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Latest On Phillies’ Managerial Job

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On Friday, shortly after he orchestrated the firing of manager Gabe Kapler, Phillies owner John Middleton met with reporters (including Matt Breen of the Philadelphia Inquirer) to discuss the move and what’s ahead for the team. Kapler was only on the job for two years, seasons in which the Phillies came out of the gate well before faltering in the summer months. In the end, Middleton couldn’t get past those late-season meltdowns.

“Those September collapses. I kept bumping up against them,” said Middleton. “I couldn’t get comfortable or confident enough that if I brought him back we wouldn’t run into other problems and therefore I made the decision I did.”

The Phillies went a middling 161-163 under Kapler, but they were a far worse 20-36 during the pair of Septembers in which he oversaw the club. That was clearly enough for Middleton to put an end to Kapler’s tenure with the organization, but it wasn’t the Phils’ owner who selected him in the first place. Rather, general manager Matt Klentak was responsible for the hiring of Klentak, though it doesn’t seem Middleton’s confidence in the exec has wavered.

In assessing Klentak, a fourth-year GM, Middleton stated: “Nobody bats 1.000 in hiring decisions. I haven’t. So it’s early in his career, but I would also point out he’s made lots and lots of really good hiring decisions, too. I think what this should be is a learning experience, candidly. What’s happened in other businesses we’ve run and gotten into this kind of situation, people learn from it.”

Middleton showed plenty of confidence last winter in Klentak, awarding him a three-year extension in the wake of an offseason spending bonanza for the club. With Klentak having brought in the likes of Bryce Harper, J.T. Realmuto, Andrew McCutchen, Jean Segura and David Robertson, Philadelphia expected to push for the playoffs in 2019. But the club stumbled to a mediocre 81-81 record instead, leaving Kapler on the outs and the duo of Klentak and president of baseball operations Andy MacPhail to find a more qualified replacement.

With the Kapler era in the rearview mirror, Philly’s now likely to seek a manager who blends “analytics and tradition,” writes Breen, who suggests longtime MLB skippers Buck Showalter and Joe Girardi are near the head of the team’s list. Showalter, a three-time Manager of the Year who previously helmed the Orioles from 2010-18, goes back a ways with ex-O’s executives Klentak and MacPhail. In fact, it was MacPhail who hired Showalter in Baltimore.

Girardi’s connection to MacPhail isn’t as strong, though he was a catcher with the Cubs from 2000-02 when the latter was in the team’s front office. Since his playing career ended after 2003, Girardi – like Showalter – has established himself as one of the most accomplished managers in recent memory. He earned Manager of the Year honors in his lone season with the Marlins, 2006, and then led Yankees teams that regularly contended from 2008-17. Girardi was atop the ’09 New York club that knocked off Philadelphia in the World Series.

With eight teams currently on the hunt for new managers, it’s no surprise the well-respected Showalter and Girardi have come up quite a bit of late. Showalter is on the Angels’ list of candidates, and he may emerge as a serious possibility for a Mets team that’s set to interview Girardi in a matter of days. Girardi already sat down with the Cubs earlier this week.

Latest On Padres’ Managerial Search

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The Padres have made a fair bit of progress in their managerial search, though it remains unclear at this point which direction they’ll go. There’s now added clarity on the handful of serious candidates as well as the interviewing timeline.

It’s now clear that Braves third base coach and former Rangers skipper Ron Washington is a serious possibility. He interviewed today, as Kevin Acee of the San Diego Union-Tribune reports. It was already known that Brad Ausmus had interviewed as well.

But those aren’t the only candidate to get a sit-down interview. Indeed, Scott Miller of Bleacher Report tweets that quite a few others have already been in to meet with GM A.J. Preller and company.

Rod Barajas and Jayce Tingler were already known to be candidates. They have in fact held interviews, according to Miller. Unlike the two men mentioned already, Barajas and Tingler are each looking for their first opportunity to helm a big-league team.

