Rocco Baldelli's future

[ashbury]

22 hours ago, Nine of twelve said:

Why would you want a manager who is of only short-term value?

Most new cars lose value the moment you drive them off the lot, and after a couple years are worth hardly more than half what they were.  I guess I see very few managers as better than that.  Short-term value is the only value, except in rare cases.

I assume you subscribe to the view that most starting pitchers aren't nearly as good when facing the batting order a third time.  There are plenty of 5-inning pitchers out there, and the true 7-inning or 8-inning starter is a rarity. 

For a manager, the third spring training might be about like third time through the batting order.  Players have by then seen his "pitch assortment" and tune out, or whatever.  Maybe someone can conduct a study to see at what season most managers decline.

If you have a way to identify in advance who the next Francona is, I'm all ears.

[Nine of twelve]

4 hours ago, ashbury said:

 

If you have a way to identify in advance who the next Francona is, I'm all ears.

That would be great, wouldn't it? Francona didn't show anything much in his first few years managing (at Philadelphia) but he consistently ranks high at this stage in his career. Who knows--maybe Baldelli is the next Francona.

[Otaknam]

I agree with others that Rocco is not in jeopardy unless the FO wants to deflect blame for the poor second half on Rocco instead of themselves. In Rocco’s favor is the significant number of injuries (Maeda, Ober, Dobnak, the Buxton injury of the month, Jeffers, Kiriloff, Larnach). The lack of outfield depth, especially in theBP, and using infielders in the outfield, is a FO issue. However Rocco's unwillingness to let some starters pitch more than 4-5 innings, with a BP that is poor, is on him. The team has no chance to lure a top free agent starting pitcher with Baldelli as the manager, since the chance of winning even 12 games as a starter limited to 5-6 innings is not good.  

[gunnarthor]

I'm not a huge Rocco fan but I have to admit the team has done a nice job bouncing back since his "don't give a ****" talk. If we fade, I think he's gone but now I think as long as we finish over .500, the FO will keep him. 

[Nine of twelve]

On 8/27/2022 at 9:21 AM, Nine of twelve said:

This is the true crux of the matter. It's easy to fire a manager. It's far more difficult to hire one. 

 

On 8/27/2022 at 11:06 AM, ashbury said:

I don't see that as the case, at all.  There are a ton of qualified candidates to sift through.  Start with 30 bench coaches, each of whom believes he deserves a promotion, and each of whom has been vetted to one degree or another by their current team.  30 AAA managers, likewise.  A bunch of over-qualified batting coaches and pitching coaches.

 

Keep in mind that 30 organizations have evaluated those candidates and decided that keeping their current manager was better than hiring any of them.

[TwinsDr2021]

Well on 9/12 the Twins are under .500 and 4.5 games back. Things could change but somebody's head has to roll after what happened in 21 and now the collapse in 22. So my guess is it will be the manager and not the team(FO) that gave him the players.

I just don't see how they go into next year with basically all the same questions marks and the same Manager and expect fans to care. If you are wondering what I am thinking those question marks are (Lewis, Laranch, AK, Jeffers, Can Buxton stay healthy, can Miranda continue or will there be a step back, Can any pitchers staff healthy, how will all of the injured pitchers pitch next year and who plays short.

[Irishman]

16 minutes ago, TwinsDr2021 said:

Well on 9/12 the Twins are under .500 and 4.5 games back. Things could change but somebody's head has to roll after what happened in 21 and now the collapse in 22. So my guess is it will be the manager and not the team(FO) that gave him the players.

I just don't see how they go into next year with basically all the same questions marks and the same Manager and expect fans to care. If you are wondering what I am thinking those question marks are (Lewis, Laranch, AK, Jeffers, Can Buxton stay healthy, can Miranda continue or will there be a step back, Can any pitchers staff healthy, how will all of the injured pitchers pitch next year and who plays short.

Great post.   With Baldelli managing, I don’t give any S.   He needs to be gone next month.   Start house cleaning starts with FO, scouting and draft departments, and strength personnel!   

[wabene]

If the team had performed this way with a relatively healthy roster, then maybe Baldelli would be on the hot seat. That is not the reality. The Twins current problems began in the brief, frenzied beginning of free agency when they did nothing except sign Bundy. Then they spend organizational capital to trade for guys on team friendly deals. Look at every pitcher they have traded for. Starting with Maeda and his ridiculously team friendly deal. You could even go back to Odorizzi. Look at his contract. They won't even sign middle of the road guys on 3-30 deals. I would like at least some retail spending. They were lucky this year that fluky deal for Correa fell into their lap because they were blindsided by the early FA period and by rights should have been left with a 110m payroll, a roster full of holes and people wondering why they didn't spend to their middle of the pack revenue ranking. 

