Giants Manager Search: Week 2

Interesting article in Merc about Piniella got me to post my thoughts about the search. According to the article, a close source to Piniella said that "he wouldn't wait around to consider all offers." But still the Giants are still sticking with their plans to hire a manager after the World Series end, Lou or not Lou, as they are supposedly waiting for certain teams to exit the playoffs and free up personnel for an interview with the Giants.

Reading between the lines, I see that this means a number of things. First, Piniella is probably not very interested in the Giants position, so why wait when you might get a position you prefer, which seems like is the Cubs position. Second, even more importantly, it seems to be getting clear that the Giants are not even interested in Piniella. The article notes that it is unclear what Piniella and Sabean spoke about whereas it noted that Sabean has already had two in-depth discussions with Ron Wotus. In addition, it also noted that Sabean "reportedly asked the New York Mets for permission to speak with members of their coaching staff, presumably Manny Acta or Jerry Manuel." Apparently Acta, who happened to live in the building that Cory Lidle's plane crashed into, is also being considered for the Ranger's open manager's position, so he will be in demand.

So, bottom line, it does not look like the Giants are talking to Piniella for their job. And, really, it doesn't look like a fit for Piniella either, he doesn't want to be part of another re-building with youngsters, like Tampa Bay, his last job. And at 63, he doesn't have many more years to manage to put up with a re-building with as many question marks as the Giants appear to have.

Candidates Thus Far: Only Wotus, Definitively

The only clear candidate has been Ron Wotus and he's already gotten two interviews. No other name has been definitively mentioned yet, only that the Giants want to interview someone off the Mets coaching staff. If I were to bet, as I think I noted here (but certainly at McCovey Chronicles), Ron Wotus has to be the front runner for the position, due to his history and position with the team.

While it won't be an upset if he doesn't get the position, depending on who else gets hired, all the indicators point to him. He's already spoke twice with Sabean. Sabean made the point that Wotus nearly got the Dodgers' job, coming in second to Little, and had interviewed with other teams, showing that he has the credentials and respect within the majors to manage an MLB team.

Wotus has been prepared for the Giants manager job while working for the Giants since 1990. Wotus was a very successful manager in the Giants farm system, from 1991 to 1997, winning when the Giants basically had a barren farm system. His winning percentage was .575 (555-411) and, not only that, his teams finished above .500 5 of his 7 years and made the playoffs in 6 of his 7 years as manager in the Giants farm system. Not only that, but he was twice named Manager of the Year.

He then joined the Giants major league team as 3B coach under Dusty, then became bench coach for Dusty for the rest of Dusty's tenure with the Giants. He then kept that position even when Felipe came on, when Luis Pujols would have appeared to have been the logical choice for Felipe since Pujols had Felipe as his bench coach when he was manager of the Tigers. The Giants appear to have forced Felipe to keep Wotus and Righetti as bench coach and pitching coach, as well as other coaches, when managers typically bring in his own people, Pujols being the only one Felipe brought in.

The Others

With the Piniella sighting mainly apparently a fact finding informational meeting between two old friends - probably Sabean picking Piniella's brains - that leaves only the Mets as the other potential source for interviewees, either Manuel and/or Acta. The A's Ron Washington has been mentioned by the media as a possible but if the Giants had expressed interest by contacting the A's for permission, it hasn't been leaked out yet, which probably means that they are not interested in him. Particularly since Billy Beane was open Wednesday about talking with Texas and granting them permission to speak with Washington - if the Giants had expressed similar interest, one would think Beane would have mentioned something at the same time.

And there was this peculiar dichotomy between action and speech: Sabean said that he won't be releasing his short list and having a "dog and pony" show of potential managers coming in and talking to the media about the position and instead he would keep the search quiet and under the radar, and yet he openly admitted that he had spoke with Wotus about the job, essentially endorsed him in the same conversation, and now has acknowledged two meetings with Wotus. All the while, he has not publicly acknowledged anyone else.

If Not Ron, Then Who?

So it right now looks like, to me, that Wotus is the prime candidate. True, it could be as Sabean noted, that his search is going on under the waves, that trait has marked most of his big trades, they usually came out of nowhere, without a rumor to give a hint of what's about to happen. But why acknowledge Wotus then? Why bother pointing out Wotus' good qualifications for the job? And how he came in second for the Dodger's spot? Just say exactly what he said, without mentioning Wotus: "I'm not running a dog and pony show like other teams, I will let you know when I have picked a new manager."

If he is not selling Wotus to Giants fans, who is he selling to? If you hear enough Sabean calls and interviews, if given his druthers, he would rather keep everything undercover and out of sight. He never accidentally pass on any info that he doesn't want to get out, he usually has an agenda for the interview, where he's basically marketing to the fans and setting expectations and selling the team. He keeps information very close to the vest and out of the hands of the media as much as he can without totally stonewalling the reporter. He clearly has a plan for what message he is trying to communicate to the public, to set expectations.

But his only message here is that Ron Wotus has the qualifications to be a major league manager, he has come close before, and he is one of the Giants candidates.

