Interesting analysis on Washington. The Cruz bench seems crazy, especially after we got to see what he could do in the Home Run Derby. I believe our failures in the postseason 2000-2003 should be attributed to management’s inability to instill more discipline in the care free team. Game 5 in 2000 we were young and the bad 1st inning did us in but we showed a lot of fight to get back in that game. Waxing Clemens earlier in the series showed our potential. But 2001-03 was not a case of bad luck as much as nerves, poor fundamentals, and immaturity. Someone should have been teaching these guys to grow up. Macha and Beane are to blame as well as a youthful front office. Too much reliance on a care-free clubhouse and not enough on the importance of being disciplined. Look at the highlights: Jeremy Giambi’s failure to slide G3 01, booting the ball all over the field G4 01, more sloppy play with a chance to clinch at the Dome in G4 02, giving up in the 9th of G5 02 allowing the Twins to tack on runs, the baserunning gaffes of Tejada and Byrnes in Fenway 03, Hudson and Zito going out in Boston 03 and getting into a fight. Add to that the philosophy of NEVER putting pressure on the opposing team’s defense by hit and running, stealing and it was an unhealthy mix. The playoffs are a crapshoot to some degree but that doesn’t explain away all the five game losses.

P.S. Why so enamored with Buck? He’s shown no power for a corner outfielder and average range and speed. Nice arm but that’s about it. Our player development has been very weak, especially with everyday players.

I think the best manager in the MLB is Mike Scioscia. Joe Torre’s right behind him.

To get to your last point first, for my money the best manager is Jim Leyland. He is an old school, no nonsense, say it like it is, type of manager, and he is tough and expects his players to be tough. I don’t think the recent vintage A’s know what tough is!!

 I just wish Beane could “rent” Leyland for a few weeks so Geren could catch on, and the players would start earning their salaries. Even those A’s making the MLB minimum are making, what $35,000 a month, but with Geren’s lack of near sightedness he sees a glass 1/4 full and thinks it is 1/4 empty.

I don’t fully agree with your view of Wash, particularly with the emphasis on the recent benching of Cruz, but as a leader of he is still head and shoulders above Geren.

My perception of Wash has improved greatly, as I thought of him as a great coach, but was never convinced that he could lead a team. But he surely can. As to Macha: no change in my feelings to him, but would still rate him above Geren.

by the way, the answer to what we want in a manager is LEADERSHIP, not, as I mentioned in a recent post, a guy who alternately stares down at his lineup card/taking notes card and looks up with that deer in the headlights look, trying to figure out what is just about to hit him broadside.

it seemed from reports that he faced some challenges to his leadership while trying to change the clubhouse culture. Since that time some players are no longer there, and others have been signed or have come up in the system, with Wash in charge. His teams have improved defensively, if you take all 2 1/2 years, and have also improved in the standings.

Today they are contending for the AL west championship. They may still not have enough to win the division. However, I think it’s fair to say that they Rangers have improved with Wash as manager.

Passion, presence, determination. Traits developed and honed from early in life – not just when you get an interview to be a major league manager. Guys I would interview (and I certainly can only judge these fellows from their on field play plus coaching stints and broadcast interviews): Carney, Stew, Bobby Valentine, Mickey Hatcher, Tony Pena, Mattingly, Kirk Gibson. Yes, a few ex Dodgers there but also current coaches I like. To repeat the infamous Mr. Ratto from yesterday the A’s are Zombies and are very close to sliding into total anonymitity/oblivion a la the Nationals. Of all these guys above I like Valentine and “know” him best having read one of his books. He cares and doesn’t ever get complacent.

What I most want is for a manager to harness the intensity, focus, spirirt and energy that the team, and component individuals, have to offer — the ability piece is one only the players can bring, but good managers, IMO, constantly challenge and inspire players to reach for the right side of the bell curve that is their potential performance.

There are many different ways and styles managers can have to accomplish this. Jim Leyland is prickly, Tony LaRussa intense, Joe Torre paternal, Mike Scioscia "We’re in this together; I’ve got your back," but they share a common trait: They demand your best, believe you can do better, and they will call you on it when they see less than the best you have to offer. And it won’t take them 85 games to speak up.

You can see it in his eyes, in his body language, and hear it in his words after most games. Yes he knows baseball; he did a very good job at AAA; did a good job there teaching young kids. But what we are seeing now (and Beane is not) is a guy running scared with the look of indecision and doubt growing daily. I am sure the players see it and feel it also.

