Latest / Foul Territory / Managers Matter w/Scott Miller
Transcript
- 0:00Speaker 1: If you look at what major league managers make, there
- 0:03Speaker 1: are some college baseball coaches that make more than some
- 0:08Speaker 1: major league managers.
- 0:12Speaker 2: Hey, we've got Scott Miller joining us right now. New
- 0:15Speaker 2: York Times contributor and Fresh Book appreciate it.
- 0:18Speaker 1: Uh yesterday, it actually hit the shelves yesterday. It became available,
- 0:23Speaker 1: So Eddie, as they say wherever books are sold, or
- 0:28Speaker 1: as we say today, Amazon dot com, Target dot com,
- 0:32Speaker 1: Barnesandoble dot com, whatever.
- 0:35Speaker 3: Or Scott Miller's gonna send me a free one because
- 0:38Speaker 3: all those damn interviews I did, for all those years
- 0:40Speaker 3: of them. So at some point I'm expecting an autograph
- 0:42Speaker 3: copy to show up at my house.
- 0:44Speaker 1: AJ, I'll be happy to I. Yeah, I knew AJ
- 0:48Speaker 1: when he was a young up and comer with the
- 0:50Speaker 1: Minnesota Twins when I was covering them.
- 0:52Speaker 3: And your hair is a little different. What's our hair
- 0:59Speaker 3: was a little diff Your hair was a little different,
- 1:01Speaker 3: Scot back then.
- 1:02Speaker 1: Yeah. And I don't know if you had a beard
- 1:04Speaker 1: back then, but you know Tom.
- 1:06Speaker 3: Kelly, Tom Kelly, there was no beards being allowed to
- 1:09Speaker 3: Tom Kelly's world. You were no sunglasses, You weren't allowed
- 1:13Speaker 3: to wear sunglasses. You weren't you had to wear your jersey.
- 1:16Speaker 3: There was no like pullovers.
- 1:17Speaker 1: Twins didn't pay for shaving cream.
- 1:19Speaker 3: We had to buy our own fleeces. At one point,
- 1:22Speaker 3: man Terry Ryan had to buy his own shorts. I mean,
- 1:27Speaker 3: God knows all these story that's the best.
- 1:29Speaker 1: I talked to TK for a while. He's in the
- 1:32Speaker 1: book about managing during his time. AJ, you'll get a
- 1:36Speaker 1: kick out of this. I wanted to talk to TK
- 1:39Speaker 1: for many reasons. Tom Kelly managed the Twins back in
- 1:44Speaker 1: the eighties and nineties, in eighty seven and ninety one
- 1:47Speaker 1: or two World Series wins. So anyway, I covered TK
- 1:52Speaker 1: and the Twins from ninety four to ninety nine. AJ
- 1:54Speaker 1: came up during that time and we got to know
- 1:57Speaker 1: each other a little bit. But anyway, one of the
- 2:00Speaker 1: things I wanted to do in the book, among other things,
- 2:02Speaker 1: shows how managing used to be and how it is now,
- 2:06Speaker 1: was kind of comparing contrast the famous John Smoltz Game
- 2:10Speaker 1: seven in nineteen ninety one World Series, the ten inning
- 2:14Speaker 1: you know strong complete game performance against you know in
- 2:19Speaker 1: twenty twenty, when Kevin Cash famously hooked Blake Snell early
- 2:23Speaker 1: before he faced the Dodgers, lineup the third time and
- 2:27Speaker 1: Kevin Cash, God bless him. He was great. I know
- 2:30Speaker 1: he's tired of talking about the topic, but anyway, two
- 2:34Speaker 1: extremes of how baseball used to be. Anyway, ajack back
- 2:38Speaker 1: to the Tom Kelly things. So that's one thing I
- 2:41Speaker 1: wanted to do in the book. So I called t K,
- 2:43Speaker 1: and I thought, I haven't been through Minnesota in a while.
