The Athletics’ season came to an unceremonious end Wednesday, which could give quality control coach Mark Kotsay a chance to actively pursue a managerial job. Kotsay’s currently “a hot name on the managerial market,” Jon Heyman of MLB Network tweets, and it appears he’d be willing to leave Oakland for a top position somewhere.
“Managing a team would interest me, for sure,” Kotsay told John Shea of the San Francisco Chronicle. “This is priority No. 1 here (with the A’s). When the time comes, if I get that opportunity to be part of the process, I’d definitely be open to that.”
Now 43 years old, Kotsay enjoyed a productive major league career as an outfielder/first baseman for several teams from 1997-2013. Kotsay hasn’t managed at any level since then, but he has worked in a variety of roles between clubs’ front offices and coaching staffs. He served as both a special assistant and a hitting coach with the Padres before joining the Athletics, with whom he began as a bench coach in 2016 before transferring to his current role prior to the ’18 campaign. Along the way, Kotsay has earned a reputation “as an excellent strategist and communicator,” Shea writes.
Should Kotsay land a managerial job this offseason, he’d become the latest example of a team handing its dugout over to a neophyte. More than half of the league’s 30 teams – the Yankees, Rays, Red Sox, Blue Jays, Orioles, Rangers, Mariners, Twins, Braves, Nationals, Mets, Phillies, Cardinals, Brewers, Reds, Dodgers, Diamondbacks and Padres – have opted to hire first-time MLB managers over retreads in the past few years.
Definitely not the padres nope
Why don’t you guys link retired players BR pages?
have been wondering that myself.. managers’ pages usually aren’t linked, and if some newbie out there doesn’t already know, they can surely figure out how to access a former player’s manager page on Baseball Reference
If I were interviewing him I would have one question: Use math to describe why you started Game 3 of the 2011 NLCS in center field instead of Carlos Gomez. Show your work.
Lol
Cal State Fullerton Titans, Gold Spikes Award winner, you people who have no clue and do not want him are so ignorant. He would be amazing!
If it’s not the same run of the mill names, you have no interest because you have no vision. His experience would fit perfect in today’s analytical approach plus he has all the experience and success one could hope for.
Why because be went to Cal State Fullerton? And what does the Golden Spikes have to do with him being able to manage a big league club now?
You say he has all the experience? What would that experience be?
You say he is the man? Why? What has he done to show he can move right into the managerial position? What “vision” are you talking about?
Yeah, Mark Kotsay…what do you mean?
I had an old friend that argued manager wasn’t a real position. I’ve also enjoyed reading a couple of reddit threads about people losing managerial staff at work and noticing how smoothly everything ran anyway. I understand the arguments for and against MLB managers and how important or unimportant they are. I also have often noticed that great managers weren’t necessarily great players and great players weren’t necessarily great managers.
So that’s how I view the prospect of Kotsay managing. It’s an over valued position on a club/team and its successes are often from players that had mediocre professional careers but their ‘baseball IQ’ was off the charts. Examples are innumerable at this point, but a few I like are Aaron Boone of the Yankees, Brad Ausmus of the Angels -even if he was just fired and the Angels were bad under his brief tenure- Joe Girardi of the Yankees, Billy Beane of the Oakland Athletics, Alex Cora of the Red Sox, hitting coaches who were quadruple-A players at best like Shelley Duncan, etc. and I know a bunch of other examples are escaping me right now.
So it’s whatever. If he can play baseball, had a decent career, knows how the front offices work and wants to manage, he deserves a shot at managing.
Why not the Padres?
Sounds like another Ausmus. Watch out, GMs.