And then there were two

[ashbury]

http://www.mercurynews.com/sports/ci_29913105/firing-braves-fredi-gonzalez-leaves-two-minority-managers

 

 

 

And then there were two.

 

The firing of Atlanta Braves manager Fredi Gonzalez Tuesday means there are no Latino managers in the major leagues and only two minority managers _ Washington's Dusty Baker and the Dodgers' Dave Roberts. ...

 

I would have thought by now this kind of statistic would no longer be possible, nor relevant, but here we are.

 

Should Paul Molitor's replacement be Hispanic? With all the young prospects the Twins are counting on, would it be a plus?

 

 

[biggentleben]

The crazy thing is that if you think about it, who are really the Latino managerial candidates? Dave Martinez and Alex Cora are the seeming two cross-league ones. Eddie Perez is one for the Braves for sure, and they have hired a few guys in their minor league system as coaches that are Latino, but I still don't know the movement of those guys to the majors.

 

 

[nicksaviking]

I'm partial to former catchers for the job. Maybe there's something wrong with him but I'm still interested I. Sandy Alomar Jr.

[Kwak]

It seems to me that if Molitor is the next manager replaced said replacement had better be minority--Latin or Black--or there will be many questions asked.  No, I don't have a suggestion.

[Hrbowski]

Why do they have to be a minority? You just eliminate a bunch of good candidates from the get go if that is your priority. I'm actually more concerned about the lack of minorities in front offices. The Pirates lost one of the best in Tyrone Brooks.

[ashbury]

Why do they have to be a minority? You just eliminate a bunch of good candidates from the get go if that is your priority.

Yes, with only 93.3% of managers being white according to the article, it's clear that there is a problem with good white candidates getting recognition.

 

But seriously, the point is that when hiring a manager (and notice how I sneaked in the unsupported premise that we should be looking to do that now) there are usually a lot of qualified candidates who are more or less indistinguishable from one another in terms of the basic qualifications, and you are looking for one that has some kind of "secret sauce" he brings to the kitchen. With a team (like many others) that has a number of young Hispanic players, some of whom are under-performing, it's not a stretch to wonder if finding a manager with a certain simpatico would be that special (if not exactly secret) sauce.

 

 

[mudcat14]

OZZIE!!!!!

[biggentleben]

 

Why do they have to be a minority? You just eliminate a bunch of good candidates from the get go if that is your priority. I'm actually more concerned about the lack of minorities in front offices. The Pirates lost one of the best in Tyrone Brooks.

 

Women and minorities both in the front office, but I don't think any good candidate that's white is truly getting passed over...

[Vanimal46]

Was Ozzie Guillen's last stint with the Marlins so bad that no one wants him anymore? I thought he was one of the hottest managerial candidates in baseball 5-6 years ago...

[Winston Smith]

Good old boys network and the Twins are one of the best. How many minorities belong to country clubs? My guess is not many just like not many work for the Twins.

[mudcat14]

 

Was Ozzie Guillen's last stint with the Marlins so bad that no one wants him anymore? I thought he was one of the hottest managerial candidates in baseball 5-6 years ago...

 

I don't think it's his managing.  It's his unwillingness respect the chain of command and keep his mouth shut.

[Rosterman]

It was hard enough to get the Twins to make additions to the coaching staff, and then is was largely because the coaching staff went waaaaay beyond the four, then five of the past decade.

 

Maybe we need a little Ozzie Ball in Minnesota!

[jimbo92107]

Minority? I'm looking for a rarity. Find me a Twins manager that gets these guys to win some games. I don't care about origin, looks, or what's his/her/its native tongue. My only restriction is they can't bring a gun. With this bunch it's just too tempting. 

[Thrylos]

I think that it is pretty naive to look at a sport, any sport and think that the minority problem in the Front Offices and Field Management will be fixed by quotas or mandates for interviewing minority candidates.

 

The truth of the matter is that there is are not good pipelines to the FO and to FM for young minority people.   Unless that changes, things will not change.   How to change?  Not sure that there is single way, but baseball needs to address the root cause here.

Recycling the same minority managers is not part of the solution...

[TheLeviathan]

Right, the problem is that there aren't enough minority people getting on the track towards management/front office jobs.  It probably starts with hiring more of them in entry level front office positions and at the lower minor league levels.

[Mr. Brooks]

I'm not a huge fan of Ozzie, but I think he might be just what this club needs at this point in time.

[biggentleben]

 

Right, the problem is that there aren't enough minority people getting on the track towards management/front office jobs.  It probably starts with hiring more of them in entry level front office positions and at the lower minor league levels.