[LVTwinsfan]

On 8/28/2022 at 10:31 AM, ashbury said:

There are plenty of 5-inning pitchers out there, and the true 7-inning or 8-inning starter is a rarity. 

The Twins are 27th in the majors in IP/GS at 4.8 according to baseball reference. They are 29th in pitches per start at 78. I do see that as a problem. I can’t count how many times an effective starter has been pulled early because of the 3rd time through the order fear, only to have the first reliever immediately give up runs. Is Rocco to blame? Well, the short answer is yes.

[tony&rodney]

Serious baseball fans want to see fundamentally strong teams play exciting baseball. Wins are always appreciated and the goal, naturally. Powerful lineups and power pitching brings in interest, for sure. The Twins had some exciting athletic players, power, and some pitching holes in 2017. When Manfredball provided a ball that a utility infielder could crank out of any stadium, the Twins went bonkers. The entire AL Central went into various forms of rebuilds except the Twins with the results of 2019 and 2020. It was good to win the division. Along the way, the Twins have abandoned fundamental baseball and no I don't think it was part of the plan. Clearly, however, the emphasis on fundamentals was absent. The 2021 and 2022 Twins are about as poor at running the bases as any team. The team eschews all opportunities at bunting when they have a host of players who should be more than competent at that skill, due to their deficiencies at hitting for power or average. Moving runners is not done. The Oakland A's attributed their run of 3 titles to never missing the cutoff man or failing to back up all plays in the field, giving their talented players a chance in every game. The Twins fail at fundamentals at a ridiculous rate. I cannot believe that Rocco accepts this blandly, but there must be some reason that so many simple mistakes are made. The early September sweep at Target Field at the hands of the Cleveland squad portrayed two opposing baseball philosophies. The young rookie roster completely dominated the Twins. How will the Twins match Cleveland as their players gain experience and add from their top shelf farm system? I would suggest that 2022 was the year that the Twins were all in and that this November there would be some serious evaluations taking place in a conference room. The Twins are in a pennant race and drawing less than 20,000 fans in perfect weather. The Pohlad family may see clouds on the horizon. Or maybe, they wait for this to pass. I have no idea what should be done with Rocco or his bosses but I'm desperately hoping to see some fundamental baseball return to the Twins franchise.

[In My La Z boy]

Replacing Zimmer with O'Connell seems to have mattered greatly. 

Replacing Spielman with Adofo-Mensah seems to have mattered greatly. 

We've gotten so far away from classic Twins baseball. Where are the piranha's?

Love the way the Guardians play/ love Francona and the way he manages. 

Don't love this Twins team. Don't love Rocco. This Front office totally mis-managed the pitching staff in '22. 

Firing Rocco, but keeping this front office would be a mistake. Keep them both or fire them both in my opinion.

[Reptevia]

Rocco isn’t the problem. It’s the unbending philosophy of the FO. Would a different manager handle things differently?  I doubt it. The FO won’t hire anyone who won’t toe their line. 

[terrydactyls]

On 8/27/2022 at 1:28 PM, Mark G said:

 

Agree with you on quite a bit, but I do have one beef:  no major league manager should learn "on the job".  No FO either.  We brought this FO in because they were supposed to have been successful in other organizations, and at the major league level.  They certainly shouldn't be learning on the job; they have had 6 years here alone.  And Rocco has now had 4 (almost).  The on the job training should have ended long ago.  And Rocco should never have been hired in the first place, one could argue.  The major league level is NOT the place to get your feet wet in this job.  He should have been managing in the minors first, like Toby and Doug have.  If you prove yourself you get moved up.  So the grand experiment moving a bench coach to a major league managerial job is what we are seeing in real time.  This article was designed to get us thinking has it worked or not?  And we are seeing a lot of thoughts; good thoughts all around.  I have said before, and say again, that a managers sole......SOLE job is to get the most out of the players he is given to work with.  Has he done that?  This year or in the past?  IMHO he has not the last two years.  And I do not believe he has what it takes to change and adapt, so I do not believe he will in the future.  Hence, we should look for someone who would do better.  But that is one man's opinion, and the FO stopped taking my calls a while back, so my opinion hasn't registered with them.    

There is a difference between "still learning" and "learning on the job".  At the end of my 50-year career in business, I was still learning.    Learning on the job normally apples to a person that is new to either the job or the industry.  My stupid opinion is that both Baldelli and the front office were "learning on the job" in 2019 and 2020 and have been "learning" ever since.