And he has basically made it clear, in the interview with KNBR after Alou's dismissal, that Righetti is not a candidate. He admitted that he hadn't even spoken with Righetti yet and said Rags might not be interested but that he would speak to him- avoiding saying that he would consider Rags as a candidate - then one week later, Righetti says in an interview that Sabean has not spoken to him yet and he's just worried about keeping his job when the new manager comes in. Meanwhile, Wotus has had another conversation with Sabean since then.

Two Birds in the Hand or the Bird in the Bush

I've been in a discussion about whether the Giants should trade Lowry and Sanchez for a good young hitter like Carl Crawford (and noticed after posting this that sfgfan posted something similar, beating me to the punch...). Now, dodging the issue of whether such a trade is even possible as it seems like other teams could outdo that easily, what if we could trade the two for a studmuffin of a hitter, would that be a good thing? Right now, hopefully Sanchez and Lincecum join the rotation and provide the Giants a killer rotation of Lowry, Cain, Sanchez, and Lincecum, but if we trade off them, right now that would make it Cain, Lincecum, and Hennessey maybe, and not that Lincecum is a sure thing either, though he has been outstanding so far.

That's partly why I am not for trading off, say, Lowry and Sanchez, for a young stud hitter. Pitchers are fragile and that's why they came up with TINSTAAPP: there is no such thing as a pitching prospect. And that's one very good reason for getting a sure thing like a stud hitter. But this involves two of our hopes of the future.

And the Giants future is their pitching rotation. If we are re-building for the post-Bonds era, that is what we should be concentrating on, not trading that away, which is potentially a huge area of strength. Pitching strength will come from a Jell-O strategy: you throw enough Jell-O at the wall, eventually enough of it will stick.

Ideally, the Giants build up their rotation such that you regularly have really good pitching prospects rise with the cream and regularly slough off good prospects you can trade to fill position needs. The Giants are not there yet, Lowry needs to show 2006 was a fluke injury year, Cain needs to show he can build off his second half of 2006 and not regress, Sanchez and Lincecum will need to show they can actually start in the majors. Hopefully the four can make a killer rotation in a couple of years, but killer prospects do not always translate into major leaguers, we might have nothing, like the A's and Met's with their Four Aces potential of the early 1990's fizzling out to not even ONE decent starter.

But at this point, this seems to me to be the fastest route to a return to domination, you have to roll the dice somewhere and to have a killer rotation seems to be the best way to it. That's how the Dodgers of the 60's did it, very strong pitching backed by JIT offense built on speed. I understand the times are totally different, with the era now of offense, and there are different ways to win, but it seems to me that the surest way to regularly win is to have a great defense, pitching in baseball's case, with an offense that is adequate. Good offense is no guarantee of winning, but good pitching always keeps you in the game.

And in this particular hypothetical trade, we are trading off half of that potential to get one hitter, an admittedly good hitter, but it takes more than one good hitter to get our offense going, which thus far has looked like a problem that will be hard to solve via free agency. There are not many obvious upgrades at the positions we have open over the guys we had this year and this year our offense was subpar for much of the year, or so it seemed. So getting this one good, maybe great, hitter, would not make our offense that much better, but losing those two starters would pretty much kill off any potential for a killer rotation, at least until we see who the Giants pick with their 10th overall pick (again) for the 2007 draft and who among the Giants prospects take that giant leap forward and become a viable pitching prospect for our starting rotation.

How Giants Fans Should Approach the Off-Season

Great post by Grant on McCovey Chronicles! As I commented there, I wish I had written it.

I agreed with almost everything. However, the direction, to me, is clear: younger, healthier, long term commitment.

The problem is the budget is not large enough, the free agent market is not good enough to enable the Giants do this whole hog, and the farm system is still a young deer struggling to find its balance and stance after coming out of the womb, it is full of potential but not mature enough to evaluate conclusively, and there is not much you can do with it yet other than to pat it on the head and be a proud papa.

So the Giants will have this general guidance in strategy - younger, healthier, long term - but tactically will have to sign players who are not younger, healthier, and for a short term, to fill in gaps in the roster. And, as Sabean noted in interviews, the Giants will not block any position where they feel there are potential prospects coming up, and seek longer term solutions for the other positions.

Then the $64,000 question, as Grant noted astutely, is who are the ones whose paths are not to be blocked? Frandsen is one who some fans could accept as starter, platoon starter, or AAA starter, and wouldn't be too fazed. But only Linden looks like he might be ready for his closeup.

Others who look like they might make it are Lewis, EME, Schierholtz, Ishikawa, and Ortmeier, but there are bigger question marks like Sanders, Sandoval, Maroul, Schoop, Horwitz, Burriss, and Villalona, among others (not sure who else impressed this season) down further in the farm system who could come up and make it but are too far down to be judged a future major leaguer for sure yet. But clearly, none of these players are a sure bet to make the majors when and if they get their chance to play in the majors.

So that will drive speculation for this off-season too: whichever positions the Giants end up not filling with a long-term solution, is it because there is a prospect who might be blocked and if so, who, or is it because of a poor free agent pool?