decided to appoint<\/a> former outfielder Dave Roberts as their new manager, succeeding Don Mattingly who has changed coasts to take over in Miami.<\/p>\nThe news has been warmly welcomed by those who know Roberts based on his good nature and he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s got a great opportunity to take on a team built to win.<\/p>\n
However, it is curious that a team in that position should hire someone with no managerial experience.<\/p>\n
Roberts does have MLB playing experience, of course, and recently served as bench coach to Bud Black in San Diego. That all counts for something, but doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t necessarily mean he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll make the right strategic calls during games, nor does the generally positive quality of being an all-round nice guy necessarily mean he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s the right person to keep this roster of players on the right path.<\/p>\n
I know I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve banged this particular drum several times recently, yet I do struggle to understand the seemingly haphazard way in which MLB teams appoint managers and coaches.<\/p>\n
Maybe they really aren\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t that important and the difference between one potential candidate or another doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t justify getting worked up about it? Certainly it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s the quality of available (i.e. non-injured) players that is the most important factor in a team\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s potential in a given season. A manager can only do so much with strategy and pep talks.<\/p>\n
Yet if you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re the Dodgers, with the highest payroll in MLB and a host of experienced players on board, why wouldn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t you want the best manager you could get? If he adds 5% above the other candidates, that might be the 5% that makes all the difference.<\/p>\n
An MLB manager position is an elite role. The Dodgers clearly were preparing to part ways with Mattingly for a while and in that situation a company would normally have a clear vision on what qualities they were looking for in a replacement and who was currently out there that could fulfil that brief. Normally that would mean sounding out potential interest and then head-hunting the person you want to appoint.<\/p>\n
Instead, the Dodgers\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 search involved interviewing a wide range of candidates and then whittling them down.<\/p>\n
In the news article linked to above, MLB.com\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Ken Gurnick stated that Roberts was \u00e2\u20ac\u0153initially considered a long shot until dazzling management in his interview\u00e2\u20ac\u009d. Well done to Roberts for earning his new role, but \u00e2\u20ac\u0153dazzling\u00e2\u20ac\u009d in an interview is very different to making the right relief pitching call in a tight game or being able to get into the head of a talented young player like Yasiel Puig.<\/p>\n
If this all seems overly negative then I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll happily concede that every great managerial career starts with a team taking a chance and giving that person their first opportunity. Roberts may prove to be an inspired appointment, and I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll wish him the best of luck, but there\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s reason to question whether pairing a man who has never been a manager before with a team built to win a World Series is the wisest decision.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Dave Roberts is the new man in the dugout for the Dodgers. He’s yet another person appointed to a top job without having previous managerial experience to call on<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[132,553],"class_list":["post-19021","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-mlb-2","tag-los-angeles-dodgers","tag-mlb-2"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19021","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=19021"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19021\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19024,"href":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19021\/revisions\/19024"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=19021"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=19021"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=19021"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}