[ashbury]

9 hours ago, Nine of twelve said:

Keep in mind that 30 organizations have evaluated those candidates and decided that keeping their current manager was better than hiring any of them.

It is wonderful that we have finally achieved optimality across the entire MLB universe!

[ashbury]

1 hour ago, LVTwinsfan said:

The Twins are 27th in the majors in IP/GS at 4.8 according to baseball reference. They are 29th in pitches per start at 78. I do see that as a problem. I can’t count how many times an effective starter has been pulled early because of the 3rd time through the order fear, only to have the first reliever immediately give up runs. Is Rocco to blame? Well, the short answer is yes.

I was drawing an analogy between pitchers losing effectiveness as they go on, and managers losing effectiveness with time.  Not to the fine points of handling the pitching staff.

[chpettit19]

1 hour ago, LVTwinsfan said:

The Twins are 27th in the majors in IP/GS at 4.8 according to baseball reference. They are 29th in pitches per start at 78. I do see that as a problem. I can’t count how many times an effective starter has been pulled early because of the 3rd time through the order fear, only to have the first reliever immediately give up runs. Is Rocco to blame? Well, the short answer is yes.

Rocco is to blame in the sense that he seems to agree with this pitching philosophy. But I don't know why we'd think firing him would lead to someone who doesn't agree with that philosophy taking over. So I don't think the short answer is yes in the sense that replacing him fixes the problem. The short answer is actually probably no. The FO is to blame.

[Vanimal46]

57 minutes ago, tony&rodney said:

The Twins are in a pennant race and drawing less than 20,000 fans in perfect weather. The Pohlad family may see clouds on the horizon.

This is a great point. Attendance numbers are unlikely to get any better next year as well. If anything is going to cause urgency with the Pohlads, it’s losing money. 

[Nashvilletwin]

The Pohlads are smart people. You don’t get to where they are by being too hasty in your actions or by buying “bad luck” as an excuse. Like any successful business leaders, they will provide opportunity, but also demand accountability.

Despite the late season swoon (actually, the inevitable has been pretty obvious since June), the Twins are well positioned with both players and available salary space to be much better next year.

However, as has been pointed out before, to truly be a contender as a mid market team, the team will need to stay healthy, play consistently excellent fundamental baseball, and make the right calls on free agency and trades. The sad fact facing the Pohlads is that the current FO and coaching staff have not demonstrated an ability to maximise the team’s potential in these areas of demonstrable underperformance.

So, do we think the 2023 Twins under current mgmt/leadership can improve enough in these areas to make a run for a Pennant? What evidence would indicate that possibility is strong, or even exists?

The Pohlads will decide. They are smart people.

[In My La Z boy]

12 minutes ago, Nashvilletwin said:

The Pohlads are smart people. You don’t get to where they are by being too hasty in your actions or by buying “bad luck” as an excuse. Like any successful business leaders, they will provide opportunity, but also demand accountability.

Despite the late season swoon (actually, the inevitable has been pretty obvious since June), the Twins are well positioned with both players and available salary space to be much better next year.

However, as has been pointed out before, to truly be a contender as a mid market team, the team will need to stay healthy, play consistently excellent fundamental baseball, and make the right calls on free agency and trades. The sad fact facing the Pohlads is that the current FO and coaching staff have not demonstrated an ability to maximise the team’s potential in these areas of demonstrable underperformance.

So, do we think the 2023 Twins under current mgmt/leadership can improve enough in these areas to make a run for a Pennant? What evidence would indicate that possibility is strong, or even exists?

The Pohlads will decide. They are smart people.

Not sure about this? Smart business people for sure. Smart baseball people? Andy Macphail and Tom Kelly were smart baseball people and were the reason for our late '80's/early '90's success. Terry Ryan and Ron Gardenhire were smart baseball people and were the reason for our early 2000's success. Pohlad's may want to cut bait on this front office and manager in my opinion.

[TwinsDr2021]

1 hour ago, chpettit19 said:

Rocco is to blame in the sense that he seems to agree with this pitching philosophy. But I don't know why we'd think firing him would lead to someone who doesn't agree with that philosophy taking over. So I don't think the short answer is yes in the sense that replacing him fixes the problem. The short answer is actually probably no. The FO is to blame.

I haven't been a fan of Rocco since 2019 and I agree firing him and getting somebody else won't change much if at all how the Twins play. But the owners and FO have to hold somebody accountable for the last two years if they want to win the fans back to target field and firing the manager is usually the cheapest way to pretend something has changed and I can't see the owners firing the front office yet.