- 2:46Speaker 1: I always preferred doing interviews in person because it's just
- 2:49Speaker 1: better than you know, on the phone. So I called
- 2:52Speaker 1: TK a couple of years, you know, when I started
- 2:54Speaker 1: this project, and he answers and he and I ended up.
- 2:58Speaker 1: We had a good relationship, even though he could be cantankerous.
- 3:02Speaker 1: So I tell TK what the issue is or what
- 3:05Speaker 1: I'm looking for to try to talk to him. I said,
- 3:07Speaker 1: I'd love to come to the Twin Cities, you know,
- 3:09Speaker 1: sit down over lunch, maybe spend some time with you
- 3:12Speaker 1: talking about managing. And Tom Kelly says, Scottie, I don't
- 3:19Speaker 1: even talk to my wife that much. I don't want
- 3:22Speaker 1: to have lunch. You don't need to come to the
- 3:23Speaker 1: Twins City. Now I'm like, oh, man, I really want
- 3:27Speaker 1: to tell you. So we keep talking and he says Finally,
- 3:31Speaker 1: he says, I don't even know why i'd want to
- 3:33Speaker 1: help somebody write a book anyway. Oh my god, I'm
- 3:38Speaker 1: losing it, you know. I'm like, oh, and so I
- 3:40Speaker 1: give him my best pitch. I'm like, Tom, you won
- 3:42Speaker 1: two World Series in nineteen eighty seven and nineteen ninety one.
- 3:46Speaker 1: You were a great manager. But you know, all the publicity,
- 3:50Speaker 1: all the pub comes out of the East coast New
- 3:52Speaker 1: York or the West coast. I said, I really would
- 3:54Speaker 1: like to have you in my book. So we talked
- 3:56Speaker 1: a little bit more. Finally he says, all right, I
- 4:01Speaker 1: don't know why I'm gonna say it. I'll help you,
- 4:03Speaker 1: he said, but I can give you a few minutes
- 4:06Speaker 1: if you want to call me next week. So we
- 4:08Speaker 1: agree on Monday, he's golfing in the morning. I'll call
- 4:11Speaker 1: around noon. Okay, great. I call him three and a
- 4:15Speaker 1: half hours on the phone. He was superb.
- 4:21Speaker 3: Oh boy, of course, that's it's such TK. I mean,
- 4:25Speaker 3: I could tell you I told the story before.
- 4:27Speaker 4: TK.
- 4:28Speaker 3: I never knew I made the major leagues until Tom
- 4:30Speaker 3: Kelly had a conversation with me where he wasn't like
- 4:31Speaker 3: telling me how I'm crappy.
- 4:32Speaker 4: I was he just came up to you one day.
- 4:34Speaker 3: In my locker. He was like, Hey, you're gonna be
- 4:36Speaker 3: in the fantasy football league.
- 4:38Speaker 4: This is like.
- 4:38Speaker 3: June, and I was like, I made it.
- 4:42Speaker 4: He actually talked to me like a normal human.
- 4:44Speaker 1: Yes, if you're there, I'm doing okay.
- 4:46Speaker 4: Wow.
- 4:47Speaker 3: Oh yeah.
- 4:48Speaker 1: And that's how managing used to be. Though. I told
- 4:53Speaker 1: to Dan Peatree, who played He was the number two
- 4:55Speaker 1: pitcher Jack Morris's number one for the nineteen eighty four
- 4:59Speaker 1: Tigers World CERTA his team and Sparky Anderson was similar.