It may be that the list doesn’t extend beyond those four names. Miller reports that long-time MLB managers Buck Showalter, Joe Girardi, and Mike Scioscia appear not to be part of the ongoing Padres search. Whether there are more candidates still under consideration beyond those isn’t yet clear.

Angels To Interview Buck Showalter, John Farrell

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Joe Maddon is reportedly the front-runner to take over as the Angels’ next manager, but they’re not going to hand him the job without first doing their due diligence on at least a few names. The club’s conducting interviews with three other candidates this week, including former managers Buck Showalter and John Farrell, per reports from Maria Torres of the Los Angeles Times and Jeff Fletcher of the Orange County Register. The fourth contender’s unknown, but it’s not Angels special assistant Eric Chavez, according to Torres.

Like Maddon, both Showalter and Farrell have managed multiple major league teams apiece to this point. The 63-year-old Showalter is a three-time Manager of the Year who oversaw the Yankees, Diamondbacks, Rangers and Orioles for a combined 20 seasons from 1992-2018. The O’s parted with Showalter after last year, a 47-win season in which they launched a full rebuild.

Farrell, 57, is an ex-major league right-hander who was a member of the Angels from 1993-94. He’s better known for his post-playing career, though, having managed the Blue Jays and Red Sox between 2011-17. In his greatest accomplishment in the role, Farrell helped the Red Sox to a World Series title in his first year atop the club in 2013. The rest of Farrell’s tenure with the team produced mixed results. The Red Sox finished below .500 twice in a row from 2014-15, but they took home AL East crowns in each of the next two seasons.

Despite its regular-season success under Farrell from 2016-17, Boston parted with him after back-to-back first-round knockouts in the playoffs. Farrell has stayed in the game since then by working as a scout and a pitching consultant for the Reds.

Buck Showalter Not Being Considered For Padres’ Manager

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6:40pm: Despite his connection to Machado, Showalter is not currently in the mix to become the next manager, Kevin Acee of the San Diego Union-Tribune writes.

1:05pm: Padres star third baseman Manny Machado is “letting it be known he would like [the] Padres to at least take a look at” his former skipper Buck Showalter, ESPN.com’s Buster Olney writes on Twitter. Showalter managed Machado for seven seasons in Baltimore.

It’s somewhat unusual to hear of a player suggesting a possible managerial hire. But Machado inked a $300MM deal to join the San Diego organization last winter, so he and the club are joined at the hip for ten seasons (barring intervening developments). That whopping contract perhaps gives him an unusual level of standing in the Padres franchise. And there’s no hint here that he’s demanding Showalter be the chosen candidate.

Showalter would certainly suit the Padres’ desire for an experienced helmsman. The 63-year-old is a grizzled veteran of twenty MLB seasons as a manager. A notably old-school presence around the diamond, Showalter has certainly still had success in the modern game. His O’s teams outperformed expectations and had a notable run of success from 2012 through 2016. After sitting out a year, Showalter is obviously itching to get back at it, as he has previously expressed interest in interviewing for the Mets opening.

At this point, it isn’t known whether Showalter is a realistic candidate for the Padres — or even whether they’ll seriously consider him at all. But it stands to reason the club would at least take a look, particularly now that its highest-paid player has made his preference known.

Buck Showalter Interested In Managing Mets

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The Mets, currently on the heels of their third straight non-playoff season, are on the hunt for a new manager. In what could be fortunate news for the club, one of the most respected skippers of the past couple decades, Buck Showalter, has interest in the job.

In regards to the position, Showalter told Steve Somers of WFAN: “Yeah, I’d like to be talked about it, but I’m not going to campaign about it, and I’m real uncomfortable even talking about it with you now because there’s a lot of good people out there and they’re going to make a good decision. They’ll have reasons why and why not, and, you know, I respect that.”

The 63-year-old Showalter would give the Mets a proven manager, which is something they didn’t have in the just-fired Mickey Callaway, who came with no experience in the role when they hired him. Showalter has guided the Yankees, Diamondbacks, Rangers and Orioles for a combined 20 years, amassing a 1,551-1,517 regular-season record with five playoff berths and three Manager of the Year awards. He sat out this season after the Orioles, who were in the incipient stages of a full rebuild, ousted him in the wake of a 47-win showing in 2018.

