If someone, anyone, can explain the Arizona Diamondbacks to me, I would welcome it and appreciate it. To me, the Diamondbacks are inexplicable.
Let’s go back to 2011 to try to understand how the Diamondbacks have functioned. That year, with Kirk Gibson and Kevin Towers in their first full seasons as manager and general manager, respectively, the team won the National League West championship and lost the division series of the playoffs to Milwaukee in the 10th inning of Game 5.
Two consecutive .500 seasons and a 64-98 season followed, and Gibson and Towers were gone. In their places for the 2015 season were Chip Hale as manager and Dave Stewart as general manager. But the Diamondbacks also had made a significant addition.
Tony La Russa, a Hall of Fame manager with no front-office experience, was brought in as chief baseball officer, a new title for the franchise, and it was he who hired Stewart. The two men had become close in Oakland, where Stewart amassed 84 victories in four successive 20-win seasons under La Russa.
Together, La Russa and Stewart hired De Jon Watson as senior vice president for baseball operations, so impressed with him that they were prepared to recommend him to clubs that were looking for a general manager.
Two seasons later, the first so-so (79-83), the second miserable (69-93), the Diamondbacks had made no improvement so Stewart was fired and Watson was let go without his option being picked up. La Russa? He was retained, but with different duties and an altered title. He has gone from chief baseball officer to chief baseball analyst.
While the Diamondbacks were clearly displeased with the efforts of the people they hired two years ago, Derrick Hall, the club president and C.E.O, did not single out La Russa, Stewart or Watson for blame, obviously letting the club’s actions speak for themselves.
In response to the question “what went wrong,” Hall said, “First and foremost we had injuries. The injury bug hit us. At the end of the day, we didn’t pitch. Both starting pitching and relief pitching. It just snowballed on us. Everybody in our rotation had subpar seasons.”
“Not what their history indicated, starting with Zack, who didn’t necessarily look like himself,” Hall said of Zack Greinke, who got a 6-year contract for $206.5 million, then posted a 13-7 record with a 4.37 earned run average. “I think he’d be the first to tell you that.
“Obviously, a few had breakout seasons. But the fact that our starting pitching was so inconsistent it trickled down to our bullpen. We overused the bullpen. That’s why we focused early on on new leadership in the front office. But moreso beyond that, improved metrics behind the plate and better defense around the field to get back to athleticism on defense.”
OK, but if the front-office performance was not acceptable, why fire Stewart and Watson but retain La Russa, who led the front office?
“It was a three-headed monster,” Hall said. “We had three people who were running baseball operations. They would be the first to tell you that there were too many cooks in the kitchen first and foremost. We knew we were going to make changes in two of the positions, maybe three.
“We had long conversations with Tony throughout the evaluation process. After several conversations our desire was to keep him and have him be part of our decision on the new general manager with Ken (owner Kendrick) and I. The general manager was going to make a decision on whether he or she wanted Tony to be around.”
Let’s pause for a moment and think about what Hall just said. He wanted La Russa around to help select the new general manager and then the new general manager would decide if he wanted La Russa to stay. Maybe this is why the Diamondbacks have dug themselves into such a deep hole.
But let us continue. “We felt strongly after hiring Mike Hazen that it was the right move to keep Tony,” Hall said. “It was a skill set that Mike didn’t have around him. He brought in Amiel and Jared and some others,” referring to front-office aides Amiel Sawdaye and Jared Porter.
But Hall could not pass up having “Tony as part of his leadership team with his experience and the influence he could have differently in uniform on the field working with the major league manager and the minor league managers. We just felt that was a piece that we still needed just in a different role if that makes sense.”
Not to me, it doesn’t, but it’s Hall’s team, and he can do what he wants with it.
“Tony’s been fantastic,” Hall said. “He’s embraced the role. He’s been great for Mike. Mike loves having him around. We’re at the game now. I’m looking down. They’re sitting together.”
Is it or could it became awkward? I asked Hall. “It’s not awkward, not in the least.”
A year or two from now, when the Diamondbacks, announce another change in the front office, maybe someone will have enough honesty to say, “Boy, has this been awkward.”
What does La Russa say about all of this? I asked him.
“It’s very similar responsibility in the area I feel I have the most experience, which is observing and analyzing the way our team is playing and the players that are part of it,” he said. “What I’m not doing is I was placed below the C.E.O. and was involved in amateur and professional scouting. What I did there was put together the best team I could. But with Mike Hazen coming in, he’s more the traditional general manager. He has responsibility for all parts of the organization, including selecting the manager and trades. I don’t have that responsibility any more. That’s good with me because what I’m doing is what I have the most experience with, evaluating players and teams.”
In other words, if I may interpret, La Russa never should have taken the job two years ago, when observers were questioning why the Diamondbacks were hiring a manager to do a general manager’s job.
“The question I’ve been asked and I’ve asked myself is why I just didn’t leave,” he said candidly.
I asked that question at the time La Russa was hired, and I also asked why he didn’t leave the Diamondbacks with Stewart and Watson, considering that he brought them into the organization.
“It definitely was a consideration because they were my choices,” La Russa said on the telephone last week. “It’s natural to assume that you’re part of that team. What I made clear at the end is you gotta be who you are. Unless I was forced to, it would be impossible for me to leave after such a disappointing year.
“I think guys like De Jon and Stew understand that. I just talked to Stew before I called you. They understood but I could see where other people might not. It’s probably an unusual position to be in, but if they wanted me, I wanted to be a part of this team.
“I made it very clear at the end of the season that if the last competitive situation I was ever in was the 2016 Diamondbacks, it would haunt me because a lot of things went wrong, tough breaks and injuries.