- 5:03Speaker 1: I mean, we all know Sparky either by reputation or
- 5:06Speaker 1: dealing with him as being this affable guy, but he
- 5:09Speaker 1: didn't want to get to know his players. Partly, he
- 5:12Speaker 1: used to say, because I know one day I'm going
- 5:15Speaker 1: to have to release them or trade them, and it's
- 5:18Speaker 1: going to be too painful, so I don't want to
- 5:20Speaker 1: know them. And anyway, Dan Petrie told me he pitched
- 5:23Speaker 1: for Sparky. He said when he first came up, he said,
- 5:26Speaker 1: we were scared the death of Sparky. He said. The
- 5:29Speaker 1: only time you ever went into Sparky's office was a
- 5:33Speaker 1: if he's going to send you down to the minor
- 5:35Speaker 1: leagues or b if he was going to chew your
- 5:39Speaker 1: ass over something that happened in the game. He said
- 5:43Speaker 1: he never stopped by to say good job, and he said,
- 5:46Speaker 1: I never wanted to talk to Sparky. I just wanted
- 5:49Speaker 1: to keep letting him do my job. And you know
- 5:52Speaker 1: that's where you know, managing back then versus managing today
- 5:56Speaker 1: is all about communicating with your players.
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- 7:03Speaker 2: I want to make sure I hammer the name of
- 7:05Speaker 2: the books and people can find it online available. Like
- 7:08Speaker 2: Scott said, everywhere skipper, why baseball managers matter and always will.
- 7:13Speaker 2: So let's fast forward to now, did you get into
- 7:16Speaker 2: the state of managers in today's game, the psychology game,
- 7:19Speaker 2: the way that they have to work with the front
- 7:21Speaker 2: office on setting the lineup and any other kind of
- 7:23Speaker 2: prep and why the manager still matters so much now
- 7:27Speaker 2: even though they essentially have less power or have to
- 7:29Speaker 2: spread the power around amongst the organization.
- 7:33Speaker 1: Yeah, definitely kind of in a nutshell, Scott, the book
- 7:37Speaker 1: is it starts in the late seventies when managers had
- 7:41Speaker 1: all the power, you know, Billy Martin, Earl Weaver, Sparky Anderson.
- 7:45Speaker 1: And also it starts in late seventies because that's when
- 7:48Speaker 1: the very first rudimentary computers were available to the public.
- 7:54Speaker 1: So I kind of that's why I picked them to
- 7:56Speaker 1: start to kind of move from then to now as
- 7:59Speaker 1: manager and the game change as computers moved into all
- 8:03Speaker 1: of our lives and changed every aspect of it. So
- 8:06Speaker 1: the book kind of goes looks at managing from the
- 8:09Speaker 1: late seventies to now, what the job was like then,
- 8:14Speaker 1: what it's like now, how we got from then to now,
- 8:17Speaker 1: and why we got from then to now, and yeah,
- 8:21Speaker 1: today's job. It's interesting what the job Aaron Boone is
- 8:24Speaker 1: doing today in New York. If you just look at
- 8:27Speaker 1: a list of Yankees managers, you know you'll see whatever
- 8:31Speaker 1: Billy Martin, Bob Lemon, Joe Torrey, and on paper, that's
- 8:37Speaker 1: the lineage. But the job Aaron Boone is doing in
- 8:40Speaker 1: New York today as a manager is completely different than
- 8:47Speaker 1: the job Joe Tory did or any other manager did
- 8:52Speaker 1: back in the day. And that's true for all organizations.
- 8:56Speaker 4: Did you find any crossovers. Did you find any manager
- 9:00Speaker 4: like like Aaron Boone is now from back in the
- 9:04Speaker 4: seventies and eighties, more of that like player kind of happy,
- 9:08Speaker 4: go lucky, not as much of a hard ass or
- 9:11Speaker 4: did you find anybody that's currently more like a Sparky
- 9:15Speaker 4: Anderson or a Tom Kelly in the game dealing with
- 9:18Speaker 4: a bunch of snowflake players.
- 9:21Speaker 1: You know, I would say Jim Leland's a little bit
- 9:26Speaker 1: like Sparky and Casey Stango from the standpoint of of
- 9:30Speaker 1: remember famously in the early nineties when he and Barry
- 9:33Speaker 1: Bonds got into it in spring training very publicly. And
- 9:36Speaker 1: you know, for Jim Leland doesn't take any guff. Also,
- 9:40Speaker 1: he's got that philosophical side where the way he speaks
- 9:45Speaker 1: it just sounds like a wise philosopher. But you know
- 9:48Speaker 1: that that would be one I would say, Eric. You know,
- 9:52Speaker 1: the interesting thing is the question keeps coming up, could
- 9:56Speaker 1: a guy managing today and name any one of the
- 9:59Speaker 1: thirty man going right now, could he have managed back then?
