The deal signed by Matt Williams to manage the Nationals, which was agreed upon back in October, is a two-year pact that includes two club options, reports Adam Kilgore of the Washington Post. Details of the contract were previously unreported.
As Kilgore notes, two years is a fairly typical guarantee for a manager without MLB experience, and Williams follows in the footsteps of the Cardinals' Mike Matheny in that regard. On the other hand, other first-time skippers to sign on for the 2014 season — Brad Ausmus of the Tigers, Ryne Sandberg of the Phillies, Rick Renteria of the Cubs, and Bryan Price of the Reds — secured three-year deals. (Of course, we do not know the guaranteed dollars included in all of the deals.)
Coming to Washington after serving as the Diamondbacks' third base coach, Williams will face high expectations at the helm of a club that underperformed in 2013. The 48-year-old was a highly productive big leaguer over 17 seasons, most of which were spent with the Giants and D'Backs.
The length of the deal for any manager is irrelevant. They’re hired and fired on a whim.
For the most part you are correct however Mike Scioscia 10 year contract very well may have prevented him being dismissed after the 2013 season. Personally I’m glad he wasn’t but his conflicts with the GM may have gotten him fired had it not been for the 5 remaining years on his deal.
Well, the Angels guaranteed Mike Scioscia ten years and $50MM. It would legitimately sting to pull the plug on that kind of deal. Much less so for shorter/smaller deals, of course.
Best I can tell, the next closest current deal is 4/$16MM for Girardi. Scioscia’s guarantee is over three times greater. Pretty amazing.
That was such an awful deal. There are so many reasons to want to change managers. They get stale, many of the best ones aren’t managing forever in one spot. And as you said, Girardi is only at $16MM/4, so even if you considered him a good manager it would not have taken nearly that much money to get him to stay.
It was a bad deal but at the time Scioscia was considered one of the best managers around. Honestly I think he still is and I’m glad Arte is stuck with him due to his contract (still not saying the contract was a good one). Scioscia has been hurt a lot by the dismantling of his coaching staff. When Buddy Black left to manage the Padres and Joe Maddon left to manage the Rays the Angels coaching staff took a major nose dive. Scioscia is a great manager but not a good coach and he needs quality player development coaches on his staff to be effective.
But even if you think he is a good manager there was no reason to lock him up that long. He has been in charge since 2000, and is signed through 2018. Aside from him and Gardenhire I don’t believe there is currently a manager that has been with a team for more than 10 years. Managers tend to get stale, just like people get stale at one job often after 20 years. They didn’t need to sign him for that long to get him to stay, things change, people change, I don’t want that much set in stone for 10 years. 5 years gives stability, 10 years handcuffs you.