Phillies To Hire Joe Girardi as Manager

[jimbomill]

Oh, a case can be made for Charlie Manuel, who had lots of success in Cleveland, but many of us, yours truly included, wanted Jim Leyland instead and felt disappointed and not excited.

For shame, for shame - - - I was in that same boat, it can be good to be wrong

[andyb]

It is more the lack of improvement than lack of hustle. Motivated players will work harder to get better and accept roles to help the team. This is stuff that can't be quantified, but was at the heart of the arguments for Showalter and Baker. It would be interesting to see which managers consistently exceeded their projections from before the season if you could control for injuries. This was the heart of the case for Showalter and Baker - that their teams consistently won and were often better than they should have been. Girardi is probably more about meeting high expectations most years with the Yankees which can also be difficult.

Statistically it is probably a question we will never adequately answer:

What's a manager really worth?

[LoneStarPhan]

I have no problem with Girardi at all. I sure don't know if thing will go well in 2020 or not, but he has the experience that they wanted and has won in a major market in the past. It is good to get this done sooner rather than later. There is important work to be done between now and February to prepare for the successful 2020 season we all want.

[zambonir]

I assume we're not getting an actual press conference until after the WS

[HopeSpringsEternal]

Great news. He was my top pick.

Can Girardi pitch?

I'm sure he's at least as capable as Sean Rodriguez or Roman Quinn on the mound.

[flyers19rw]

"Good" managers are the ones that fulfill the roles that they need to take.
Dallas Green was a "good" manager for the Phillies when they won the WS because he was able to get a frenetic team to become focused on their tasks at hand. He wasn't lovable but he was effective. Charlie was not the greatest in game tactician. When given Jimi Williams to cover for that, he was "good" because his interpersonal skills brought good performance from his players.
The last managers that the Phillies have had missed the boat with what they needed to bring to their teams in order to get the best performances out of them. Sandberg looked lost most of the time. Mackanin struggled with some of the personalities on his club but wasn't a tactical disaster. Kapler didn't seem to have a feel for the game that was in front of him as well as its impact going forward with the schedule. Some of the players appreciated his freedom in the clubhouse but I suspect that it wasn't true with all of them; especially the LA guys.
From the reputation that he has made for himself over the years, Girardi is known as a pretty good planner/tactician both for a single game and over an entire season. He has a reputation for being a fair person with his players. Not a starched shirt but one who can step in and handle a player who needs some tough treatment. He has fared well with veterans and young players. Middleton likes him and so do the rest of the FO from what has been reported. Ego has never been an issue for him so he should easily fit into the culture of the FO and be a positive force there. As for his dealings with the press, there didn't seem to be many NY outlets with which he had issues. In fact some of the media personalities had his back when he was let go and questioned whether Boone was better person for the Yankees when that transition was made. He should prove to be an excellent hire.

[Philsmania]

It's on phillies.com now.

Girardi named Phils manager on 3-year deal

Phillies hire Girardi as manager

[EDmuch]

To me the biggest advantage of Girardi is that he can tell Skippy Klentak where to take his untethered analytics. I think Kapler’s weakness was he did not have enough clout to question Skippy’s way in which Skippy used analytics.

[zambonir]

I guess it's not surprising that Athletic subscribers would skew more new-school, comments here are much less positive about this move.

In a nutshell, it's a step backwards, the Yankees came to realize Girardi wasn't a suitable modern manager, Phillies failed to consider a lot of good candidates by defining what they wanted so narrowly, it's the usual "replace a player's manager with a tough guy" pattern.

Some truth to those things and some hyperbole (it's particularly ridiculous to think Girardi isn't okay with analytics, nor would he have been hired if he wasn't) but in any case interesting to see compared to other outlets.

Phillies' hiring of Joe Girardi as manager is a vote for...

[allentown]

I think Girardi is a very good choice. He was not my first choice, who was hired elsewhere just a couple days after the poll on this board was posted. With an inert MacPhail, close to neophyte Klentak, and an analytics department which is still feeling its way, a veteran manager with clout was a necessity. Kapler seems a smart guy with some good fresh ideas who likely will do well elsewhere, but he alternately seemed over his head or a puppet of Klentak/analytics department in his short Phillies stay. Probably will have the same sort of future success Francona had post-Philadelphia. Kapler was far from a finished product as a manager and his weaknesses and lack of clout did not work well or play at all well in Philly.

I don't think it really argues strongly against Girardi in Philly to say his usefulness with Yankees had passed. The Yankees organization and current situation is quite different from ours. Yankee's fans and ownership seem very unhappy that the Yanks are playing in WS this week. I would have been thrilled if the Phillies had the season the Yanks had this year. The Yankees are fretting a dry spell with no WC; Phillies phans are lamenting an almost as long stretch without a winning season.

Some of the younger wunderkind managers on the market today, even Kapler, will likely be a good choice for the Phillies 3-4 years from now.

[andyb]

Managing is really not about analytics these days. Management will dictate shifts and hire assistant coaches to teach things like spin rate. Managing is also less about the Xs and Os as all the data shows this is worth maybe a game or two a year.

I think it is more likely that Girardi's tenure with the Yankees ended because they did not meet high expectations. Maybe his relationship with some players frayed over time too. I highly doubt it is because the game's analytics passed him by. Like with Maddon, sometimes what you do stops working as well over time.

