My Latest Thoughts On Giants Mangerial Search

What the heck, I'm posting the comment I had put together in response to Allfranks question on my thoughts on Acta vs. Bud Black for manager here as a blog post.

Ratto on Black, Acta

I love Ray and sometimes poorly emulate him when I write.

To me, the article doesn't really make Black the leading horse, he's just throwing that out there as a trial balloon, really, as a thought piece that if Bud really was considered for both jobs, his choice would speak volumes of what a non-subjective decision maker thinks is the better franchise to go with.

Then he subverts that later by noting that there are a lot of factors that are not related to the baseball side that could affect his decision, like Barry and Billy.

Right Black Acta: Black vs. Acta

But to the question of Black vs. Acta, both sound like good candidates for the Giants job, from what I know about both of them.

As a more saber-oriented fan, Acta would be a great choice for that reason plus the bonus that he could speak with his players who are mainly Spanish speaking.

Black, however, is good friends with some of the people already on the staff, according to one report (have to assume Righetti and Gardner, don't see any reason for Wotus, Pujols, or Glynne to have much interaction with Black previously), making the transition easier, since it sounds like the Giants are planning on keeping the coaches, and I like the coaches for the most part, except for probably hitting, since he couldn't fix up Niekro up here, he had to go down for that.

But not that Acta could not learn to be like that either.

Black is a plus because he's a pitcher and our main assets for the near-future on the team in terms of youth is our pitching, so hopefully he would know more about that than Acta. But, again, Acta could (probably does, since he spoke on pitch counts) too.

What's intriguing with Acta is that if he is good, he could be a manager for 15-30 years, which would be a rarity in history, let alone today. I would like a continuity of the manager like that. He's only 37 whereas Black is 49. Then again, Black could be here 15-20 years himself.

Of course, there is the history of it because Black was a premiere (relatively, there was an uproar about how much Rosen paid for Black) free agent that the Giants signed and he pitched well for us for many years.

Plus, he helped shaped and guide the Angel's young pitchers, like Escobar, Lackey, Santana, and now Jered Weaver. Lackey in particular, he wasn't much of a strikeout pitcher when he came up but with Black's tutelage, over a short period, his K/9 rate went from 5.7 in 2002 to 6.7 in 2003 to 6.5 in 2004, to 8.6 in 2005, and to 7.9 in 2006. That boosted his K/BB from an OK 2.1 to a great 2.6 to 2.8 in 2005-6.

So which way to go, with Acta who manages more sabermetically (not that Black wouldn't), which would help the hitters, or Black who helped guide Angels' pitching prospects into become productive pitchers (not that Acta wouldn't), which would help our young pitchers be harvested for trade or good performance.

Both Good Choices

Right now, it looks like we can't go bad either way. I think both will bring a lot to the job. Given the Giants penchant for history, that would suggest that Black has the inside track, since he's a former Giants, but I think the only reason they saw Black first was because he was available and Acta was not.

They, afterall, waited until now to interview Black, whereas the rumor about Acta has been out for a while now, suggesting the Giants only recently decided to pursue Black, kind of like an afterthought. Perhaps the reason why is that Black sent some grapeline feelers to the Giants to let them know of his interest. But even if so, it took the Giants a while to decide to "kick the tires".

Acta the Front Runner Right Now

I would give Acta the inside track for now, given the Giants clear intention to integrate their operations, from the female announcer then African American female announcer, to hiring Dusty, who had basically zero managerial experience except for a brief run in the AFL, where, really, you can't show much of anything if you are a manager, to pursuing Felipe, to all the multi-cultural and diversity events that they hold during the Giants season, plus the decision long ago to have a Spanish language radio broadcast, and the embracing of past Giants greats, Willie Mays, Willie McCovey, Orlando Cepeda, Vide Blue, and hopefully Felipe will soon join them as advisor.

Acta would make the most sense given that history of choices made, especially since the main management is still clearly white middle-aged, except for the CFO, an Asian, though, now looking through the media guide, there are a fair number of women there. Even among Sabean's main advisors, they are all white, Tidrow, Dobson, Evans, Perranoski, and Colletti before that. And presumably, while Black would bring his pitcher's experience into the mix, that is redundant when you have Righetti and Gardner already here, unless the Giants had decided that they wanted to go in another direction there, and if they had, this would mean that they were dissatisifed and the two would have been fired by now, so presumably they are still held in high esteem, though not enough to hire as manager.

Thirnking further on this, I think the Giants are more interviewing Black to 1) pick his brains (partly), 2) give him additional exposure as a managerial candidate (Sabean was already around when Black was last with Giants), and 3) perhaps (mainly) prime the pump for the Padres to go with Black after Bochy since Bud LIVES in San Diego and his family living there was the major consideration for him, don't see how that changes yet, one of his daughters is still in middle school there.