So maybe having Ober/Winder/Varland pitch well the last few weeks, make a little splash in FA and fire the manager will excite the fans a bit to actually come to Target field. (At little looks at the Shiny object in my left hand while I continue to do the same stuff with my right distraction)

If I was owner 63K in a weekend series against the Guardians would not be acceptable. The Gophers attendance against a FBS team was 43K.

[chpettit19]

6 minutes ago, In My La Z boy said:

Not sure about this? Smart business people for sure. Smart baseball people? Andy Macphail and Tom Kelly were smart baseball people and were the reason for our late '80's/early '90's success. Terry Ryan and Ron Gardenhire were smart baseball people and were the reason for our early 2000's success. Pohlad's may want to cut bait on this front office and manager in my opinion.

Can't you just flip this and say all 4 of those people weren't smart baseball people because they were also the reason for the '93-2000 failures and '11-'14 failures, and the other random failure seasons mixed in between '87 and '14? Ryan and Gardenhire were in charge at the start of "the streak" so why do they get credit for some sort of great success when they've accomplished 1 post season series win more than the current regime? Terry Ryan was also the one who made what many consider to be the single worst roster decision in Twins history. Not sure why they're considered smart baseball people and this regime wouldn't be when they're basically doing the exact same thing. Some inconsistent regular season success with no playoff success. That's basically the entire Ryan/Gardenhire tenure.

[LVTwinsfan]

1 hour ago, chpettit19 said:

Rocco is to blame in the sense that he seems to agree with this pitching philosophy. But I don't know why we'd think firing him would lead to someone who doesn't agree with that philosophy taking over. So I don't think the short answer is yes in the sense that replacing him fixes the problem. The short answer is actually probably no. The FO is to blame.

I said he was to blame, didn’t say a word about firing him. If he can learn from his mistakes then keep him, if he’s  just going to refer to his spread sheets to make his decisions, then Jonah Hill could manage this team.

[LVTwinsfan]

1 hour ago, Vanimal46 said:

This is a great point. Attendance numbers are unlikely to get any better next year as well. If anything is going to cause urgency with the Pohlads, it’s losing money. 

As it should 

[chpettit19]

6 minutes ago, TwinsDr2021 said:

I haven't been a fan of Rocco since 2019 and I agree firing him and getting somebody else won't change much if at all how the Twins play. But the owners and FO have to hold somebody accountable for the last two years if they want to win the fans back to target field and firing the manager is usually the cheapest way to pretend something has changed and I can't see the owners firing the front office yet.

So maybe having Ober/Winder/Varland pitch well the last few weeks, make a little splash in FA and fire the manager will excite the fans a bit to actually come to Target field. (At little looks at the Shiny object in my left hand while I continue to do the same stuff with my right distraction)

If I was owner 63K in a weekend series against the Guardians would not be acceptable. The Gophers attendance against a FBS team was 43K.

I haven't been a Rocco fan or naysayer since 2019 (I think he's just one of the 90% of managers who are simply average managers), and I wouldn't show up to Target field simply because they fired him. What gets fans to show up is Ws. If they fire him today fans aren't suddenly going to flock to Target Field to see Jayce Tingler, or whoever replaces him, manage. I won't be shocked if they fire him or if they keep him. I think it's short sighted to fire him for having 16 guys (or whatever the number is right now) on the IL during September. Would you show up to more games immediately after he was fired, or would you actually want to see some Ws starting to stack up before you ventured down to Target Field more regularly (I don't know where you live, but hypothetically speaking)?

Firing someone for the sake of firing someone isn't good organization management. If the Pohalds, or Falvine, don't think Rocco is good at his job then they should fire him. If they think someone else sitting in his office leads to more wins in 2023 then they should fire him. Because that's what the fans will turn out for. They aren't going to sell more season tickets in November because they fired Rocco. They'll sell more season tickets in January if Ober/Winder/Varland pitch well the last few weeks, Mahle makes 1 more good start before the end of the year, there's a video released of Maeda throwing filth in a bullpen session, Lopez stops sucking, and they sign a legit #1 starter during the offseason. So I don't buy the "Pohlads will fire him cuz it'll sell more tickets" argument at all. There aren't that many fans who think Rocco alone has tanked this team and will suddenly invest in tickets without seeing them actually win some games.

I also don't know why we expect more than 63k for a weekend series against the Guardians with half their roster on the IL. I have season tickets and I wasn't going to waste any of my last few flex vouchers watching a bunch of AAA guys play.

