With only 30 jobs available, someone who wants to manage in the major leagues, with rare exception, will take a job when it is offered, no matter how bad the team offering the job is. That’s why Tony DeFrancesco accepted the role of interim manager of the Houston Astros Aug. 19 when they had a 39-82 record, and that’s why Bo Porter accepted the job for 2013 despite the Astros’ major league-worst 55-107 record. If a guy wants to be a manager, he can ill afford to say, no thanks, you’re not good enough; I’ll wait for the next offer.
That’s why someone will take the Colorado Rockies’ job when it is offered despite the zany developments that prompted Jim Tracy
to resign and walk away from a $1.4 million salary for next year. Tracy is a deeply experienced manager, but he has spent much of his career managing bad teams in Colorado and Pittsburgh, and he apparently didn’t see the sense of managing another bad Rockies team under the conditions created in the last several months.
Not only was Tracy hamstrung with novel pitching restrictions, but perhaps worse, he was also faced with having his general manager – well, not exactly the general manager but the general manager without the title – practically sitting in his lap in the clubhouse. Well, why not? The Rockies haven’t done too well with their general manager sitting in an office in the executive suite so why not give him a desk and a telephone in the clubhouse?
Next, the players will expect to see Bill Geivett wearing a uniform with a number of his choice. But he can do without the batting gloves, thank you.
For the past two seasons, Geivett has been senior vice president for scouting and player development and assistant general manager. For seven years before that he had the same titles without the “senior.” Dan O’Dowd has been the general manager and executive vice president for 13 years. Two years ago he gained an additional title, chief baseball officer.
O’Dowd and Geivett did not return telephone calls seeking enlightenment about the developments in Denver, but according to the story circulating among officials of other clubs, O’Dowd desired to gain the status held by Mark Shapiro, who two years ago became president of the Cleveland Indians after nine years as executive vice president and general manager. O’Dowd and Shapiro previously worked together in the Indians’ front office.
“He was hoping the owners would say ‘you become president,’” an executive of another club said.
The Rockies have no one with the title of president, but the Monfort brothers, who are the primary owners, didn’t see the need to create the position. Instead they decided to remove O’Dowd from the day-to-day responsibilities of the general manager’s job and give those to Geivett. O’Dowd, they decided, would concentrate on player development and minor league operations.
“It’s been a mess there,” another executive said.
Jay Alves, the Rockies’ vice president for communications said he believed the switch in responsibilities was O’Dowd’s idea. “He felt Bill was ready to take the role and the organization would be better with him focusing on new things like player development,” Alves said from Denver. “O’Dowd relinquished his position with the major league club about Aug. 1. Dan just felt his skill set was a better fit where he was used in Cleveland while Bill’s skill set he felt was better suited for the major league club.
Dan has a broader view of baseball ops, and it allows him to see things over-all.”
Alves didn’t say who came up with the office-in-the-clubhouse idea but said, “Bill has an office upstairs and work space in the clubhouse. He has a metal desk and a chair in a conference room, which is the coaches’ room.”
Efforts to reach Tracy were unsuccessful, but one of the executives said, “Tracy may have been concerned he was going to be told who to play” and also suggested that the identity of the general manager is important. “The manager’s relationship with the general manager is important. Everyone wants to know who they’re going to answer to. I think the problem is O’Dowd and Geivett both being g.m.s.”
The irony of Tracy’s turnaround, the executive said, is “earlier it sounded like he’d have the job forever,” adding, “Jim Tracy’s been a pretty good manager.”
Alves said “a number of things” entered into Tracy’s decision. “He felt he’s not the right guy at the time,” he said.
One of the factors in Tracy’s decision to leave the Rockies could have been the pitch count. Last June the Rockies decided that their starting pitching was so dreadful they would take a drastic step. They decided to limit their starters to 75 pitches. They might have had good intentions, but they took the ability to run the staff the way he wanted out of Tracy’s hands.
“I don’t think Tracy was on board with that,” one of the executives said.
Nevertheless, the starters were bad. How bad? For the season, they gained the fewest wins in the majors (29), the lowest winning percentage (.299) and the highest earned run average (5.88), and they had the highest opponents’ batting average (.304) and allowed the most hits (1,026).
Discussing the pitch count, Alves said, “That was something the baseball folks thought would work better. We couldn’t pitch. They were getting in trouble the third time through the lineup. Our guys had trouble getting past three innings with 75 pitches.
It was a challenge to young pitchers to throw strikes and stay in games longer if they throw fewer pitches.” The limit, he added, was flexible.
Besides the new pitch limit, the Rockies adopted a four-man rotation, which in these times is unheard of but is related to the 75-pitch limit. If you’re going to start pitchers on three days of rest instead of four, you’re going to want to limit the number of pitches a starter throws so he would have no trouble pitching four days later.
It used to be done regularly, of course, before teams started pampering pitchers. Today, however, if a team is short on good starters, it would make sense to select its four best starters for its rotation. But in the Rockies’ case, they may not have four decent starters. That will be the new manager’s challenge. And if he’s having trouble figuring it out, he can always walk about 40 feet to Geivett’s office-in-the clubhouse.