The O’s were blowing it up when they got rid of Showalter, whereas the Mets are trying to ascend as quickly as possible. The team rebounded from a horrendous start this year to finish with 86 wins in 2019, though that wasn’t enough to save Callaway. Now, after turning to the neophyte Callaway in its previous managerial search two years ago, it wouldn’t be a surprise to see the Mets opt for an experienced hand to steer the ship this time. As of now, though, there’s no word on whether general manager Brodie Van Wagenen & Co. are interested in speaking with Showalter.

AL West Links: Cole, Angels, Rangers, Showalter, Washington, Mariners

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The Astros’ acquisition of Gerrit Cole last offseason has been a clear win for the team, as The Athletic’s Rustin Dodd (subscription required) writes in an analysis of how well Cole has both performed on the mound and fit into the team’s clubhouse culture.  In Houston, Cole said, “you’re not asked to conform to a system.  You’re asked to use the system to make yourself better. So, from an analytic standpoint, from a scouting report standpoint, from teammates and instructors, there’s just a high level of quality here that’s ahead of quite a bit of other teams….They’re really forward thinking.”  Cole’s biggest start in an Astros uniform comes tomorrow in Game 2 of the ALDS, and a victory would give the Astros a huge 2-0 advantage in the best-of-five series.

Some more from around the AL West…

  • The Angels aren’t likely to name their new manager before the World Series, Jeff Fletcher of the Southern California News Group opines, as the team is planning a wide-ranging search that includes many candidates from outside the organization.  The Halos won’t be making any public statements about potential candidates, though various reports have suggested the club is interested in names including Eric Chavez, Josh Paul, Brad Ausmus, and Joe Espada.
  • The Rangers are also looking for a new manager, and MLB.com’s T.R. Sullivan takes a broad look at several potential names that could surface as candidates.  Sullivan’s list includes internal choices (bench coach and interim manager Don Wakamatsu, third base coach Tony Beasley, first base coach Steve Buechele, Triple-A manager Jason Wood, and farm director Jayce Tingler), as well as several coaches with other teams as well as veteran ex-managers.  White Sox bench coach Joe McEwing received an interview the last time the Rangers were looking for a new manager, Sullivan notes, and could potentially be considered again.  Two names that won’t be part of the search are former Rangers managers Ron Washington and Buck Showalter.
  • A clubhouse skirmish reportedly involving Jean Segura and Dee Gordon was the most overt sign of how the Mariners’ chemistry seemed to falter alongside the team’s middling record down the stretch, as Seattle faded out of contention.  One of the team’s offseason priorities, TJ Cotterill of the Tacoma News Tribune writes, will be to address whether or not changes need to be made to improve the team’s internal focus and culture.  “I don’t know what comes first — the cart or the horse, winning and clubhouse chemistry, or losing and clubhouse strife,” GM Jerry Dipoto said, noting that some frustration and tension amongst teammates is natural when a team isn’t performing well.
  • In other AL West news from earlier today on MLBTR Trade Rumors, we passed on several Athletics-related notes.

Orioles Part Ways With Buck Showalter

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The Orioles won’t be retaining manager Buck Showalter, Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic reports (Twitter link).  Showalter will be leaving the organization entirely, and not taking on any other role in the front office.

Showalter’s contract was set to officially expire this month, and it was widely expected that the O’s would be making a change in the dugout in the wake of their nightmarish 115-loss season.  There was some speculation that Showalter could be offered another job to remain in the organization, and while Showalter and O’s management had talks about that possibility in the past, Eduardo A. Encina of the Baltimore Sun tweets that “discussions never got to that point” in Showalter’s meeting with team ownership today.

