The 2018 Phillies managerial search

Squire 2017-10-13 15:10:57 UTC #41

Bowa out of coaching and named (wait for it) Senior Advisor to the GM. The amount of Senior Advisors and Special Assistants the GM is comical

Philsmania 2017-10-13 15:19:52 UTC #42

We are actually down a couple with Green's passing and Wade leaving the organization. Speaking for myself, I am glad to see Bowa stay around.

Anyway, here's the official announcement.

bigegypt0417 2017-10-13 15:32:09 UTC #43

Seems pretty common across the league...

DurhamBull 2017-10-13 16:34:36 UTC #44

I'm glad to see him stay around and also glad to know he's out of the running for manager.

zambonir 2017-10-13 17:24:49 UTC #45

It's largely semantics, if they wanted to call some of these guys scouts or coaches or instructors they could, but even some of the scouts have fancy titles. While you could certainly send Bowa to look at players I imagine his main point of contact will be Joe Jordan if he spends time in the minor league system.

When the Phillies are finally in the playoffs again I could see Bowa and Charlie both being involved in opposition scouting reports (via video which is all the Phillies do anyway now), suggesting fielding alignments and breaking down hitters, respectively.

There is another good article about the managerial search at the Athletic, predicts a first-time manager though Redmond was mentioned, largely based on the original rumor I'd say.

The other seemingly confirmed candidate for an interview is the Indians pitching coach. DiSarcina and Bogar continue to be in the rumor mill. Here's Philly Voice:

Squire 2017-10-13 17:56:36 UTC #46

Perhaps its common. Still seems like a joke to me. Phillies now have 2 Assistant GMs, 4 senior advisers to the GM (Gillick, Manuel, Looper, Bowa) and 5 Special Assistants to the GM (Braun, Kerfeld, Velandia, Mackanin, Minnitti)

zambonir 2017-10-13 18:21:42 UTC #47

The Phillies are actually light on Assistant GMs IMO. Wolever and Chuck Lamar both held that title, Almaraz and Jordan don't. Benny Looper also held it and was replaced by Ned Rice, but he's the only person Klentak has hired at that level. Of course the old infrastructure didn't have a baseball man above the GM.

The Dodgers have way more of course. Lasorda and Newcombe are "advisors to the chairman." Friedman and Zaidi. Josh Byrnes is a Senior VP and Alex Anthopolous is a VP. Then you've got Gerry Hunsicker, Pat Corralles, Raul Ibanez, all special assistants to the GMs, and Aaron Sele and Jose Vizcaino, Special Assistants, Player Personnel. It looks like Coletti is actually gone, but Stan Kasten runs the whole show (essentially separating the job that MacPhail does between him and Friedman. But he was never a baseball operations guy, only hoops).

The Dodgers probably have twice the scouting and analytics people too, including one Andrew MacPhail.

andyb 2017-10-13 18:39:52 UTC #48

Mickey Callaway, Cleveland pitching coach, seems to be getting some buzz the last couple of days:

42- Really good results on the major league staff recently.

If I had to guess the Phillies would love to get a first-time manager in their 40s that is analytically inclined or at least open if they had their first choice.

zambonir 2017-10-13 18:54:34 UTC #49

Zolecki has now also confirmed the Callaway report.

The hilarious thing about that Athletic article I posted above is Cooney included Amaro and Bowa as "1000 to 1" candidates, just to be funny and shoot down the report yet again, and someone in the comments still freaked out.

Also the Philly Voice article talks about Jim Benedict as a potential pitching coach or instructor. He was with the Pirates for a lot of their pitching success (though Searage was and is their actual pitching coach).

Philsmania 2017-10-13 20:19:22 UTC #50

zambonir:

Zolecki has now also confirmed the Callaway report.

m.phillies.mlb.com

Phillies to interview Indians' Mickey Callaway

PHILADELPHIA -- The Phillies plan to interview Indians pitching coach Mickey Callaway as part of their managerial search. A source Thursday confirmed the Phillies' intentions. Callaway could interview next week. The Cleveland Plain Dealer first...

The hilarious thing about that Athletic article I posted above is Cooney included Amaro and Bowa as "1000 to 1" candidates, just to be funny and shoot down the report yet again, and someone in the comments still freaked out.

