Over four decades in baseball, Diamondbacks GM Dave Stewart has done nearly everything in baseball. He was a solid pitcher for 16 years, with 168 wins and a 3.95 ERA. Over four superstar seasons with the Oakland A’s, he collected 17.8 bWAR and four straight top-four Cy Young Award finishes. Upon retirement, he was a pitching coach and an assistant GM for multiple teams, and was a finalist to manage the Milwaukee Brewers upon Davey Lopes’s firing in 2002.
After failing to ascend to general manager in Toronto (with the Blue Jays instead hiring J.P. Ricciardi), Stewart formed a player agency and represented several stars, including Eric Chavez, Matt Kemp, Chad Billingsley and Chris Carter.
Years after Stewart had admittedly given up hope of ever being a big-league GM, Tony La Russa was hired to run baseball operations in Arizona and selected his former ace as the Diamondbacks GM.
Last week, we spoke to Stewart about his Diamondbacks team. This week, Stewart reflects on his career and his path to the big chair in this exclusive conversation.
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You were drafted in the 16th round by the Dodgers in 1975, but you also had a ton of football scholarship offers, and played some pretty good basketball, too. Why did you choose baseball?
[Laughs] It was the sport that I was least likely to get hurt playing. There are obvious injuries that happen in baseball, but in football, even at 6’2”, 210 pounds, that’s not big enough to play the sport, for me. In basketball, there were some size restrictions as well. What’s great about baseball is that anybody can get on the diamond and show their skills. At the time, among the three sports, baseball was not my favorite, and probably not my best sport. But it’s just funny how things turn out.
Did you have any idea L.A. was going to convert you from catcher to pitcher?
No clue whatsoever [laughs]. Once I reported to [rookie ball in] Bellingham, Washington, the picture became clear what they were going to do with me.
You blossomed into stardom in front of your hometown Oakland fans, with four straight seasons for top-four Cy Young finishes. Meanwhile, your A’s teams made it to three straight World Series and not afraid to put somebody on their backsides to get there. But Oakland was under .500 in 1986, your first year in Oakland, and just .500 in Tony La Russa’s first full year as manager in 1987. When did the A’s develop their swagger?
We had a good group of players, [Mark] McGwire, [Jose] Canseco, Carney Lansford, Dave Henderson, Rickey Henderson. And you look at the pitching staff of myself, [Bob] Welch, Mike Moore, Curt Young; our rotation was good, we had Dennis Eckersley on the back end, and Rick Honeycutt and others in the pen.
But what really makes the team is the guy who leads the team, the manager. Tony was a great example of what we should be and how we should play the game. His message went through our clubhouse. We believed we could win, and when we stepped on the field, we were going to win. That all started with Tony and his coaching staff, and the things they brought to us day-to-day as players.
Since retiring, you’ve been a player agent, a pitching coach, in the front office, and even have gotten consideration as a manager. You seem to have your choice of baseball gigs. Why GM?
The general manager has the most impact on an organization and a franchise. I get the opportunity to pick the manager and put the players in place. It’s the biggest responsibility in an organization. I like that kind of pressure. I like being in that situation. I’ve won championships as a player, now I want to win a championship in the front office. In this capacity now, I want to be able to shape and form an organization, and build a tradition during my tenure.
You’ve been outspoken about the role of race in your goal to become a baseball GM. Was there ever a point when you thought it just wasn’t going to happen?
No, there wasn’t a single point, because by a certain time I definitely didn’t think it was going to happen. But the thing about baseball, especially at the upper levels of management, if you get the right person in the right position, it can affect your life immediately, as this did for me. Tony La Russa is a guy I’ve had a relationship with for over 30 years, and once he was put in a position where he could hire me, he did. If Tony would not have gotten his opportunity, I wouldn’t haven’t have gotten mine.
As you say, in many ways you learned how to play winning baseball under Tony, have been friends for decades, have discussed your futures in baseball together. Is it ideal to be working toward a championship in Arizona with him?
I know enough about Tony to say that our friendship had nothing to do with giving me the opportunity to do this job. But having a friendship makes it easier to do the job. Our communication is wide open. We feel free to talk with each other about anything. Most of the time our conversations are good conversations. Sometimes they’re not so good. We both have some fire. And that’s the great part about it, whether it’s a good conversation or a bad one, we walk out of the room united.
You were fresh-faced in 1981, winning your first title with Los Angeles. You were a pitching stud in 1989 when you won a second title, with Oakland. A few years later, you got a third in Toronto. Is there a favorite?
They were all good, because they were all at different points in my life. In 1981, I was just a rookie coming into the game, so I had an opportunity to win one right off the bat, which was great. I wasn’t of great impact to the Dodgers, but I was able to help them get there. In 1989, as you said, I was in the middle of it, and I made a difference in winning that World Series. In 1993 it was my last one, at the tail end of my career. I was on my way out of the game, contributing any way I could, but still having impact. I was ALCS MVP that year. But they were all significant and good because they were all different parts of my career and my life.
“But Oakland was under .500 in 1987, your first year in Oakland, and just .500 in Tony La Russa’s first full year as manager in 1988.”
Those years were 1986 and 1987, not 1987 and 1988. They won 104 games in 1988.
Was going to mention the same thing. I saw both the 88 and 89 teams play live…I csn attest that that 88 team was NOT a .500 team…holy smokes….probably the best teams I’ve seen in my life…and that might even include some pretty special Braves rotations. Oakland was the real green monster back then.
Agreed, 1988 was the first year I watched baseball and the A’s absolutely dominated everyone until the WS, I ran crying to my bedroom when Gibby went deep off Eck. What a cruel game this is, I still got obsessed with it anyway!