[Riverbrian]

If the President of Baseball Ops, General Manager, Asst GM's, Minor league Director, Analytics staff, major and minor league coaches and all of the players are set up to run a certain way while Rocco is managing a different way. That discrepancy would take care of itself because the front office will replace the person who isn't executing the game plan. 

Rocco isn't managing a video game by himself. 

He has part of a team. The analytics staff hired by the front office is producing information... If the manager hired by the front office ignores the information produced. The front office must replace the manager or fire the analytics department because they are obviously not necessary with a manager that is allowed to just ignore them anyway. 

Yet, we have people on Twinsdaily who like to tell Rocco to put the spreadsheets down while calling for his head. 

If the front office brings in high speed cameras and monitors and the pitching coaches ignore the cameras and monitors. The coaches will be gone. If the coaches are allowed to ignore the technology... you might as well sell the cameras and monitors and go back to being a caveman. 

All you have to do is think about it for a couple of seconds and the obviousness should hit you right between the eyes. 

It seems that many haven't thought about that for a second or two because many still insist that Rocco is the reason for the short starts and is guilty of the crime of looking at a spreadsheet produced specifically for his information.  

 

 

 

 

 

[chpettit19]

4 minutes ago, LVTwinsfan said:

I said he was to blame, didn’t say a word about firing him. If he can learn from his mistakes then keep him, if he’s  just going to refer to his spread sheets to make his decisions, then Jonah Hill could manage this team.

Fine, take out my comment about firing him. My point is that he may be part of the problem, but he can't shoulder all the blame. "His mistakes" aren't just his mistakes. This is the philosophy the FO believes in. He is going to keep referring to his spreadsheets. And any other manager that this FO would hire will refer to spreadsheets. That's my point. He's part of the short start problem (and managing by spreadsheet), but he's not the main driver of that bus so simply blaming him is inaccurate. And replacing him fixes nothing when it comes to that particular problem.

[Riverbrian]

37 minutes ago, In My La Z boy said:

Not sure about this? Smart business people for sure. Smart baseball people? Andy Macphail and Tom Kelly were smart baseball people and were the reason for our late '80's/early '90's success. Terry Ryan and Ron Gardenhire were smart baseball people and were the reason for our early 2000's success. Pohlad's may want to cut bait on this front office and manager in my opinion.

Terry Ryan and Ron Gardenhire had some crappy years.

Andy MacPhail and Tom Kelly had some crappy years. 

Falvey, Lavine and Rocco have had some crappy years. 

I've never met any of them but apparently... Two of the three groups are smart baseball people? 

 

[TwinsDr2021]

35 minutes ago, chpettit19 said:

So I don't buy the "Pohlads will fire him cuz it'll sell more tickets" argument at all.

Again I agree Firing the manager won't sell any tickets, but keeping the same one might discourage people from going. What I am trying to say is selling the fans on the same team with the same manager is going to be tough sell. They are going to need to get fans excited this offseason to come back next year and winning games early might not be enough. (It wasn't really enough this year on top of extending Buxton, Signing Correa and trading for Gray, so in reality there might not be anything they can do this offseason, IDK.)

Maybe the attendance issue (or not an issue) is bigger than anything the Twins do, I know people that won't spend money in MPLS and have zero interest in being there after dark,

[jctwins]

38 minutes ago, Riverbrian said:

Terry Ryan and Ron Gardenhire had some crappy years.

Andy MacPhail and Tom Kelly had some crappy years. 

Falvey, Lavine and Rocco have had some crappy years. 

I've never met any of them but apparently... Two of the three groups are smart baseball people? 

 

MacPhail and TK left on their own terms. 

The current regime held on too long to the Ryan/Gardy era, and they're going to make the same mistake this time. 

This is what you get when you have baseball disinterested owners.

[jctwins]

10 minutes ago, TwinsDr2021 said:

Again I agree Firing the manager won't sell any tickets, but keeping the same one might discourage people from going. What I am trying to say is selling the fans on the same team with the same manager is going to be tough sell. They are going to need to get fans excited this offseason to come back next year and winning games early might not be enough. (It wasn't really enough this year on top of extending Buxton, Signing Correa and trading for Gray, so in reality there might not be anything they can do this offseason, IDK.)

Maybe the attendance issue (or not an issue) is bigger than anything the Twins do, I know people that won't spend money in MPLS and have zero interest in being there after dark,

They are focus-grouping how to add "improvements" to the ballpark to turn around attendance.

At the end of the day it will be yet another way to justify their  promise to the taxpayers of annual improvements as a way to add revenue and squeeze a little more juice out of the fans.