Buck ShowalterThe Orioles’ hideous 2018 performance dragged Showalter’s record as the team’s manager under the .500 mark, ending his tenure at 669-684.  While the Showalter era ended on a very sour note, however, it was under his leadership that the Orioles enjoyed a big turnaround.  After taking over as manager partway through the 2010 season, Showalter stewarded the team through one more losing season in 2011, extending Baltimore’s stretch of sub-.500 seasons to fourteen.  That all changed in 2012, when the O’s made a surprise run to the AL Wild Card game and defeated the Rangers to earn a slot in the ALDS.

2012 was the first five straight non-losing seasons (the club went 81-81 in 2015) for the Orioles, a stretch that included another wild card appearance in 2016 and an AL East title in 2014.  That 2014 team was Showalter’s best, a squad that won 96 games and defeated the Tigers in the ALDS to notch Baltimore’s first postseason series victory since 1997.  All three of Showalter’s playoff teams in Baltimore outperformed their Pythagorean win-loss record, which is a good indicator of Showalter’s ability in managing a team that often seemed to catch opponents and pundits by surprise.  While the O’s had such talents as Manny Machado and Adam Jones anchoring the lineup, plus the likes of Nelson Cruz or Chris Davis contributing big seasons at the plate, Showalter navigated his team to success with a focus on slugging, defense, and a quality bullpen, despite a constant lack of stability in the starting rotation.

Showalter has now concluded four different managerial stints with as many different teams, having previously stewarded the Yankees from 1992-95, the Diamondbacks from 1998-2000, and the Rangers from 2003-06.  In each of those cases, Showalter helped take a struggling team (or, in Arizona’s case, an expansion team) to success, so he could stand out as a logical candidate for teams looking for a new manager this offseason.  The Reds, for instance, seem to be targeting experienced names as they look to take the next step in their rebuild, so Showalter could potentially end up on their radar screen.  The Blue Jays, Twins, Rangers, and Angels are the other clubs with managerial vacancies, plus more openings could still emerge.  Of course, this assumes that the 62-year-old Showalter is still interested in managing, as he has been rumored to have interest in front office positions in the past.

Recent reports have indicated that Dan Duquette could stay on as Baltimore’s executive VP of baseball operations, and since Showalter was already in place before Duquette was hired by the Orioles in November 2011, this could be Duquette’s first chance at hiring his own manager (which is no small thing, as there have long been rumors of friction between Duquette and Showalter).  It remains to be seen exactly what the Orioles braintrust of Duquette, Brady Anderson and the Angelos family will look for in a new manager, though with the O’s just entering what could be a lengthy rebuild, it seems likely that a new skipper will need to be experienced in developing and teaching young players.

Photo courtesy of USA Today Sports Images

AL East Notes: Yankees, Showalter, Duquette, O’s, Brasier

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While many simply point to the Yankees’ payroll as the reason for their success, general manager Brian Cashman has spent over a decade quietly assembling an analytics department that rivals any in baseball, as Marc Carig and Eno Sarris detail in a fascinating piece for The Athletic (subscription required).  Current assistant GM Michael Fishman was hired as the Yankees’ first full-time analyst in 2005, and today, New York has an estimated 20 employees on their analytics team.  This ties them with the Dodgers as the largest such staff in baseball by Carig and Sarris’ count, though they note that teams are notoriously secretive in providing any details about their information-gathering practices.  The increased focus on analytical data has impacted all levels of the baseball operations and scouting departments, with the results apparent in how the Yankees have built their outstanding bullpen, all their pitchers’ high velocity and spin rate on their four-seam fastballs, and in the sheer number of current Major League players that the Yankees originally signed or drafted.

