Is Rocco really middle management

[Richie the Rally Goat]

22 hours ago, mikelink45 said:

I think Rocco is a really nice guy and I expect most of the players like him - that does not change the basic question.  Is he using his judgment or following the input of the analytic coach and FO on basic decisions.

 

Managers use their tools and teams to make decisions.

[chpettit19]

2 hours ago, Harrison Greeley III said:

I was listening to this too. I tended to give Maddon the benefit of the doubt on his front office disputes, but now I'm seeing why he fell out with the Cubs and the Angels now. Managers have 3 main jobs:

1. Keep players motivated, loose, and determined to be at their best selves. 

2. Manage personnel in-game.

3. Carry out the vision for the front office.

The front office has a plan of attack for acquisition, development, game-usage, etc. If the manager just sees that vision as a nuisance, of course he's in for trouble. There are hundreds of millions of dollars being invested and allocated into what needs to be a coherent front office vision for building a winning team. If the manager is antagonistic to the plan and wants to be a cowboy about how he thinks the team should win, well, yeah he's going to get canned in today's game. There's just too much money at stake. 

Maddon's attitude about the 'Front office conduit' role being 'middle management' is ego-driven non-sense. Several managers are great in this role and provide great leadership. Maddon doesn't do well in this role. The game passed him by and his ego gets in his own way to realize it. The irony is extra thick because his forward-thinking on things like shifting and the 4th outfielder are a big part of acceleration of it happening. 

This was my general read on things, too. Maddon sounds like a jilted lover who has an axe to grind as he went from the face of the modern manager to being cast aside when his teams quit winning. He sounds like a guy who wants to get his name back in a good light and put the blame in other places.

I do think he has a point with the amount of contact FOs have in with players, but I agree that they need to be part of that planning process. A key to any team's success is having the FO and coaching staff be on the same page. Not just FO to MLB manager, but all the way down through the system. If you're drafting guys to be a certain type of player you need coaches who will train them to be that type of player. The FO needs to be part of the decision making process on how pitchers are used and lineups are constructed. If you want a team that steals a bunch of bases you're out there signing speed guys with little power so you don't want a coaching staff/manager that doesn't teach or promote base stealing, but instead wants station to station ball looking for homeruns.

The question with the Twins in particular is whether or not they have the right strategies in general. I don't see Rocco as "middle management," I see him as part of the management team. He was hired because he sees the game the same way as Falvey and Levine. I think that's important for any organization. The question is then just whether or not the way these leaders see the game, and strategize based on that, is right.

[chpettit19]

22 hours ago, RedBull34 said:

I feel like there is a lot of truth to this statement.  Players probably(especially younger ones) don't care or comprehend if you proceed to talk about four pitchers they expect to see that day and everything they do or could do in every count.

It needs to be simpler, "We expect the starter to throw Inside Fastballs OR a Slider Away to start an AB.  You mash fastballs up and away, so sit on a mistake, don't chase.  If you get behind, don't fall for the slider away."  Point out any noticed pitch-tipping "He throws his slider from a lower arm-slot.  It looks like this when he releases vs. this when he throws fastball."

I could see where the upper management could run away with complexities and don't follow the KISS rule.

Does it matter if a starter throws a changeup to start an AB 5% of the time if it is a pitch the batter struggles with anyways?

The only player I expect to get that far into the nitty gritty is the Catcher.

I think it's about knowing the player as a person more than caring about them being a catcher vs a 3B vs a RF or whatever. Carlos Correa notably loves the data. He wants it all. He meets individually with FO team members to get personalized info that he wants. He'll give them new things that he wants that they don't already gather. Some guys love it. Some guys perform better with it. But some guys are overwhelmed by it.

That's the manager's (and pitching/hitting coaches) job. It sounds like Joe got to a spot where he felt he was no longer allowed to dispense information on a player by player basis. I personally take it more as him pointing blame away from himself as his last 2 jobs ended poorly, but I could certainly be wrong there. But the key to it all is providing the information to players in a way tailored to that player. Hopefully the Twins allow Rocco, and his coaches, to do that.

[Game7-91]

9 minutes ago, chpettit19 said:

The question with the Twins in particular is whether or not they have the right strategies in general. I don't see Rocco as "middle management," I see him as part of the management team. He was hired because he sees the game the same way as Falvey and Levine. I think that's important for any organization. The question is then just whether or not the way these leaders see the game, and strategize based on that, is right.

I agree with this, well said.

[Parfigliano]

If I may paraphrase...Rocco is an errand boy sent by grocery clerks to collect a bill

[Harrison Greeley III]

31 minutes ago, chpettit19 said:

The question with the Twins in particular is whether or not they have the right strategies in general. I don't see Rocco as "middle management," I see him as part of the management team. He was hired because he sees the game the same way as Falvey and Levine. I think that's important for any organization. The question is then just whether or not the way these leaders see the game, and strategize based on that, is right.

This is what I've wondered all year too. The Twins seem like their hearts are consistently in the right place, but the results though...

On the richer side they appear completely outclassed by the Astros, Dodgers, and Yankees in their information and development (in addition to their advantages on the acquisition side). On the poorer side Tampa and Cleveland's developmental hit rates make them look bad. I know they're knowledgeable and good, but are they a top tier front office that can assemble a team that's legitimately better than Houston or NYY?

[ICTwin25]

18 hours ago, Parfigliano said:

If I may paraphrase...Rocco is an errand boy sent by grocery clerks to collect a bill

Your veteran starting pitcher was dealing and you pulled him after 79 pitches when your bullpen is gassed. Rocco is a puppet

[Number3]

All I know is that the Minnesota Twins are 1.5 games out of first place in the AL Central and 8 of the next 11 games they play are against the team behind which they are 1,5 games, The team that EXECUTES the best will win the majority of those games and the team that studies numbers and makes decisions based upon permutations and combinations and not baseball players will lose the majority of those games. It is hilarious that the same geek analytics proponents turn around and talk about how much baseball experience Baldellj has. Who cares? Hire statistics majors as your next managers. They avoided disaster somehow again in NY. Now it is either fall off the cliff or push the Guardians over the edge.