experience at all to speak of that would relate, other than any particular relationships he may already have with players (like Stanton).
Also, it was my understanding that Jennings is leaving the GM office and that they already have someone running as interim GM in his place. But perhaps Dave is referring to the high probability that anything Jennings suggests would probably be implemented by the new GM.
Run-of-the-mill managerial decisions and basic people skills don’t belong inherently to baseball coaches or baseball players, so Jennings’ lack of experience won’t matter there.
But for the coaching…I mean…is Jennings not expected to do any coaching at all? Will he recognize when a pitcher’s mechanics are out of whack? Will he see problems with batter mechanics? Will he have any suggestions on how to correct them? Does he understand positioning fielders? That stuff you don’t just pick up on the way. He probably has seen more baseball than your average joe, but compared to a manager? I guess he could rely on the…ahem…real coaches for, er, coaching. Or maybe MLBers don’t need instruction. But that’s a pretty big gap in the job qualifications.
Do most managers do a lot of that themselves though? I would think that the hitting coach focuses more on batter mechanics and the pitching coach focuses more on pitcher’s mechanics. Although as a former scout, I’d imagine Jennings can identify good/bad mechanics just fine.
As for positioning fielders, is that handled by managers? I thought coaches were more involved in positioning players, rather than managers. There are exceptions, but in most organizations it’s not the manager who handles it. And considering widespread defensive shifts are very new, would having a few decades of managerial experience really help with that? For the most part, the typical manager didn’t deal with shifts for the majority of their career.
Let’s talk about the important stuff here:
Now that we’re putting a business/front office guy down on the field, can we go back to field managers wearing a suit and tie a la Connie Mack?
Even a blind dog finds a bone once in a while.
How well someone can do with no managerial experience won’t be explained by whether Jennings succeeds or fails. Way too small a sample size with way too many variables, a problem with statistically rating any manager.
I would guess that Mr. Jennings will have to rely heavily on his coaches, at least initially, to know what is entailed in the day to day mundane requirements of managing a team. All we ever see is the end product.
This kind of reminds me of when Dick Cheney was put in charge of finding a Veep for GWB. After an exhausting search, he named himself. That worked out pretty well, so maybe this will too.
To understand how off the seat of the pants this decision was. Redmond was fired with no succession plan in place. Marlins call a press conference for 11am the next day. In the interim, they offer the job to 3 legit baseball lifers, get turned down by all three and brainstorm to install the GM while feeding the public a story that it was all part of the plan.
He might get fired without winning a single game.
Jennings is getting the respect he is due from his players, if not also his coaches. However, more than a week later, he is not proving to be making the incredibly smart decisions Loria expects from his managers. Will he be allowed to learn, or be fired like Gonzalez and Redmond before him?
I suppose the likely problem right now is that there may be no plausible candidates willing to face the stigma of Loria’s displeasure with managers.