Excellent points on Mike Maddux and how he has changed the staff and on the Nellie Cruz thing. Sitting a guy like that for a planned 4 days is just crazy…..I have to think there is more to that story than just Marlon Byrd, Andruw Jones and David Murphy are hot. Andruw is fortunate he hit the 4 homers last week…because they happened to be the only 4 hits he had on his way to a 4-24 week.

I didn’t know that about Wash. I wonder how AN would be treating him if he had done something similar with us? Benching an all-star while going with the hot hand. My wish is for Texas to come in 2nd, Wash gets fired and hired as the A’s head coach. IMO, he has better leadership and teaching skills that our young players sorely need.

When it comes to what type of manager you want it depends on where your team is. I think the A’s need a detail-oriented manager who can teach the game and hold the the players accountable for their mistakes.

Bob Geren might be a better fit for a team that is established and just needs a manager to get out of the way.

Let’s not forget that Geren had some tough shoes to fill (from a wins-and-losses standpoint) at a time when the warranty on Beane’s Midas touch was running out (in terms of position player development). That said, I do agree with Nico and others that there are things that a manager can and should do- even a manager who has been dealt a lousy hand- to ensure that a culture of losing doesn’t become long-term.

I am sure Geren, like every other manager or head coach, has to realize the hot seat he is on (unless maybe he’s not on the hot seat at all). I don’t know. I’m kind of torn.

A manager needs time to instill a philosophy, to weed out the bad, to take ownership of the clubhouse. That can’t happen if he’s looking over his should waiting for the axe to fall. (Hmm, like Al Davis’ former coaches?) So maybe in that regard, Geren deserves a chance. But for how long?

Loved Nick’s comments. Thing about Williams- besides the fact that the talent was already in place- was that he held players accountable (whenever Finley let him anyway). Upon his arrival he stressed and demanded fundamentals. His players didn’t always love him, but they played like hell for him.

Not sure how much Dark contributed. I think I could have managed the ‘74 A’s, who were simply on auto-pilot. Then again Dark’s team won 98 games in ’75, the year after Catfish left.

Martin was in a win-win. The team before him lost 108 games. All he had to do was get a bunch of kids who were tired of being laughed at to buy into his system. OK, maybe it’s not as easy as it sounds.

Can’t really comment on the Wash thing without knowing the facts, but here’s a guy who was given the shot to put a plan in place and the time to execute it. I, for one, think he’s done great over there, but am hardly surprised.

Every great team ever had fights in the dugout. For some reason Beane has always been against that, going against the “head cases” (no kidding we made the playoffs because of MB, then got rid of him when he got too ignorant). This can go both ways though, Lou Pinella doesnt guarantee playoff success, but Tony LaRussa almost does. This is why LaRussa was the greatest manager we ever had in Oakland, he’s just non-traditional or quirky enough to be a presence, but hes not abrasive or over the top like Guillen or Lou. He’s an excellent tactician and maybe the best user of a bullpen the game has ever seen.

With the Ron Washington stuff, he clearly was the scapegoat for some really poor upper management decisions like making Cruz wait when he was clearly ready and trading away their best SP in years who was proving he could pitch well in TX (an outright rarity) for another hitter, who’s a good hitter, true, but this is TX and anyone can hit there, really. LUCKILY (for them, ugh) at this point they have pulled off the biggest r@pe trade ever in the haul they got from Atlanta so its a “no duh” they are playing better now because they got like 17 blue chip prospects for Teixiera and they are all coming up now. This happens so often in baseball where the manager is apparently “in charge” of getting hitters to hit and pitchers to pitch, where it should be on the player, 100%. Willie Randolph didnt deserve to get fired and neither did Manny Acta (by the way, go to firejoemorgan.com and search “Acta”, he’s been fired because apparently he’s too ahead of his time. Id kill to have him come in here and make a starting lineup based of OPS, ban bunting and stealing altogether or something like that.)

Geren is just an awful, awful manager because we went and got KNOWN talents and he went out of his way to not figure out that they were failing, such as to bat Out-Cab in the #2 hole all season, and Im guessing he was a part of whoever told Cust to forget about walks, and to quit watching pitches and swing away, therefore taking away what made Cust so valuable in the first place. The lineup on opening day should have went Sweeney-Cust-Holliday-Giambi-Buck-Suzuki-Ellis-Cabrera-3B. I dont think its ever really gone like that all year.