- 10:03Speaker 1: Or could like Earl Weaver manage today? And I think
- 10:07Speaker 1: there are a handful of guys today probably could manage
- 10:10Speaker 1: back then. I mean, you know, Bruce Bouchie obviously has
- 10:13Speaker 1: proven his stripes. You know that that's that's a guy
- 10:17Speaker 1: that that could manage. I think in any era, probably
- 10:21Speaker 1: Dusty Baker, you know, Leland they're a handful of guys,
- 10:25Speaker 1: but not a ton of them. And you know, Bochie
- 10:27Speaker 1: told me in the book, you know, I asked him
- 10:31Speaker 1: he kind of crosses a couple of different generations, and
- 10:35Speaker 1: he said, the biggest change in his job is when
- 10:39Speaker 1: he first started managing. He said, I used to when
- 10:43Speaker 1: I first started managing the job, I would tell players
- 10:46Speaker 1: what to do. He said, Now, as I manage it,
- 10:51Speaker 1: you can't just tell players what to do. Now it
- 10:54Speaker 1: requires an explanation. You know, Hey, I need you to
- 10:57Speaker 1: do this for this reason, or hey, this is this
- 11:01Speaker 1: is why we're we're wanting you to do this. Uh,
- 11:04Speaker 1: you know, kind of got to come. You know, I
- 11:06Speaker 1: don't know if Eric you I love I love you,
- 11:09Speaker 1: said snowflake players. And there are different different different feelings there.
- 11:15Speaker 1: But yeah, managers today have to be so much more
- 11:20Speaker 1: better at communicating with their players and relationships than old
- 11:25Speaker 1: school managers did. And you know, I think, you know,
- 11:28Speaker 1: you look at managing today and Sandy Alderson, I talked
- 11:32Speaker 1: to executives as well as managers as well as players
- 11:35Speaker 1: and ex players, you know, trying to get a handle
- 11:38Speaker 1: on all of it. And Sandy Alderson said, managing today
- 11:42Speaker 1: in your tool bag. You've got to have a handful
- 11:47Speaker 1: of skill set that guys forty years ago didn't need,
- 11:52Speaker 1: you know. And that's where the difference has come in
- 11:55Speaker 1: about why the job is different today then back then.
- 12:01Speaker 4: Big news was made when Craig Council got his forty
- 12:05Speaker 4: million dollar contract to leave a division rival and go
- 12:09Speaker 4: manage the Cubs. Dave Roberts has since eclipsed his annual value.
- 12:14Speaker 4: But should they be paid more? Should they be paid
- 12:18Speaker 4: With the way the player's salary is going up, managerial
- 12:21Speaker 4: salaries have not kept up.
