Don Mattingly said it once, twice, 10 times. I didn’t believe it the first time, the second time or the 10th time. I just don’t believe Mattingly and the Los Angeles Dodgers split up because, in Mattingly’s words. “It became something that was best for me and best for the club.”
Listening to Mattingly on a conference call Thursday, I said, “There are 30 major league managing jobs. Why would someone walk away from that job?”
“I believe this is the right time and right move for both parties,” Mattingly said, adding, “I think it became clear for all of us.”
Declining to provide details of what both sides said were multiple days of talks, Mattingly made no sense on the conference call. But on Friday, a baseball executive, who was not involved in those talks, suggested something that if so, suddenly clarified everything.
“Maybe Donny wanted a contract extension and they didn’t want to give it to him,” the executive said. “Maybe there’s been contact with the Marlins and if not, it’s been through the media.”
Let me provide some background. Mattingly had one year left on a three-year contract, which he signed following the 2013 season. His 2013 contract included an option for 2014, which would vest automatically if the Dodgers won the 2013 division series, which they did.
A one-year contract, though, didn’t satisfy Mattingly, who said it would make him a lame-duck manager and undermine his ability to manage the team. Maybe, he suggested, he wouldn’t manage at all. Call it bluffing, call it intimidation, call it whatever you want, but the Dodgers caved and gave him a three-year contract.
Not this time, though, if that’s what he wanted. How could Mattingly walk away from the third year? He could do it easily if he had reason to know he could have the Marlins’ job if he were free of his Dodgers’ contract.
The Marlins are in the market for a manager because owner Jeffrey Loria decided last week that Dan Jennings would return to the front office and his job as general manager. Jennings went to the dugout and replaced Mike Redmond as manager 38 games into this season.
Mattingly‘s name has been the first one mentioned because he is available and he played for the New York Yankees. “Jeffrey has a love for anything Yankees,” an executive said, and he will very likely ignore the fact that Mattingly managed the Dodgers to three consecutive division titles with the benefit of $724 million in payrolls, highest in the majors. In those three seasons the Marlins’ payrolls totaled $156 million, lowest in the majors.
If any member of the Miami organization has contacted Mattingly to let him know of the Marlins’ interest while he was still under contract to the Dodgers, the Marlins would be guilty of tampering. Loria, however, probably doesn’t have to be concerned about facing a tampering charge. Major League Baseball doesn’t seem to pay attention to tampering anymore.
When Bud Selig was commissioner, he said he would investigate tampering only if a team filed a complaint. Teams never filed complaints very likely because they didn’t want other teams filing complaints against them.
In addition, in this instance, the Dodgers would have no reason to complain about tampering because they don’t want to retain Mattingly.
MINORITY MAN ENHANCES HIRING – WHITE HIRING
Commissioner Rob Manfred’s minority-hiring program for decision-making positions is working so well clubs can’t hire white guys fast enough. It’s as if part of Manfred’s policy includes a deadline after which clubs are not permitted to hire general managers or managers of the Caucasian persuasion.
Just the other day the Seattle Mariners named Scott Servais to be their manager. Reports surfaced Saturday that Matt Klentak would be named the Philadelphia Phillies’ general manager.
Only two days after the Los Angeles Dodgers take away Don Mattingly’s blue-tinged lineup cards, Mattingly is said to be coveted by the Miami Marlins. The Dodgers’ choice to replace Mattingly, according to word circulating in baseball circles, is Gabe Kapler, a former major league outfielder and the Dodgers’ player development director.
Nary an African-American nor an Hispanic among them. Not a woman either. Kim Ng, a former assistant general manager and current MLB executive, was widely rumored to be a serious candidate for the Phillies’ job, but there was no indication that she was even interviewed.
In the last four months teams have hired or named 14 executives to top-level positions and named two new managers. One of those 14, Al Avila, the Detroit general manager, qualifies as a minority. Maybe half a dozen minorities have been interviewed.
My favorite series of minority interviews – and I’d like to know who orchestrated them so I could commend him for being so clever – were the interviews four different clubs conducted with four different mid-level executive who were as likely to be named general managers as you and I.
They were sham interviews, but Manfred accepted them as meeting his requirement for interviewing minorities.
Not all minority interviews are sham interviews. The Washington Nationals interviewed Dusty Baker for their managerial vacancy, and while I think at his age – 66 – it’s unlikely that he’ll get the job, I think the interview was legitimate.
The Nationals job is one of the few that remain open. The Marlins, the Dodgers and the Nationals need managers. The general manager roster has been filled.
Some of the recent hirings fit established patterns. Klentak is a young – 35 – Ivy League graduate, who majored in economics. When Jerry Dipoto, under whom Klentak worked in Anaheim, got the Mariners job, for which he was also interviewed, Klentak told me he wasn’t upset because he thought he had a better chance of getting the Phillies’ job. He thought that because Andy MacPhail was the Phillies’ club president, and Klentak had worked under MacPhail there.
Servais, a former major league catcher, was named the Mariners’ manager because catchers make successful managers, he played with Dipoto and he worked under him in Anaheim’s front office.
David Stearns, a 30-year-old Harvard graduate, got his job as general manager in Milwaukee because he previously had worked under Manfred in the labor department of Major League Baseball, and Manfred urged the Milwaukee owner, Mark Attanasio, to hire him.
Blacks and Hispanics don’t seem to have those advantages. They also don’t get into positions as assistant general managers, from where they can be elevated to general manager, as Mike Hazen has recently been in Boston, David Forst in Oakland, John Coppolella in Atlanta and Avila in Detroit.
The most highly recommended minority executive without a general manager’s job is De Jon Watson, senior vice president of baseball operations under Tony La Russa and Dave Stewart in Arizona.
Watson is highly acclaimed by his own people and high-ranking executives on other clubs, but with 10 open positions in the last three months, he couldn’t even get an interview, not a single interview.
I’ve written it before and I’ll write it again. The only reason I can figure that no one will interview him is if a club interviews him and doesn’t hire him, it will have to answer embarrassing questions about why it didn’t hire him.
Meanwhile, Commissioner Manfred has never been honest and forthright enough to explain why, if he is genuine about his desire to enhance baseball’s minority hiring, he has not been able to get Watson an interview with someone. If he could get a job for David Stearns in Milwaukee, he should be able to get De Jon Watson an interview somewhere.
MONEY METER MEETS METS
If the trend holds, the New York Mets will win the World Series.
In eight post-season matchups this month, the team with the smaller payroll has won six times. The Mets began this season with a smaller payroll ($101.4 million) than the Royals ($113.6 million), though not be much.
The results of previous 2015 series (figures in millions, rounded to the nearest million):
- Astros ($71) over Yankees ($219)
- Cubs ($119) over Pirates ($88)
- Mets ($101) over Dodgers ($273)
- Cubs ($119) over Cardinals ($121)
- Blue Jays ($123) over Rangers ($142)
- Royals ($113) over Astros ($71)
- Royals ($113) over Blue Jays ($122)
- Mets ($101) over Cubs (($119)