MLB: Four and a Half Skills a Manager Needs to Be Successful

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In the wake of all the criticism that is being heaped on Buck Showalter for his alleged strategical mistake the other night, it’s a indication that too much emphasis is often placed on the value of in-game strategy when evaluating (as a whole) the responsibilities of an MLB manager today.

The legend surrounding the MLB managerial career of Billy Martin often includes something about his being a genius in the dugout. He could out-think and out-strategize anyone. He knew when to bunt, when to pinch hit, and when to leave his starter in for another hitter. He knew all that, but he didn’t know how to talk, speak, or communicate with another human being.

Billy Martin managed five different MLB teams. There was a reason why it was so many. He was hired and fired three separate times by the New York Yankees. There was a reason for that, too. He also went through his wives as fast as he went through managing jobs. And there was a reason for that, too.

This is not to gang up on Martin. Instead, it’s to make an important baseball point. Indeed, Billy Martin was a baseball genius. But he made more than his share of mistakes as a father, a husband, and most of all as a manager. He failed in these things because he was not a people person. Like it or not, above all else a big league manager today must be at least a decent human being with the ability to communicate at all levels… and so much more.

Martin is not the only one who falls into this category as a failed genius. Casey Stengel is in the Baseball Hall of Fame, but he was not above ridiculing his players in public. This was the case, for example, when he brought a birthday cake into the clubhouse for his less-than-sure-handed first baseman “Marvelous” Marv Throneberry while announcing, “I’d hand it to him, but I’m afraid he’d drop it.” Funny? Not if you are Throneberry. Bobby Valentine was the same way. Another baseball genius who wore out his welcome wherever he went.

So here then are the five attributes a successful MLB manager needs to have today. And rest assured, being a baseball “strategist” will be at the bottom of the list.

In today’s game, it’s not enough to know who can bunt, who can get lefties out, and who can steal you a base in a tight ballgame. And while you need to know all that, or maybe even better have someone on your staff next to you in the dugout who knows all that, a manager needs to know his players “personally.”

And by that I don’t mean he has to be bosom buddies with them. Far from it, in fact. But he has to be aware of some of the subtleties in life that affect all of us, including these athletes that go out there 162 times a year to perform for us .

He has to know for example that one of his relievers mentioned to a bench coach that he’s the best man in a friend’s wedding the Saturday following an afternoon game. Or that his third baseman hasn’t had a good night’s sleep in three nights because his four-month-old daughter has colic and has kept him and his wife awake all hours of the night.

Or that his shortstop was a little ticked off when he was pinch-hit for in a tight game six days ago. You get the drift. But knowing these things and acting on them are two different things. Or maybe he chooses not to act at all. Or maybe he opts to delegate, telling one of his coaches, “Hey, when you get a chance can you touch base with so-and-so on this.”

It works the other way around too. The players have to know you. And that shortstop who was grumbling has to be told by you what the boundaries of dissent are. As in, “We don’t do things like that around here. I manage this team and I decide who plays and who doesn’t, and if you have a beef, come and tell me.”

That’s Communication 101 in college. And that’s a huge part of the job of an MLB manager today.

In today’s culture, the media rules. We all know that. And yet, to keep it in context here, some managers choose to fight it. They’ll dodge the tough questions and play the softballs that a so-called “friend ” tosses up for you until they get to say, “Well, I guess time’s about up for today.”

Ozzie Guillen, for example, never caught on to the game and he suffered handsomely for it with some even suggesting that he has been unofficially banned from baseball. From public misspeaks to friction with players to mounting losses, Guillen’s time in Miami could not have gone much worse.

It’s always a tightrope that MLB managers walk though. And some get a bit testy talking about injuries for instance. After all, you can’t tell your opponents that your All-Star second baseman won’t be playing for the next few days.

In June of this year, Terry Collins stormed out of a press conference when journalists kept pressing him for more information about a injury to Noah Syndergaard. But that’s the line a manager needs to draw these days. The media may not have appreciated what he did, but the Mets players sure did.

On the other hand, when Collins wanted to deliver a stern message to his team without having one of those godawful meetings that players detest, he brilliantly used the media in a widely circulated story and video in which he accused his players of the ultimate mortal sin of not trying hard enough. Message delivered and the team went on to a Wild Card appearance.

For managers, it all works best when they realize that the media has a job to do too. And you can’t fight it, so you might as well join it.

In business, it’s called micromanaging. In baseball, it’s called suicide. And that’s why teams spend the extra bucks to provide a manager with a support staff so he doesn’t have to feel the need to do everything. In spite of that, some managers are reluctant to share authority, choosing instead to keep everyone and everything under their direct control. Bobby Valentine, for example, was notorious as a micromanager and both he and his teams suffered because of it.

On the other hand, the relationship between Joe Torre and Don Zimmer was legendary in the way that Torre gave a wide berth to his bench coach. They worked as a team with Torre handling the “people” part of the job and Zimmer a large part of the baseball stuff, including in-game strategy.

Most MLB managers also find it necessary and advantageous to rely heavily on their pitching coaches. Often, this is because pitchers tend to be of a different breed and only a former pitcher can understand and communicate with a pitcher. But whether or not that’s true, the workload of a pitching coach, if done effectively, is more than a full-time job itself, requiring extra staff like a bullpen coach to get the job done.

This leads in to the next attribute a manager needs to have…

There are enough distractions in the course of a manager performing his job (like the one above requiring a in-game interview) without the manager himself adding to the general chaos.

Much like a CEO running a business, managers try hard to manage their time to make sure that what they need to do gets done before they do or get distracted by anyone else’s job. The only caveat to that is that the players always come first.

These days for example, MLB managers are generally required to do a pre-game and post-game press conference. Anything beyond that is a manager’s choice. An interview with a reporter to provide background information on a story the reporter is writing is optional and dependent on how it fits in with his schedule and a number of other factors.

Some managers like Casey Stengel and Tommy Lasorda would actually seek out reporters because that was the nature of their personality. Others might choose instead to use that time to grab a glove and shag flies in the outfield during batting practice, circulating and chatting with players at the same time.

But again, it’s always a matter of choice. Successful managers make those choices while others allow themselves to be dragged around like a puppy dog because they can’t or they refuse to manage their time.

I held this one for last because it seems to me that it’s overrated when compared to all the other things discussed beforehand. And while it’s true that managers push buttons, it’s the players who execute the decision.

It may sound oversimplified, but any player wearing a major league uniform should be able to do anything his manager asks him to do. So when a manager calls on Player A instead of Player B, it’s incumbent on Player A to get the job done. Even if Player B usually does that job, or if he can do the job better.

To use another example, if a manager decides not to bunt in a tie ballgame with a runner on second and no one out, the batter is still expected to move the runner over to third in the course of making an out.

In other words, the players play the game. And they are the ones who win or lose a game as well. The point is so obvious that sometimes it seems to get lost.

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Second-guessing the manager has always been part of the game, too. But that’s just it – it’s always after the fact and not in the heat of the moment.

A computer could make all the decisions, too, but the computer cannot go onto the field to execute the play. It’s the same thing with managers.

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