The Cubs, Cardinals, and Red Sox still have managerial vacancies to fill, and each club seems to have narrowed its search to a few finalists. Here are the latest links:
- SI.com's Jon Heyman reports (on Twitter) that the Cardinals are very high on Matheny, and the race appears to be down to him and Terry Francona.
- The Red Sox could conduct follow-up interviews with their managerial candidates at the GM meetings in Milwaukee next week, tweets Scott Lauber of the Boston Herald.
- The Sox met with Gene Lamont today, concluding their first round of interviews, as Lauber writes. GM Ben Cherington said of his interviewees: "All five of those guys, I can envision hiring to manage the Red Sox. We’ve got to pick one."
- Tim Britton of the Providence Journal explains how Lamont's past experience is unique among the five Red Sox candidates.
- Peter Abraham of the Boston Globe examines the finalists for the Red Sox and Cubs managerial openings, and predicts the jobs will go to Dale Sveum and Mike Maddux, respectively. Abraham also writes that Cherington has started to compile a list of pitching coach candidates, but will work with the new manager when deciding who to hire.
- Bernie Miklasz of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch breaks down the pros and cons of the Cardinals' candidates, concluding that Mike Matheny looks like the favorite.
Maddux backed out of the Sox interview, citing family reasons in Texas. Now he wants Chicago? What?
chicago is much closer
Chicago is closer to Texas, but it’s still ~ 1,200 miles. If he really backed out of the Boston interviews because he wanted to stay with his family in Texas, going to Chicago isn’t effectively going to be any better.
Maybe it’s simply the fact that he has family ties in Chicago?
Does he? I don’t know anything about that. But the reasons he gave had to do with his kids in school and not wanting to leave until they were done; which, if true, should exclude Chicago as well as Boston.
His kids are in college. Maybe he just didn’t want the Red Sox job.
Yeah, that’s kinda my point, if he ends up going to the Cubs it’s fairly obvious that what he said about staying in Texas because of his children isn’t true and he just didn’t want the Boston job.
Yeah, that’s kinda my point, if he ends up going to the Cubs it’s fairly obvious that what he said about staying in Texas because of his children isn’t true and he just didn’t want the Boston job.
His kids are in college. Maybe he just didn’t want the Red Sox job.
Greg Maddux probably got him to reconsider and at least interview, doesn’t mean he’ll take it though.
Yes Greg Maddux is in the Cubs organization I think.
Regardless I think he probably just doesn’t want the Sox job. Chicago would make no difference given the reasons he cited for no wanting to move to Boston.
ugh we’re all dumb. his family is in WISCONSIN, not texas. he was a coach for the brewers for a long time, only been with the rangers for 3 years
flights are much shorter from CHI to DAL
I dont know, But for certain i know every man on the face of this earth would kill to have this moustache
YA, because Chicago is soooo much better than Boston on so many levels. I dont blame the guy… Sears tower, hot chicks, Wrigley Field, more WS rings, we WILL have Pujols next year and possibly Fielder too. LOL Why do you think Theo came to Chi Town? The best baby the best!
It’d be great to see Mike bring Greg back to be pitching coach, so we can see Greg Maddux in a Cubs uniform again…
That would be great to see Greg as the pitching coach. the Pitchers would thrive with his guidance!! (ie randy wells)
As for seeing him in a cubs uniform, Rodrigo Lopez was playing tricks on me this year. The way he wears that hat when he was Pitching this year. Me and my dad thought for a minute that the game was in a rain delay and they where showing something about Greg Maddux!
greg maddux is probably worth at least 4 wins by calling games from the dugout alone.
Hopefully they envision Lamont a bit more than any of those other candidates. Get him out of Detroit!
Why do you not want Lamont in Detroit again?
You mean the human stop sign? Or in other very dumb instances the human windmill?
I don’t mind the guy… just wish he was a bench coach and not our 3rd base coach.
Don’t pay attention really to 3b coaches on a bunch of teams, but was totally shocked he was still even active in the game. Bad when can remember him as a C and not a very good one at that, then coach for decades, manager, coach again..
The guy must really have a bunch of knowledge from his 40+ years in the game, though I question how sensible it would be to put him in charge of Boston, with almost all of his time spent as just a coach and him at this age.. Might as well hire back Walpo Joe, or grab ex Orioles manager Earl Weaver if going to get someone collecting Social Security.
He seems to lead the league in runners that are thrown out at home by a country mile. And other times he’ll throw a stop sign up, the runner will ignore it, and there won’t even be a play at the plate.