Also the Philly Voice article talks about Jim Benedict as a potential pitching coach or instructor. He was with the Pirates for a lot of their pitching success (though Searage was and is their actual pitching coach).

I like the idea of hiring Searage's understudy as pitching coach.

The only qualm I have with Valendia and Callaway is their lack of managing experience, although Callaway does have collegiate head coaching experience. In fact, I am often surprised we don't see coaches move from the collegiate baseball coaching ranks to the professional managing ranks, either ML or MiL, more often. Better pay in the NCAA as a head coach of a Southeast Conference, ACC or Pac 12 program than as a minor league manager? To get back to my original point though, being an effective manager is as much about handling players as it is strategy and philosophy and hiring someone who has no managerial experience would be something of a leap of faith in that regard.

zambonir 2017-10-13 23:54:49 UTC #51

Since it is paywalled here's the nut of the Athletic article:

There have been 46 full-time managers hired in the major leagues since the beginning of the 2010 season. 27 of those jobs have ended up going to first-time managers

Eleven teams currently employ managers who are in their first MLB managerial job. Only one of those – Mike Matheny of the St. Louis Cardinals — was hired prior to 2013. Ten of those 27 managers eventually led their team to postseason play.

Of the 19 managers who had previous MLB managing experience hired by teams since 2010, 14 of them have made the playoffs with that team– including six from this year’s 10-team playoff field.

In many minds within the game, baseball managers are nothing more than an extension of the man in the general manager’s office.

I think that last part is pretty crucial though, the younger generation of GMs wants a manager who speaks the same language and has the same philosophy. But yeah they need to actually be able to manage - personalities not tactics - too.

Dirk41 2017-10-14 08:46:29 UTC #52

Exactly how much do these assistants make and what specifically do they do??? It seems like the greatest job in the world

zambonir 2017-10-14 17:53:28 UTC #53

It's a sweet gig, for sure! And, for most of these guys (at least, the likes of Gillick and Manuel), part-time. Mackanin is probably just getting his 2018 managerial salary, spread out into a second year (maybe he got some kind of lump sum too).

There's definitely a lot of ego/ceremony behind it. Like, for what Larry Bowa is probably going to be doing - he certainly isn't afraid of work - he could have a lowly title like "special instructor." But because he's Larry Bowa, Phillies legend and former manager, you get to be higher on the organizational flow chart, even though the guy 20 people down probably does more important full-time work.

andyb 2017-10-16 14:42:27 UTC #54

Red Sox interviewing Alex Cora. Cafardo had linked Cora to the Phillies a week ago. Astros bench coach who has managing experience in the Puerto Rican league.

David_Criss 2017-10-16 14:44:56 UTC #55

Amaro on the Tigers radar, too.

Philsmania 2017-10-16 17:37:36 UTC #56

Too? The story that the Phillies were considering him was pretty much debunked.

zambonir 2017-10-16 17:41:37 UTC #57

This where the rumors start to show themselves as just rumors, or not. I don't think anyone ever reported the Phillies were interested in Cora, they (Cafardo?) just included him on a list of likely candidates. If he's getting three interviews before the Phillies get to him - including a team that was in the playoffs, while his own team remains in the playoffs - it would seem he's not in the mix here, but we'll see.

The Heyman rumor is hard to parse too. Says Amaro is on "a list," says seven guys are "in the mix." Will they all get an interview? As has often been noted writers sometimes float this stuff as a favor to teams, agents, or candidates.

But I do think we'll see Amaro manage in the league. It's like the perfect good old boy hire that you can still sell as non-traditional (college boy, not on old white guy, front office experience) despite what we know about his time as GM. One assumes that Amaro and Al Avila know each other well, two longtime front office guys who came up in the NL East together (though Avila left Florida long ago).

Squire 2017-10-19 17:13:30 UTC #58

Heyman says we interviewed Chip Hale

zambonir 2017-10-19 17:44:46 UTC #59

was just reading as well

California_Dreamin 2017-10-19 20:30:57 UTC #60

Report from NY Daily News is that Red Sox will name Alex Cora to be their manager following either the playoffs or World Series. Sure seems like Ausmus has a leg up on the Phillie job to me.