Here’s more from around the AL East…

  • We could know more about Buck Showalter’s future with the Orioles today, as The Athletic’s Dan Connolly (Twitter link) reports that the manager is expected to meet with ownership and the “sense is” Showalter will be offered some type of job to remain with the franchise.  It isn’t clear if that job would be a front office role or if Showalter could continue on as manager in the wake of Baltimore’s 115-loss season.
  • Questions also surround the job status of Orioles executive VP of baseball operations Dan Duquette, though Duquette didn’t give any hints about his situation, simply telling Dan Connolly (subscription-only piece) “that’s an appropriate question for ownership.”  Though Duquette’s contract is up at the end of October, he is still proceeding as if he’ll still be with the organization in 2019.  For instance, Duquette is considering joining at least five other Orioles talent evaluators in attending the showcase for top Cuban prospects Victor Victor Mesa, Victor Mesa Jr., and Sandy Gaston on Friday.  The O’s have been heavily linked to these youngsters due to the space in the team’s international bonus pool, which Connolly estimates as roughly $6MM available to be spent.
  • Hard-throwing Ryan Brasier has become a key contributor to the Red Sox bullpen, posting a 1.60 ERA, 4.14 K/BB rate and 7.8 K/9 over 33 2/3 frames for the AL East champs.  It has been quite the showing for the unheralded 31-year-old, who had just nine innings of MLB experience (with the Angels in 2013) prior to this season.  As The Athletic’s Chad Jennings (subscription required) writes, it was less than a year ago that a homesick Brasier was pitching in Japan and intent on returning to North America for the 2018 campaign.  He sent e-mails to all 30 MLB teams over the offseason in search of a job, finally landing a minor league deal with the Sox, and then excelling after his contract was selected in July.

AL East Notes: Sabathia, Sale, Yankees Pen, Showalter

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Yankees lefty C.C. Sabathia cost himself a $500K bonus during today’s matchup against the Rays after he was ejected for plunking catcher Jesus Sucre in retaliatory fashion.  As Steve Gardner of the USA Today details, Sabathia’s contract included incentive bonuses in the amount of $500K for eclipsing each of the 155, 165, 175, and 185 inning plateaus.  As it stood, Sabathia, who sat at 54 pitches in the 6th inning of game in which the Yankees led 11-0, was a near sure bet to hit the first mark, standing just six outs from the total at the time of the incident, though later he confessed ignorance regarding the matter in a soirée with reporters. The 38-year-old, who’s earned upwards of $250MM in his MLB career, turned in another solid campaign for the Bombers this season, comfortably outperforming his peripheral marks (4.22 FIP, 4.28 SIERA) for the third consecutive year on the way to 3.77 ERA, all while posting his highest strikeout rate since 2012.  Sabathia has already expressed a desire to pitch next season, and figures to be in line for a similar (one year, $10MM) deal to the one he inked before the ’18 campaign, should he choose to continue.

In other news from around the division…

  • Chris Sale’s radar gun readings are sounding alarm bells in Boston, where the left-hander sat at a career low 90.1 MPH with his fastball in Wednesday’s outing against the Orioles, the fourth in a series of diminished-velocity starts since his return from the DL after a bout with left shoulder inflammation.  For his part, Sale insists that a balky shoulder is not to blame, placing much of the onus on an out-of-sync lower body, as Alex Speier of the Boston Globe explains in an information-packed overview of the situation.  As Speier notes, Sale’s extension toward home plate has lessened a bit since his return from the disabled list, and is a good deal lower than the 6.19 ft average he established during his lights-out run of mid-summer.  A correlation between the extension figures and Sale’s overall performance is somewhat murky, though it’s certainly a mark worth monitoring as the Red Sox enter the 2018 postseason on the heels of their most successful campaign in franchise history.  Sale, whose $13.5MM option for 2019 will almost certainly be picked up before he hits Free Agency the following offseason, appears to have capped off a sensational 2018 campaign that saw the hurler post otherworldly marks across the board – his 1.97 FIP and 48 FIP- each rank in the top three in AL history during the live-ball era, and his 13.5 K/9 stands as the best total for a starter (min. 150 IP) since stats were first compiled in 1871.
  • Marc Carig of the The Athletic dives deep into the Yankees bullpen and the manner in which it’s deployed in a fabulously detailed piece that’s unquestionably a must-read for all Pinstripe fanatics.  The Yankee pen of ’18 ranks, per fWAR and K/9, as the best in baseball history, a fact that likely comes as little surprise to anyone who’s followed the incredible collection of talent assembled in the unit over the last few seasons.  Notably, Carig also canvasses the depths to which the unit is influenced by new analytics, making particular mention of rookie manager Aaron Boone’s number-crunching preferences: Boone, it seems, has bucked convention by eschewing previous batter/pitcher history and platoon advantages in favor of new-wave proprietary data based primarily on pitch types, spin rates, and recent velocity totals while aiming to deploy the best possible arm for the situation.  Though the Bombers have a firmly entrenched reputation as one of the league’s most data-hungry franchises, it no doubt helps to feature a cavalcade of relievers capable of setting down batters from both sides at almost any point throughout the game.
  • Orioles manager Buck Showalter, whose contract is set to expire at the end of a disastrous 2018 campaign, addressed his future status for the first time in an interview with reporters (link via Rich Dubroff of BaltimoreBaseball.com), praising the team for “how good they’ve been” and claiming that the uncertainty regarding his future job status is “[not that] difficult.”  Showalter, who led the club through a series of overachieving campaigns in the middle part of the decade, sports a 668-681 record with the O’s since his start in 2010, and figures to be in high demand this offseason should the club decide to move on.