- 12:23Speaker 1: No, you're right. That's a great point. And I did
- 12:26Speaker 1: talk to Craig Counsel in the book about that. And
- 12:30Speaker 1: if you look at what major league managers make compared
- 12:34Speaker 1: to NBA coaches, NFL coaches, even college football and basketball coaches,
- 12:41Speaker 1: and believe it or not, there are some college baseball
- 12:44Speaker 1: coaches like Tim Corbin, the great coach at Vanderbilt, that
- 12:48Speaker 1: make more than some major league managers do. Major league
- 12:53Speaker 1: manager salaries have been depressed for years, and it's amazing
- 13:00Speaker 1: because you all know, I don't have to tell you
- 13:02Speaker 1: what a long season it is and almost required, you know,
- 13:08Speaker 1: not just managing. Obviously, the games and the obvious things
- 13:11Speaker 1: that go with it. But you know these guys today,
- 13:14Speaker 1: especially take Dave Roberts in Los Angeles. I mean, you know,
- 13:18Speaker 1: he gets pulled as if he's made of taffy. He's
- 13:21Speaker 1: got to deal with the players, he's got to work
- 13:24Speaker 1: with a baseball front baseball operations department that wants him
- 13:29Speaker 1: to do certain things. One day, the marketing department of
- 13:33Speaker 1: the Dodgers may come in and said, hey, we need
- 13:35Speaker 1: you to speak at a statue dedication ceremony. Or when
- 13:39Speaker 1: Vin Scully retired, after Vin's last game, there's Dave out
- 13:42Speaker 1: on the field kind of being mc is they lead
- 13:45Speaker 1: a ceremony for Vin Scully. And there's so much today
- 13:49Speaker 1: that goes into it. And yet you're right, they don't
- 13:51Speaker 1: get paid very much relatively speaking. And you know Craig
- 13:56Speaker 1: Council said, among other things, you know when he was
- 13:59Speaker 1: in Milwaukee, he said, yeah, he said, every single day
- 14:04Speaker 1: we got to do as baseball managers. We got to
- 14:06Speaker 1: meet the press before the game, after the game. I mean,
- 14:10Speaker 1: you talk one hundred and sixty two game season that
- 14:12Speaker 1: my math isn't good. AJ may need to help me here.
- 14:15Speaker 1: One hundred and sixty two games, pre and postgame. That's
- 14:18Speaker 1: what that's. That's you know, three hundred and twenty some
- 14:22Speaker 1: press conferences a year, let alone off days, spring training,
- 14:27Speaker 1: on and on and on special when breaking news happens.
- 14:30Speaker 1: And Consol said, whenever I bump into in the offseason,
- 14:34Speaker 1: like the Green Bay Packers coach or the Milwaukee Bucks coach,
- 14:38Speaker 1: he said that was that would be the one thing
- 14:40Speaker 1: that would leave them shaking their heads. They're like, I
- 14:42Speaker 1: don't know how you meet with the media that much.
- 14:44Speaker 1: It's nuts.
- 14:46Speaker 3: Agreed, agreed, But this is this is all to me,
- 14:49Speaker 3: the declining power of a major league manager. He used
- 14:52Speaker 3: to be the manager had all the power. I mean,
- 14:54Speaker 3: manager Tom Kelly, Like we had Terry Ryan as our GM.
- 14:58Speaker 3: Terry Ryan, honestly, yeah, he had power to make player moves.
- 15:02Speaker 3: But Tom Kelly'd be like, I don't want him to
- 15:04Speaker 3: come up, and I want I need a guy this,
- 15:06Speaker 3: and Terry would say, all right, I'm gonna bring up
- 15:09Speaker 3: Praszinski and Tom Kelly say, Nope, not him, I want
- 15:12Speaker 3: anybody else, right, And that was a difference.
- 15:14Speaker 4: It's changed.
- 15:15Speaker 3: That's why the roles have kind of reversed, Like now
- 15:17Speaker 3: it's GM has power.
- 15:18Speaker 4: Managers a little bit. But it used to be.
- 15:21Speaker 3: I mean, the manager was the end all be all
- 15:24Speaker 3: of the baseball organization and they got paid like it
- 15:27Speaker 3: Now it's kind of flip flop.
- 15:28Speaker 4: I don't know if it's good or bad.
- 15:30Speaker 3: God, I'll let you tell me the answer to this question.
- 15:32Speaker 4: Is it good or bad?
- 15:34Speaker 1: You know, probably like anything else, not to give you
- 15:37Speaker 1: a wishy washy answer. Ajay, it's probably. You know, there
- 15:39Speaker 1: are probably some good aspects and some bad aspects. I mean,
- 15:42Speaker 1: you know, one thing going way back, and I don't
- 15:45Speaker 1: mean to date myself, and this actually was when I
- 15:47Speaker 1: was a kid, but say, in nineteen seventy six, Mark
- 15:52Speaker 1: the bird Fiedrich came up to the Tigers as a rookie,
- 15:57Speaker 1: famously just took the game by storm. He is a rookie.