The one thing I like about Girardi is that he seems to manage more for the long term with less overuse in the bullpen. Sometimes you need to go with your 4th best reliever in May to allow your top two to be healthy in September. I think Kapler was awful in that respect, managing like each game was the World Series. Kapler did back off a bit on that in his second year, but lots of his roster decisions (not playing Williams for the first month) really seem to be because he was thinking short term rather than long term.

3-year deal seems a plus. We did not have to outbid teams and give him a 5-year deal apparently (or the Mets low-balled their offer).

[zambonir]

I haven't read anything but seems like the Mets probably didn't offer. He probably told them he was taking the Phillies job today if they didn't present him with one.

Will be interesting to find out what we're paying Girardi. I assume the Cubs aren't going to be paying Ross that much.

[flyers19rw]

Injuries happen in the game; there’s no doubt about it. However misuse of players can certainly lead to player breakdowns. There seemed to be too many times where Kapler was managing a particular game with no regard for the future. Perhaps it was because he felt that he was managing to save his job. None the less it wasn’t a good trait.
One other thing that stuck with me was the possible degree of involvement that he had in the LAD’s problems with young LA players during his time in their player development program. Some Latino players did not react well with the treatment that they felt they were getting here over the last two years.

[VoteForKalas]

This is clearly a Middleton hiring. It is the biggest joke that this process was detailed, collaborative and open. Middleton wanted a veteran hand, the only 3 people they interviewed were all veterans, and he got one.

I think this is the next step in Klentak being shown the door if we under perform again next season

MacPhail will likely hang on since most do not even know what he does or care what the role of President means.

He can always become the 69th special assistant to the GM if he gets fired too, lol

Sorry, but I have no trust in this organization and fear this will fail badly

[allentown]

Managing is really not about analytics these days. Management will dictate shifts and hire assistant coaches to teach things like spin rate. Managing is also less about the Xs and Os as all the data shows this is worth maybe a game or two a year.

The Managing in sentence one, coupled with Management in the next sentence makes this a bit confusing, but I will respond, based on the possibly erroneous assumption that I grasped the intended meaning: that the first 'managing' refers to the manager in the dug-out and the second Management to the higher ups -- largely Klentak and his analytics guys, but also perhaps the assistant GM and MacPhail.

I agree that the role of manager is changing and is more and more a responsibility to blend diverse personalities and abilities into an effective team which can go out and determinedly compete almost every game. Analytics does play more of a role and the manager is expected to give credence to what the analytical department says will work. I don't think this is a bad thing. I do think the Phillies analytics guys and higher ups have been able to push this too far, too fast, with insufficient experience, and I strongly suspect insufficient statistical verification that implementation of their suggestions/recommendations/outright orders -- call them what you will, actually are helping today (I strongly believe they definitely will help in future, skeptical in the here and now in Philly) An inexperienced manager and pitching coach enabled this too strong/too fast approach. That's a big reason I wanted an experienced manager and why I also want a pitching coach with a track record of being able to refine deliveries, teach a new pitch, and establish a rapport and trust with his pitchers.

I'm not going to denigrate the impact of a manager's strategic and tactical decisions if they can, as you suggest, add one or two wins a season. For many teams that has been the difference between playoffs and no playoffs. I hoped this year that the Phillies would be good enough to make the playoffs. That is also my hope for next season. If Klentak can build a more talented, healthier, better balanced 26-man roster and list of ready reserves in Allentown than we had in 2019 -- one which is capable of winning 88 -89 games under Kapler, then I will be thrilled if better in-game tactics and season-long strategic use of, particularly, pitchers adds another win or two and that gets us into the playoffs.

There is a danger with a baseball-side management and professional team which has near rookies is too many key positions, even if they are true believers in the newest baseball thinking, and sort-of, kind-of, have second-hand experience from talking to others in their prior organizations of the ins-and-outs and intricate workings of the proper ways to introduce the new thinking into an organization and its MLB team by somebody in the key position they have just been promoted to..

[allentown]

However misuse of players can certainly lead to player breakdowns.

Very true. In addition we recently fired our head trainer and there have been additional medical staff changes. This suggests another component to the picture.

As a team with an owner willing to spend, this is another area in which there is no cap on what we can spend to hire the best people to implement the best program.

[donaldorc]

I am fine with the Girardi hire. He was the best of the candidates they were considering. I am SO glad they didn't hire Dusty Baker, the pitcher abuser.

[zambonir]

Inexperience doesn't seem to be a problem for other teams that have done what the Phillies did. Rookie managers and baby-faced Ivy League GMs have been thriving in MLB for well over a decade (heck, Girardi himself was a Kapleresque hire at the time, even though he squeezed in that one year with the Marlins). It's got to be something else. Namely, either they picked the wrong people or the right people can't succeed in this particular organization.

My overall feeling on Girardi is that we don't actually know if he added one or two wins to his teams, or got them to play hard. Because he managed the Yankees. We also don't really know if Kapler added or subtracted wins. Maybe that was a 79-win team with another manager (the run differential says they were worse than their record, though that's certainly not all on the manager either).

But I'm sure Girardi will do all right. The x factor is really the thing that some people view as a strength and others as a weakness - who's really in charge?

It won't be boring. And with big changes for so many other teams the trade market won't be either.

[schillingfan]

To me the biggest advantage of Girardi is that he can tell Skippy Klentak where to take his untethered analytics. I think Kapler’s weakness was he did not have enough clout to question Skippy’s way in which Skippy used analytics.

No need to call players or other Phillies personnel snarky names like Skippy.

[julio]

Oh, I don’t know; maybe EDmuch just wanted to make a statement...about Klentak, or about himself?