Wow, so…you are just going to leave this error, huh Brett, Tim etc?
Sorry for the gaffe, JAF. No excuses. My bad.
how about the time he was arrested while dressed as a woman?
deadspin.com/5950378/history-lesson-the-time-dave-…
Excellent way to end an interview.
He wasn’t dressed as a woman. Lucille was.
Welcome to the Gen-X / Millennial generation. It’s all tidbit gossip passed off as important fact.
Well, we can get the facts right anyway …that deadspin article is way more fascinating than the comment which is error. All that was public info. Not sure why it matters….People fail to realize the times. I think it’s just nice Stewart is still around…there were some casualties from that era.
Stewart is refreshing……..
He speaks like a human being. Almost all GM’s now speak like the business majors and/or degreed law students that they are – sounding like a politician running for office while throwing in a bunch of buzz phrases and ridiculous numbers that in the long run mean nothing. The guy understands baseball, and is a big part of a group of people taking over a franchise that had too much talent in some areas and not enough in others, and squaring away the major league team in 2 years. As an article in the Arizona Republic pointed out – all DBacks personnel decisions, including trades, are worked out with a group of people headed by Stewart and LaRussa.
His non-buzzword talk reminded me of an article I read this week by Ken Rosenthal…..
A rookie came up last year and was not hitting. The batting coach told the manager and GM there was not problem with his swing, it didn’t need correcting, the rookie rookie was hitting into bad luck. The micro-managing GM then checked the “exit velocity” of the balls the player hit, and determined that it was OK not to rework the players hitting stance, approach and swing. Now – most batting coaches sitting on the bench could see that the player was hitting the ball hard and squaring it up. And in the Stewart/LarRussa/baseball professional era, that would have been sufficient, but no, they had to check “exit velocity”. Looking forward to the day when someone’s small personal computer will tell them what underwear to put on that day, what clothes and shoes to wear, and check to see if their teeth were brushed correctly before the robot that used to be a human being walks out the door in the morning.
By the way – that GM constantly puts out unbalanced teams that can’t play fundamental baseball but their statistics look good. Few can figure out why for years the team can’t seem to win the big games and series. Mostly it’s attributed to “bad luck”.
I’m not going to completely disagree with you, but I do think you’re taking it too far the other way. I too get a bit “whatever” about the MBA laws school speak of modern gms….but I don’t discount the value of good information.
Advanced stats aren’t anything new..and they weren’t even new to Oakland when Billy Beane took over. Funny thing is that even HE acknowledges this. This stat/scouting thing was blown up in books like Moneyball, which interestingly was intended to be about Minnesota. There’s a lot of clever narrative out there that sadly covers just how much stats have been integrated in the modern game atleast back into the late 70s and 1981 Oakland…and did quite honestly back to Earl Weaver, Branch Rickey, and John McGraw.
By personal knowledge I can say Montreal was operating advanced stats in the early to mid 90s under Dave Dombrowski…who ironically sometimes gets pillaged now.
I too find Stewart refreshing, as the game lacks characters like it has in the past. But that’s not a carte blanche for spoken stupidity..candor is good…it was Ozzie Guillens specialty…but it has to come with wins.
I’m not knocking the use of stats. Yes, one would think Billy Beane discovered OBP. Fact is, Branch Rickey was using it in 1915. As for John McGraw – Casey went crazy when he fund out he was traded to the Giants and would play for McGraw….and he passed it on the knowledge to Billy who passed it on to Lew Pinella and Buck Showalter (Ty Cobb also took an interest in Casey and mentored him),
You are right about Michael Lewis’ book. His subject matter was small market team in a sport with no salary cap that could continue to compete even when they constantly lost players to free agency. He wanted to do it on Terry Ryan and the Twins – a team that under Tom Kelly was uncompromising in holding their players responsible for strong fundamental play if they were to see the field. (When Gardenhire took over he began to compromise that some.) The Twins refused to grant Lewis daily access to their operation, so he went to the A’s next.
What is interesting is this – Terry Ryan has come out of retirement and built an exceptional roster of young players, with more coming. Molitor is using stats in managing, but he’s also stressing fundamental play and teaching the youngsters what they need to do to help the team win. Their 2nd place finish in the ALC last year is being dismissed, most statistic-based formulas and writers that adhere to them are picking the Twins for last in the ALC this year. They have also discounted the Royals for 3 years, a team that stresses strong fundamental play and is more concerned with their hitters hitting the ball and not all that concerned with running up pitch counts and taking walks. The Yankees have been going this way for 3-4 years now, with Eppler beginning to move the Angels back to the team they were up until 2009 under Scoscia. The Giants of course are a traditional team as well, they won 3 WS’s in 5 years – if that happened in Boston, NYC, or with Theo Epstein, the national sports media would be talking about it daily. Instead, 95% of MLB fans don’t know the name of the Giants GM or manager.
Back to Michael Lewis and his book – the successful teams in MLB are going to the Twins model, not the A’s model. As someone that has seen at least parts of 700+ games a year on the subscription service the last 3-5 years (I’d have to look it up the exact number of years), I can assure you that the teams that play to win as opposed to playing not to lose, are a lot more fun to watch as they bunt, execute the hit and run, take the extra base, and throw out opposing runners from the OF. Additionally, their games always move faster without the “plate discipline” and the endless foul balls. In closing, I’m get such a kick out to the stat-based teams running up the starting pitchers count so they can get him out of the game at 100 pitches in the 6th or 7th inning – only to find hard-throwing pitchers coming out of the bullpen that are better then the starter was.