Latest On Dan Duquette, Buck Showalter

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The Orioles are expected to move on from longtime manager Buck Showalter following the 2018 season, tweets Bob Nightengale of USA Today. That meshes with yesterday’s report from Fancred’s Jon Heyman, which called Showalter “likely” to be replaced.

Nightengale adds that general manager Dan Duquette is expected to receive an extension. It seems ownership was impressed by his handling of the team’s trade-deadline sell-off, which launched a full-blown rebuilding effort that had been contemplated — but not ultimately pursued — over the winter.

If the reports prove accurate, Showalter would be at least the second manager not asked back for  the coming season; the Rangers announced earlier this afternoon that they’ve fired Jeff Banister and will be searching for a replacement following the season. Showalter has been the Orioles’ skipper since taking over partway through the 2010 season, helping the team to three postseason berths — including an AL East division title in 2014. Baltimore steamrolled the Tigers in a clean sweep of the ALDS that season before being knocked out of the ALCS by the Royals.

As for Duquette, he’s been with the O’s since the 2011 season and helped to orchestrate those postseason appearances, though his fingerprints are also on this season’s all-time franchise-worst record. To be fair to Duquette, he has seemingly been hamstrung by ownership at times, as Peter Angelos reportedly had little interest in investing on the international amateur free agent market and was also said to be instrumental in bringing back Chris Davis on what could now be considered the worst contract in the sport.

Duquette, if extended, will be tasked with helping to oversee a rebuild not only of the club’s roster but also the team’s entire baseball operations department. Baltimore has lagged behind other teams in terms of international scouting, the implementation of analytics, the use of technology in player evaluation and more. Following this summer’s trade of franchise icon Manny Machado, Duquette vowed that the organization would invest in those areas as it embarked on its rebuilding process.

It’s worth emphasizing, of course, that nothing is yet set in stone. As Dan Connolly wrote yesterday at The Athletic (subscription link), “decisiveness has never been the strong suit at the top of the Orioles’ food chain.” The only aspect of the future that’s all but certain at this point, he wrote, is that Orioles VP Brady Anderson will continue to “remain in a position of influence.” Connolly ran through the possible permutations of outcomes involving Showalter and Duquette, guessing that both of those long-time leaders would end up on the move but noting the ongoing uncertainty.

Beyond that, Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic tweets that the O’s have made a pair of additions to the pro scouting department, hiring veteran evaluators Doug Witt and Rich Amaral. Witt, the brother of former big league pitcher Bobby Witt, is also the uncle of Bobby Witt Jr. — a potential top selection in the 2019 draft. Amaral, a former teammate of Anderson’s, will be a special assignment scout on both the pro and amateur side as well as a baserunning instructor, tweets Roch Kubatko of MASNsports.com. If those hires offer any clues as to the broader organizational direction, it’s not strictly clear just what they suggest.

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