The 2018 Phillies managerial search

[Austinfan]

I doubt Kingery or Hernandez have the arm to play 3B, there's a reason they were both moved to 2B.
Crawford and Galvis do.

[bigegypt0417]

I listened to most of his live interview on WIP late this afternoon.
He very much reminded me of Chip Kelly. He seemed to focus on the secondary and tertiary things, like daily grilling on what boiled down to nutrition.
I've seen no credible studies that say hand-eye coordination, or batting average goes up statistically significantly on the things he emphasized. He'd have benched Babe Ruth is my interpretation.
Machado, nor any other top end free agent is coming here with this guy at the helm.
He's character, with no objective data reinforcing his abilities as a manager.
I think he's a loon.

I read this and decided I needed to go read...I'm not sure how you figured all these things out with a single interview.

I read this and other articles and I liked what I saw. Does this translate to success? I'm not sure but I'm willing to give him a chance...

McCaffery: Analytics will not always manage to define Gabe Kapler

[donaldorc]

I liked this article, and it squared pretty much with what Kapler said in his presser. He didn't come off to me as a loon, but rather an articulate, intelligent man. If he can get his troops to buy into his plan(s), I think he will succeed. I'm certainly willing to give him the benefit of the doubt.

[fish]

I liked this article, and it squared pretty much with what Kapler said in his presser. He didn't come off to me as a loon, but rather an articulate, intelligent man. If he can get his troops to buy into his plan(s), I think he will succeed. I'm certainly willing to give him the benefit of the doubt.

I like taking the chance on being progressive with Kapler, but finding the right mix is going to be a 2-way street. In as much as Kapler has to be flexible and adaptable to different players, the roster is going to have to be flexible to have a group of guys who are willing to buy in. This doesn't sound like a plan that is going to be accommodating to anyone and everyone's personal preferences.

[bigegypt0417]

I liked this article, and it squared pretty much with what Kapler said in his presser. He didn't come off to me as a loon, but rather an articulate, intelligent man. If he can get his troops to buy into his plan(s), I think he will succeed. I'm certainly willing to give him the benefit of the doubt.

I like taking the chance on being progressive with Kapler, but finding the right mix is going to be a 2-way street. In as much as Kapler has to be flexible and adaptable to different players, the roster is going to have to be flexible to have a group of guys who are willing to buy in. This doesn't sound like a plan that is going to be accommodating to anyone and everyone's personal preferences.

I dont understand what you mean? he essenitally states in that article he has no one plan...

[zambonir]

Yeah I don't see any evidence of a rigid or dogmatic approach. Which has always been a bit of a false construct anyway IMO - the notion that the stats guys never do things based on instinct and observation, or vice-versa.

Plus in this case you have a stats guy who also played the game. I think he was hired as much for his people skills as his unconventional thinking and embrace of sabermetrics. Three years of running a minor league system means he's been in contact with (and apparently FaceTimeing) every kind of player and coach, personality-wise, age-wise, nationality-wise, skills-wise.

Plus, at the end of the day, the GM is the one setting the tone here. If there are players on this team who can't embrace his vision to the point where it's a problem, they won't be on the team. It's not like the roster is brimming with untouchable stars. Especially when there's essentially only one guy on the entire major league roster who Klentak actually brought to the Phillies himself.

[andyb]

We are probably not going to know much about Kapler and his style through interviews. Of course he is going to stress that he is open to either approach now. We will see what he does in practice. When we see Andrew Knapp leading off (after Cesar is traded) then we'll know he embraces the unconventional.

All of this is secondary IMO to whether he is a good manager though. It is much more about getting the most out of 25 players than it is about maximizing every advanced analytic strategy. We'll just need to see how the team performs to make a judgement about that.

[donaldorc]

Gabe Kapler will let his starting pitchers work into the seventh, eighth and ninth innings. And Gabe Kapler will drag his starting pitchers back to the dugout after 50 crooked throws.

This is what impressed me. This is a totally different approach to handling pitchers than we have seen for years. Indeed, this has been a frequent complaint from posters on this site.

(NB: the quote above is from the article, not from bigegypr0417.)