- 16:01Speaker 1: He started the All Star Game that year, and he
- 16:05Speaker 1: ended up getting hurt the next spring and he never
- 16:07Speaker 1: reached those heights again. And I bring him up because
- 16:12Speaker 1: that rookie year in nineteen seventy six, he threw like
- 16:15Speaker 1: two hundred and fifty four innings. I mean it was nuts.
- 16:18Speaker 1: You talk about innings limits and how that we watched
- 16:20Speaker 1: pitchers like hawks today and so on. One hand. You know,
- 16:26Speaker 1: Ralph Howell kept running him out there. It's probably good
- 16:29Speaker 1: to have some guardrails on managers today in that you know,
- 16:33Speaker 1: the front office steps into a degree and says, hey,
- 16:37Speaker 1: we got to really take care. We don't want this
- 16:39Speaker 1: guy throwing too many innings. If he goes from pitching
- 16:42Speaker 1: seventy innings last year to two hundred and fifty innings
- 16:46Speaker 1: this year, he's going to blow his arm out, which
- 16:48Speaker 1: is what happened to Mark Fiederich's way back when. So
- 16:51Speaker 1: it's to a degree probably good that there are some
- 16:54Speaker 1: checks and balances on managers today. But on the flip side, yeah,
- 16:59Speaker 1: it can be we create a dicey situation because you
- 17:02Speaker 1: know right now, as fans, as media people like us,
- 17:08Speaker 1: you know so many people. And that's why I ended
- 17:11Speaker 1: up being interested in writing the books. So many people
- 17:13Speaker 1: look and say, do managers even matter anymore? They're more
- 17:17Speaker 1: like middle managers. You know, they've been neutered, and you
- 17:21Speaker 1: know most of their influence now is in We hear
- 17:25Speaker 1: so much about building a culture, a team culture, and
- 17:29Speaker 1: communicating with players and kind of selling the front office's
- 17:34Speaker 1: vision of the team. Manager has to kind of sell
- 17:37Speaker 1: that to the players individually. You know, certainly a lot
- 17:41Speaker 1: of the passion has taken out of the game. I think,
- 17:44Speaker 1: you know, I mean, who didn't love Earl Weaver or
- 17:47Speaker 1: Sparky Anderson or Billy Martin just going nuts on an umpire.
- 17:51Speaker 1: I mean that would fire up a whole stadium, and
- 17:54Speaker 1: you know, it kept the game interesting, and you know,
- 17:57Speaker 1: with managing not being what it was, certainly I think
- 18:02Speaker 1: it removes some of the soul and humanity from the game.
- 18:07Speaker 2: Scott, we appreciate the time. The book sounds awesome, cannot
- 18:10Speaker 2: wait to dive into it. I'm just going to give
- 18:13Speaker 2: you a yes or no because we're at a time.
- 18:16Speaker 2: Do you think that Pete Rose will be voted into
- 18:20Speaker 2: the Hall? Would you have voted him into the Hall?
- 18:22Speaker 2: So give me a yes or no on each one.
- 18:26Speaker 1: I'm gonna say no. I don't think he will be
- 18:31Speaker 1: I think it may take a while because I don't
- 18:33Speaker 1: think executives and Hall of Famers that are voting will
- 18:37Speaker 1: be ready right away to vote him. Man, and I
- 18:41Speaker 1: would I think yesterday's ruling diminishes the integrity of the
- 18:45Speaker 1: game to a degree.
- 18:47Speaker 2: Nice Okay, obviously, AJ's on the same page. We spent
- 18:51Speaker 2: a lot of time on that earlier Scott. Great to
- 18:53Speaker 2: have you on. We'll have you back soon. Good luck
- 18:55Speaker 2: with the book and we'll pump it again.
- 18:57Speaker 4: I'll be waiting.
- 18:58Speaker 3: I'll be waiting for my autograph cup, the best interview.
- 19:01Speaker 1: A thank you, text me your address will be We'll
- 19:04Speaker 1: be in touch. Thank you guys. Really enjoyed being with you.