The pitching part I have no problem in and actually think he’s doing a great job in saving the young arms, and its not his fault Springer+Casilla are stinkin it up this year, but the offense was always the problem and he’s only added to that, not help it. A good manager would change the starting lineup based off slumps and surges, Geren has made us watch O-Cab go 0-5 and watching a max of 2 pitches per AB so many times this year its made my head hurt.

We should have kept Ron Washington. Period.

Unpopular opinion here, I know, but I think the best manager in MLB is Mike Scioscia.

on Chronicle Live tonight at 9 & 11 pm, CSN Bay Area, just trying to hip everyone to that fact in case you didn’t know =)

As per what I want in a manager, I’d like someone who at the end of the day isn’t so available to criticism in such an obvious way, i.e. someone who wasn’t the GM’s best man or whatever. The worst part of all of this isn’t the results (because I still believe the results are just temporary and a couple of years from now these pitchers will carry the day and the team back to some semblance of its former prominence with the added attraction of anything that might outperform a single-A offense on board by then), but how easy it is to dismiss and how foolish it makes the franchise look… and a foolish-looking franchise doesn’t help to attract the kind of exemplary staff (managers, coaches or players) that takes your team where it needs to go, which in this case is at least out of the current pathetic oh-well-at-least-we’re-better-than-the-“Natinals” territory which makes me ashamed to wear this jacket right now and has me thinking about putting a green-and-gold-gilded bag on my head when I go to a game.

By this I mean the facility BB left himself open to look like a nepotistic schmuck making personally-biased decisions (that is, ones based on personal relationships and not sound & objective analysis of those decisions’ impact on the product) where once sober baseball logic and innovatory staff-search procedures held sway. For me the dopiest thing BB did was allow Rene Lachemann to escape… jeez he should be our manager because when that guy’s around is the only time we have a prayer of winning squat but high draft choices, I swear. Those notebooks of charts he kept, which were the Holy Oracle of where every batter in MLB hits every pitch of what variety on every conceivable count? That’s the only damn reason we ever won a-n-y-t-h-i-n-g, at least in this decade anyway…. remember all those inning-ending, laser-speed 150 mph line drives the other team would hit with 2 outs and the bases loaded, right to Chavez or the outfielders or whoever? They were there to turn all those 3-run doubles into inning-ending outs for no other reason than because Lach put ‘em there, believe it. Of course, for the last time we won the ring (and went to 3 straight WS) I needn’t remind you who the 3rd base coach in fact was, need I? Lach actually began managing — in 1973 — in the Oakland minor league system.

It shocks, astounds, amazes and blows my funky mind that such a stat-heavy, numbers-n-probability -obsessed gaggle o’geeks like BB and his pals wouldn’t have made the obvious correlation of what effect those charts had and the general impact of the presence of Lach and how well he really fit in with that kind of on-field extension of observable and applicable statistic models in his approach like that. When you add the idea that (and this is more key to how we do on the field than a lot of us, IMO, really acknowledge) we are the only team in MLB that plays on a field with (because of the immense foul ground) almost 1 1/2 times more playable surface area than the others, with the resultant many-more-chartable-and-maybe-catchable balls that generates in our yard, and we really gotta have someone back on that case if we’re doing all we can to win, I think.

I could sit here and run down the million-and-six pitchers, from Dennis Eckersley to Kenny Rogers, who had tremendous success on the Coli field in some not-insignificant part because they were pitchers who sawed off a lotta guys around the plate and provoked/induced tons of weak little side pops that would have been in the seats in any normal facility but were caught for outs here. If it sounds whacko, take a second and think of the look on Matt Hollidaze face everytime he fouls out to first or third, and how if you could see his inner thoughts at those moments writ large on the Diamondvision, he’d be saying (between expletives) that he wishes Jesus would come rescue his from what he surely must believe by now is the anti-Coors Field of his worst contract year nightmares.

I know this sounds like myopic, facile geekery and I am surely not implying that this is the be-all and end-all of what we need to focus on to get back on the right track, but IMO it’s maybe more essential than it might appear at first blush, and it sure doesn’t hurt that this very experienced baseball manager guy, who has already worked for us several times with immense success, is one of the leading proponents of the approach and would in all likelihood be available (he coaches in the minors for Colorado now) to take the reins from Geren, I am just sayin ;)

Rickey. Henderson.

http://www.faketeams.com/2009/7/16/951248/mlb-trade-rumors-why-the-new-york

I still think Beane will have a steep asking price…

Heavy tuna, heavy onions, heavy!!!!