I know most fans don’t like their 3rd base coach, but without a doubt Lamont makes more errors at 3rd base than our opponents do, year in and year out.
I’m really starting to like the idea of Matheny as Manager and give Oquendo the bench coach job if he wants it. If not, Maloney should get it and one of the two could/should end up as the next Manager if Matheny doesn’t shake out.
No! Keep Oqenduo at third where he belongs! Maloney should be bench coach though. He’s earned it. If Oqenduo gets the Manager job, matheny could be our third base coach. What are the desired qualities for a third base coach?
Qualities must include the full use of both arms, thus eliminating people with 1 arm, and John McCain. I think the idea here is that you find a guy who can complement your coaching staff, and then you assign him the 3rd base coach role as well. Remember Oquendo isn’t such an asset to the team because he can relay signals from Tony to the batters and base runners, his value is in his coaching of middle infielders, and the relationship he has with some of the players of whom English is not their primary language. Oquendo is really an infielder coach, who just happens to be the third base coach as well. In Spring Training and Practices, Oquendo isn’t practicing his signals and arm motions, he’s working with players on specific things, Oquendo took Skip Schumaker and made him a second baseman… If he sticks around, perhaps he can do the same thing with Allen Craig.
If Matheny gets the job, Oquendo could very well leave, having been passed over for the job or at least feeling he was passed over. I’ve never felt that Oquendo was entitled to the job, or that he was next in line, but many fans, and journalist in St. Louis believed that to be the case. Either way if Oquendo stays or not, I would not think it be a good idea for him to be bench coach. Matheny should either keep Pettini or go out and get a trusted advisor and maybe even a former manager, a Don Baylor, Hal MaRae type (no those aren’t who I’m saying those are just examples of what I mean). If you have Matheny as the Manager and Oquendo as the bench coach, every single time the Cardinals lose 5 games in a row, or get down to 3rd or 4th place in the standings, some of the press and some of the fans will begin saying that if Oquendo was the manager this wouldn’t be happening. The Bench coach has to be a guy capable of being an adviser to the manager who’s capable of being a manager and at the same time, never overshadowing the manager. Bringing up Maloney wouldn’t be a horrible idea, but we’ll have to see, Joe Pettini is very capable of filling this role as he did for LaRussa.
First, let’s get straight, I do not want Francona. If he were as good as people seem to think he is, he would still be the manager of the Red Sox. This dude has problems that the Cards do not need to deal with. Ok, now that my vote has gone to Matheney, retaining Oquendo might br tough, but if he decides to stay with the Cards. He is fine as the 3rd base coach. Matheney and he will have Spring Training to work out some chemistry. Even when TLR made the calls from the dugout, Oquendo is an aggressive coach in trying to get runners around. Haveing worked with TLR, he has a better idea how to handle this situation with another manager. Another important ingredient is trying to keep Big Mac as the batting coacg and Duncan as the pitching coach. This will make the new manager transition into his job so much easier, they know the returning players better than anybody.
I can’t think of one good reason to make Mike Matheny the manager of the St. Louis Cardinals…. please say it isn’t so.
Please take Lamont. I certainly won’t mind.
I have no comment about Gene Lamont as a manager, but he used to coach third base for the Astros and he was, hands down, the worst third base coach I have ever seen. I’m sure he wasn’t trying to get all of those guys thrown out at home on purpose, but you’d never know it from watching him.
And he hasn’t changed one bit as the Tigers third base coach. Or he’ll randomly stop people on plays they can easily score on. A few times this year guys would just blow right on by his stop signs.
No idea what old Gene is thinking out there sometimes.
He’s been Leyland’s third base coach for what seems like forever, I don’t know if he was in Florida w/ Leyland or not, but I certainly remember him coaching 3rd for those Pirate teams back in the early 90’s. He’s got to be good at something.
He’s just JL’s boy. Leyland is just loyal to his guys…namely Lamont and Llyod McClendon. They aren’t really good at anything, but he just refuses to get rid of them.
He’s been Leyland’s third base coach for what seems like forever, I don’t know if he was in Florida w/ Leyland or not, but I certainly remember him coaching 3rd for those Pirate teams back in the early 90’s. He’s got to be good at something.
Sveum was the worst 3rd base coach for the Red Sox in recent memory. Is that a trend now in managerial candidates (not being a competent 3B coach)?
Alomar or Maddux in Chitown. Oquendo or Tito in St. Louis (with Matheny &/or Maloney filling out the coaching staff).