The Diamondbacks have interest in Braves first base coach Eddie Perez for their managerial opening, David O’Brien of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution tweets. Perez interviewed for the Braves managerial job that ultimately went to Brian Snitker, and he’s reportedly also recently attracted interest from the Rockies.
Perez spent 11 seasons as a catcher in the big leagues, spending much of that time working as Greg Maddux’s personal catcher in Atlanta. He also played a season apiece for the Indians and Brewers. He has worked as a coach in the Braves organization since 2006, and has managed in the Venezuelan Winter League.
We haven’t heard much about who will replace Chip Hale as the Diamondbacks’ manager, and perhaps for good reason — departing along with Hale was general manager Dave Stewart, and the Snakes have yet to fill their GM job. One would think the Diamondbacks would hire a GM first before hiring a manager. Involving a new GM in a managerial hiring process would help ensure that the GM and manager are a good match for one another — a GM and manager who don’t work well together can cause problems, as we’ve seen lately with Jeff Bridich and Walt Weiss in Colorado, and before that with Jerry Dipoto and Mike Scioscia in Los Angeles. Hiring a manager before hiring a GM could make the GM opening less attractive for highly qualified candidates, which is potentially a serious issue for the Diamondbacks, who might already have a hard time attracting such candidates given how short their last two GMs’ tenures have been.
Of course, it’s possible the Diamondbacks’ search for a GM (or a head of baseball operations) is further along than has previously been reported. Arizona has already been connected to Nationals exec Mike Rizzo (although the Nationals have denied Rizzo is a serious candidate), Royals assistant GM J.J. Picollo, former Dodgers GM Ned Colletti, MLB senior VP Kim Ng and a variety of candidates with ties to the Diamondbacks organization. Former Blue Jays and Dodgers exec Alex Anthopoulos and Rays VP of baseball operations Chaim Bloom have already indicated they’re not interested.
He’s be better than what we have now..
He’d*
Can He Say That⁉️
Is Larussa still with the organization? Until that guy is gone, the headline should focus on who is actually interested in the job with the Dbacks, not with whom the Dbacks are interested. I haven’t been following the Dbacks news enough to know the status on Larussa, but he is part of the train wreck which needs to be removed before that organization can move forward. I am not a Dbacks fan, though, so I hope they keep failing to be competitive.
La Russa is now an “advisor” with, supposedly, no decision making powers. I think that’s all nonsense to give fans the illusion of change.
Perez could be an indication that Picollo is close. The candidates are being asked who they would hire as manager.
I mentioned this on the last post which touched on the fact that there were only 30 GM jobs. There are only 30 manager ones as well, but I think this is going to be a similar situation. They may not have trouble filling the spot, because there are so few opportunities, but they very well may have trouble filling it with some of the more well regarded people.
How can we be even talking about who may or may not be a candidate to manage the Diamondbacks when they don’t even have a GM?
Derek got a extension? What has he done? He must have pictures