“We were not effective and we went from two, three under .500 with a lot of potential to 20 some under .500. Anybody who knows me totally understood, including Dave Stewart, who was the general manager. He’s no longer with us.
“It was something the owners and the C.E.O. knew I could provide. I didn’t have to walk away from that situation. I wanted to compete with this group another time. Some people haven’t understood that, but I made that very clear. I can’t leave unless they tell me they don’t want me.”
Most general managers and managers who are fired don’t have that option. Neither are most fired chief baseball officers asked to help select what in effect is his successor.
“I’m here and I have a good relationship with Mike,” La Russa said of the new general manager. “He put together a really good front office.” La Russa likes the new manager, too, Torey Lovullo. “I’m beginning to know him,” La Russa said. “We’re building the kind of trust and respect you need to work together.”
Meanwhile, what is La Russa’s responsibility as chief baseball analyst?
“It’s entirely using my years to evaluate how we’re playing individually or as a team,” the 72-year-old La Russa said, “and with considerably more attention to our player development than I had the last couple years. It’s doing the same thing, evaluating and analyzing.”
HAIL, THE UGLY AMERICANS
American major league baseball players are arrogant and selfish. They have no respect for anyone else in the game.
I’m talking about Mike Trout, Bryce Harper, Clayton Kershaw and a bunch of others, all those superstars who opted not to play for the United States in the World Baseball Classic.
Miguel Cabrera, Jose Altuve, Felix Hernandez, Carlos Gonzalez and Salvatore Perez are playing for Venezuela, Carlos Correa is wearing Puerto Rico’s uniform, Adrian Gonzalez is playing for Mexico, Jose Quintana is pitching for Colombia and Xander Bogaerts and Didi Gregorius are teammates with the Netherlands. And then there is the Dominican Republic roster that is loaded with major leaguers: Robinson Cano, Nelson Cruz. Jose Bautista, Adrian Beltre, Gregory Polanco, Manny Machado, Jose Reyes, Starling Marte, Carlos Santana, Edinson Volquez, Jeurys Familia, Fernando Rodney.
The Dominican Republic is the W.B.C.’s defending champion, winning the title in 2013 after Japan won the first two tournaments. When you see the Dominican roster for this year’s tournament, it is no surprise why the Dominicans are expected to win again.
They enhanced their chances of winning again this year when they overcame a 5-0 U.S.A. lead Saturday night and won, 7-5. Based on the results of Sunday’s games in Miami, there was a chance that U.S.A. wouldn’t get beyond Sunday. The Dominican team assured itself of advancing.
The Dominican Republic is a proud country, and its players are an integral part of that pride. They can do nothing more to boost the island’s collective ego than to beat the United States in the W.B.C.
The U.S. players have no similar incentive. They know that collectively they are the best players in the game and winning the W.B.C. would not enhance their egos. Failing to win would not undermine that status either.
That’s where the U.S. arrogance enters the W.B.C. picture.
The selfishness of U.S. non-players comes in their failure to understand the meaning of the event. In staging and promoting the event, M.L.B. wants to generate greater global interest and revenue.
Players have a huge stake in that effort, though many are too dumb to realize it, because the more revenue the owners acquire the higher salaries they will pay to players. It is a well-established practice that with few exceptions owners pass on to their players any extra money they acquire. They can’t help themselves.
Players should also realize that their own union co-sponsors the W.B.C. In fact, the union pushed for the event’s creation before the commissioner’s office got on board.
Ticket revenue for W.B.C. games is the least of the revenue M.L.B. hopes to gain from the W.B.C. Merchandise in the form of caps and shirts is far more lucrative.
By declining to play, baseball’s best players are also depriving their major league teammates of a chance to beat the best. They can dress in the same clubhouse on a daily basis during the season, but the best U.S. players are too good to compete against the foreigners.
They have excuses. They are part of a major league team and owe their allegiance and efforts to it. They need to be with their teammates. They don’t want to break up spring trainings. And the most ridiculous of all – they don’t want to risk injury, as if no one ever gets hurt in spring training, and a player can’t pull a hamstring running on a spring training field the way he might on a W.B.C. field.
Just under 60 years ago William Lederer and Eugene Burdick wrote a novel titled “The Ugly American.” It described Americans’ bad behavior in foreign lands. These many years later the phrase returns with a new meaning. The major leaguers who refused to play in the World Baseball Classic are the new ugly Americans.
DARK HORSE GETS BLACKED OUT AT HOME
The Israeli team is knocking them off as fast as they show up in the dugout across the field in the World Baseball Classic, but the team apparently isn’t getting much recognition in Israel.
The Israelis won all three of their games in the opening round, then began Round 2 play with a 4-1 victory over Cuba Sunday. One victory in their remaining two games against Japan and the Netherlands would send Israel into the semifinals.
The team’s surprising success, though, hasn’t generated enthusiasm among Israelis, who for the most part are not baseball fans. The relatively few fans are immigrants from the United States.
According to an article in the Times of Israel, the team’s games have not been broadcast on the national sports channel and have been mentioned only briefly in the media.
The newspaper reported: “Most Israelis likely aren’t even aware they have a national team or understand it is competing against the world’s best in the sport’s most prestigious global event.”
The newspaper also reported that the country’s sports minister was asked if she planned to travel to South Korea, where Israel’s first-round games were scheduled.
The newspaper reported that the sports minister, Miri Regev, had no idea what was happening there. When pressed in a radio interview, she said she knew a baseball team existed but not much more.
“I may be the sports minister but I don’t pretend to know every player and every team in detail,” she said. “My job is to promote them… Obviously it is not one of the preferred fields that we invest in.”