The Padres have interviewed former big-league reliever Tom Gordon for their open managerial position, Jon Heyman of CBS Sports reports. As Heyman notes, Gordon certainly would be an unusual candidate, since he has no managerial experience anywhere. He did, however, pitch 21 seasons in the big leagues. He is the father of Marlins second baseman Dee Gordon and top Twins shortstop prospect Nick Gordon. Here’s the rest of the latest on the Padres’ managerial search. And here are more notes on managers, all on the West divisions:
- Don Mattingly’s separation from the Dodgers was amicable, Joel Sherman of the New York Post writes. The pressures of managing an expensive team with championship expectations weighted on Mattingly, as did whispers about whether he would be fired. When the two sides spoke on Monday, the Dodgers told him they were not interested in offering a long-term extension, which told him their commitment to him wasn’t strong. The new Dodgers front office would, evidently, prefer to hire its own manager, even though Mattingly was willing to work with the front office with its use of advanced metrics.
- The Mariners are gambling that Scott Servais is the right hire for them despite his lack of managerial experience, John McGrath of the Tacoma News Tribune writes. As McGrath points out, gambles like this one are common nowadays: Mike Matheny of the Cardinals, Robin Ventura of the White Sox, Brad Ausmus of the Tigers, Walt Weiss of the Rockies, Craig Counsell of the Brewers and Kevin Cash of the Rays are, like Servais, all former players who lacked significant managerial experience before taking their current jobs.
Why cite the New York media for an LA story? Said it before and will say it again: read the local media. This “amicable divorce” spin is not cutting any ice in Dodgerland. We know better even if the sports writers in New York haven’t figured it out yet.
Amen..Preach it!
Agreed. Most people still see Mattingly as the mustache wearing first baseman, not the manager of the LA Dodgers. Former 🙁 manager.
I just wanna know who our Manager is going to be and who his staff will be. I hope they keep a few guys from the staff. McGuire has got to go though. And I pray whoever the manager is he actually isn’t afraid to get on the players and force them to play with urgency. Tired seeing them just got though the motions.
McGwire was supposed to be the hitting coach who worked miracles in St. Louis, but now he has to go? What’s wrong with this picture, other than everything? Another poorly reported wrinkle in the Mattingly dismissal story is ownership has essentially invited the entire coaching staff to look for work elsewhere. So even if any of them remain, they will know they are doing their jobs with no support from upper management. Dysfunction, big time.
What is so dysfunctional about a new front office wanting to clear house and bring in their own guys/players? That has been happening in sports since the beginning of time.
Considering the Dodgers have a competitive roster, a very good farm system, and 3 straight seasons of 90+ wins, I’d say that is nothing close to dysfunctional.
The complete lack of any plan, for a start. The idea that “cleaning house” and “bringing in our own people” is a substitute for a plan. This is how dysfunctional organizations behave.
Seems like their plan is to field a competitive baseball team if these last 3 seasons are any indication.
Considering they hired Gabe Kapler last season to keep him away from other teams because they liked him so much also signaled a plan to make him the manager of the future. What are you even talking about?
Hiring a manager with basically no experience managing, one with some really strange ideas, and one some players seem to really dislike? Undermining the rest of your coaching staff? That’s a plan? Look I realize probably nobody is going to read the LA Time article I linked here but the answers to your questions are there.
Are you making stuff up now? Who doesn’t like Kapler among the Dodgers players?
Kapler did manage a season in the minors for the Red Sox Class A team, so he does have experience. Should they hire Matt Williams instead because of this said experience requirement you seem to want to enforce?
Can you give me an example of his strange ideas?
And how did they undermine the rest of the coaching staff by telling them they are free to work elsewhere?
Another article nobody will read:
http://www.latimes.com/sports/dodgers/la-sp-dodgers-manager-20151024-story.html
You have bad diction. Nowhere in there says that players dislike Kapler, as you suggested…
Are you going to answer by other questions or nah?
Apparently you did not read it (as predicted).
I guess we’re done here if you are going to ignore my questions
We were done when you ignored everything I said, including the articles I linked.
Don’t know if we can post links here, but if it works, this is what you find out if you read reports from people who are actually here, instead of trying to report on it from 3,000 miles away:
http://www.latimes.com/sports/dodgers/la-sp-dodgers-mattingly-out-20151023-story.html
Damn bro. Why do you feel that you have to set the record straight about this split? Amicable or not it’s done. Time to move on for all parties.
Well bro because the information being spread around is wrong and it makes a difference for how this organization moves forward. Matters to some of us more than others, I guess.
I don’t think it makes much of a difference. The LA job will attract the top candidates because of the seemingly unlimited resources. It’s up to the front office to choose who they want to carry out their philosophy in the dugout. How the split with mattingly was handled doesn’t mean too much in the grand scheme of things.
So that’s just the thing. If you read the articles (a really unpopular suggestion for some reason) you will see that there weren’t any “philosophical” issues between Mattingly and the FO. Both made that clear. What you will also see is much evidence that the decisions for which Mattingly took the fall were at least as much FO decisions as his. So how does booting Mattingly help with that situation? And where do you find a coaching staff more qualified than Honeycutt, Roenicke, Lopes, and Wallach? Who’d want to work for an organization in turmoil where the coaching staff takes the blame for mistakes made by the FO? Just throwing more money at that problem isn’t going to fix it.
For some reason, the links aren’t working in the iPad app.
BlueSky – Guessing that’s a “rally cap”? Nice. Like your attitude, too.
Hope someday it will be rally cap but for now it’s my franchise in distress cap.
Needed correction: “As McGrath points out, gambles like this one are common nowadays: Mike Matheny of the Cardinals, Robin Ventura of the White Sox, Brad Ausmus of the Tigers, Walt Weiss of the Rockies, Craig Counsell of the Brewers and Kevin Cash of the Rays are, like Servais, all former [white] players who lacked significant managerial experience before taking their current jobs.”
Why haven’t Sandy Alomar, Terry Pendleton, and Jose Oquendo earned a shot? Why haven’t Tony Pena, Ozzie Guillen, and Ron Washington earned a another shot? It seems like these new and innovative ways, whether it’s broadcasters in the 1990’s or these guys now, are designed to shut minorities out of legitimate opportunities. It also tells me that these so-called “smart guys” have a very limited network. Google Boy Club has replaced the Good Ole Boy Club. Wasn’t experience cited as the reason by Al Campanis himself in 1987 why minorities weren’t getting managerial jobs? I’ve been watching these trends since then, and just when you hope it’s no longer an issue, things trend back to what they were in the 1980’s. It’s garbage.
Personally if I wanted the most objective take I’d get my news on the LA area from Kyrgyzstan if they covered it there. When I’m in town to see my sister it’s hilarious how sensationalized everything is out there compared to back here.