 

In baseball, it starts in the minor leagues. I'm not trying to pump up the Braves here, but last season part of a trade they made was acquiring a 30-something catcher that never left AAA all season. He then retired after the season and is now at Rome as their bench coach. It just so happens that Rome has Ronald Acuna from Venezuela, one of the more intriguing under-the-radar prospects in the game currently, among many other Latin players filling the Rome roster. Stuck in Georgia, having a guy like Jose Yepez on that team is huge, and especially seeing that the Braves will have some big guys from recent J2 classes passing through Rome this year and intend to be spending big time this year.

 

One of the things that bugged me personally about the Brian Snitker promotion to manager is that Luis Salazar wasn't moved up to Gwinnett in his stead. Salazar is one of those great baseball guys that has been amazing in the Braves organization and certainly should be seeing some options.

 

All that said, there are great candidates out there like Dave Martinez and Alex Cora that want to manage, yet they can't seem to get a job offered to them at the big league level. What does that say?

[strumdatjaguar]

The Twins should tough out this horrible year as sellers (Plouffe, Dozier, Abad, Jepson),  In 2017, start the youth movement with Dougie Baseball at the helm, and Gardenhire as bench coach (if he'll do it) - Gene Glynn also stays as 3B coach (unless he's ready to retire). It's time to replace Bruno and Neil Allen with some coaches outside organization (maybe promote Chad Allen if organization thinks he's worthy).  Molitor goes to front office or retires.  If this last, mostly inside move doesn't work by mid-2018, then it's time to blow it all up and start from scratch.  The Twins have thrived sometimes with stability (as well as floundered at times, like this year).   Give it one more try but on a short leash.

[sftwinsfan]

Well, Rudy Hernandez and Eddie Guardado seem to be doing a real bang-up job so far.  How about we just forget about all the racial stuff and just focus on finding the best people for the position.  

[TheLeviathan]

 

Well, Rudy Hernandez and Eddie Guardado seem to be doing a real bang-up job so far.  How about we just forget about all the racial stuff and just focus on finding the best people for the position.  

 

I can agree with that, but sometimes you have to encourage people to transition into these positions too.  It's not accidental that throughout the major sports the people in positions of power are still largely white.  It's a country-club sort of thing and it does have to be broken to allow people like Rudy and Eddie and many others like them to have a chance to show they are the best people.  

[Pardon My Dinger]

I heard that David Ortiz is retiring. 

[Mike Sixel]

Well, given the number of minority players, and the percent of minority people in the country, yes....in most all sports minorities are under represented in leadership positions.

 

It's a hard nut to crack, people tend to hire people they already have a relationship with, or who someone they know knows. 

 

The Twins have made some very modest progress (I think) in this area, but they really need to make more. Not for some PC reason, but because a lot of players come from a place other than white suburbia, and they need to do a better job of relating to them, imo.

[Hosken Bombo Disco]

I don't know who the best manager for this team is anymore. But, I would be interested in seeing how a black or Hispanic coach might write out the Twins line up card, without any subtle pressures from the front office or fear of repercussions from displeasing any of the players.

 

[Guest]

http://www.mercurynews.com/sports/ci_29913105/firing-braves-fredi-gonzalez-leaves-two-minority-managers

 

 

 

I would have thought by now this kind of statistic would no longer be possible, nor relevant, but here we are.

 

Should Paul Molitor's replacement be Hispanic? With all the young prospects the Twins are counting on, would it be a plus?

I could care less about what boxes on the census the person checks. What would be great, however, is someone who understands that players from different places may have different cultural backgrounds, so that management could work better with and stop dumping on players who did not grow up in a culture that pushes behaving in some kind of Goose Gossage-approved uptight manner.

[twinsnorth49]

It's amazing to me that the manager and executive levels of the game don't  better reflect the people who play it.

 

It's incredibly short sighted

 

 

 

[adjacent]

I think Thylos and the ones that commented below him nailed in this one. 1) The game has evolved in a way that to be a good front office person has nothing to do with whether you were ever good at playing the game. But you have to be good at communicating and understanding the needs of those who play and coach the game. For that, recruiting and training in the job people of similar cultural backgroung to those who are playing should be a priority. Every successful, well run organization does it, and it is not for PR reasons exclusively.

The same goes for coaching staff. Train and promote staff with diverse cultural background, and then you will have candidates when the time comes for opportunities in the upper positions. And try to integrate more within the players too. It is right there for everyone to see, but nobody comments on it. When they show the dugout, the latin guys are in one corner, the white guys on the other, The only one that shows an effort to make a bridge is Dozier. That couldn't be good for team chemistry. Having managers and coaches of diverse background would help to bridge those gaps.