Gardy a Manager on the Hot Seat

[boney]

oops, screwed up the reply again. "I like turtles"

[TheLeviathan]

In the spirit of this thread:

 

Potatoes > Argyle Socks

 

Discuss.

[silverslugger]

Let's bring this discussion back to baseball. Mustard or Ketchup with your dog?

[diehardtwinsfan]

Wow, this thread really took an odd turn.

 

I've been a fire Gardy guy since his first couple of years in the minors, though I've waffled much more on that of late. I do think his time with this org has passed. I agree with others that his handling of Hicks thus far is poor. If I were to treat direct reports in that way, I'd find myself not managing people in a heartbeat, and I have to think at one point, it's on Terry Ryan to call him up and say as much. It's unprofessional. I'm not saying Hicks doesn't deserve some criticism, but being called out publicly for what is at best silly and at worst a flat out lie is not how to treat a young player.

 

I don't have a problem with Gardy criticizing the guy, but I shouldn't be reading about it. It ought to happen in his office with the door closed.

[drjim]

' Probably not unprecedented for a manager to mention to the media an aspect of a young players game that might need improvement.'

 

Is THAT how you describe what he said to the media about Hicks?

 

Gardy mentioned after the 2011 season that players were tuning him out and were defensive when he talked to them. He even said they mentioned how they didn't like him, 'throwing them under the bus'. I think it clearly does bother the players.

 

I was in the military for 23 years...I went to three different formal leadership schools while I was in (not to mention a couple week long refreshers here and there)...and one of the common themes was: Praise in public, criticize in private (a saying Vince Lombardi used to say as well). Followed closely by take none of the credit and all of the blame.

 

I guess I don't see a big deal with what Gardy did with Hicks. I'll say again that fans are much more sensitive to this stuff than players are. The 2011 comparison is an interesting one to make. That was mostly a collection of guys who have proven they don't belong in the bigs (perhaps Parmelee and maybe Plouffe aside), I wouldn't take much stock in how they responded.

 

I served in the military for 6 years and also have done a whole lot of leadership training. Your point is well taken but I think comparing the military with a baseball organization is a bit of a stretch. The military (in general) doesn't want internal issues to leak to the media and tries hard to suppress and re-direct inquiries, while leaders in baseball will occasionally use the media to make specific points for public consumption of a specific player.

[diehardtwinsfan]

I guess I don't see a big deal with what Gardy did with Hicks. I'll say again that fans are much more sensitive to this stuff than players are. The 2011 comparison is an interesting one to make. That was mostly a collection of guys who have proven they don't belong in the bigs (perhaps Parmelee and maybe Plouffe aside), I wouldn't take much stock in how they responded.

 

I served in the military for 6 years and also have done a whole lot of leadership training. Your point is well taken but I think comparing the military with a baseball organization is a bit of a stretch. The military (in general) doesn't want internal issues to leak to the media and tries hard to suppress and re-direct inquiries, while leaders in baseball will occasionally use the media to make specific points for public consumption of a specific player.

 

Most people I know don't enjoy being criticized. Having your boss call you out unfairly, in front of all of your coworkers, and in front of your paying customers is bad for business. As I said before, if I managed people that way, it would the last time I managed people.

[The Wise One]

There is nothing Gardenhire has done this year that is any different than any other year. Nobody has brought anything new forward.

 

Critizing in public. In sports it happens a lot. Writers would have a lot less to write about if it didn't. Writers speculate. They have no more clue than anyone else when they write a collective hotseat article on managers.

[TheLeviathan]

No one is saying he can't make a critical comment in public. Just do it after you've had the common decency to share your thoughts in private too. Otherwise, at the very least, you risk sending mixed signals to a young player who has more than enough issues without his manager piling on.

[Guest USAFChief]

I guess I don't see a big deal with what Gardy did with Hicks. I'll say again that fans are much more sensitive to this stuff than players are. The 2011 comparison is an interesting one to make. That was mostly a collection of guys who have proven they don't belong in the bigs (perhaps Parmelee and maybe Plouffe aside), I wouldn't take much stock in how they responded.

 

I served in the military for 6 years and also have done a whole lot of leadership training. Your point is well taken but I think comparing the military with a baseball organization is a bit of a stretch. The military (in general) doesn't want internal issues to leak to the media and tries hard to suppress and re-direct inquiries, while leaders in baseball will occasionally use the media to make specific points for public consumption of a specific player.

It has nothing to do with being in the military or not. It's about using some common sense as a leader. There is nothing to be gained by calling out Hicks to the media. Talk to him privately. "Using the media to make specific points" isn't a smart idea, and particularly stupid with a struggling youngster. Oh and for the record, I served for 26+ years, and rose to the highest enlisted grade, not that that's in any way relevant to this discussion.

[Benchwarmerjim]

I wonder how far in the Rolodex Mr. Heyman had to go to get a 'Gardy is on the hot seat' scoop.

 

does this rumor come up every 4 days? sure seems like it.

[ThePuck]

It has nothing to do with being in the military or not. It's about using some common sense as a leader. There is nothing to be gained by calling out Hicks to the media. Talk to him privately. "Using the media to make specific points" isn't a smart idea, and particularly stupid with a struggling youngster. Oh and for the record, I served for 26+ years, and rose to the highest enlisted grade, not that that's in any way relevant to this discussion.

 

Chief, he only brought up the military thing cause I did when I talked about the leadership courses and what the prevailing themes were. He wants to say it's different, but those leadership principals are recommended and used across all areas of professional fields including sports.

 

I also mentioned how Vince Lombardi was know for saying the same thing. about not criticizing in public...there's a great story about him and Bart Starr concerning this very topic.

 

Gardy has been puling this stuff for years...it has NEVER been a good idea and people aren't just pointing it now or over the last two years.

[Guest USAFChief]

He wants to say it's different, but those leadership principals are recommended and used across all areas ...

 

Concur.

[The Wise One]

If a player can't do what the little ones do in tball then he should not be suprised the manager is angry. If the media tells him the manager is angry and the reason, the player should not be hurt, self esteem destroyed. He should look at the media and same something like "And you expected him to be happy that I (insert goof here)?" The posters on this board have thin skin. Even with military service they cannot admit they are wrong, did something wrong. Why project that on a player?

[glunn]

I wonder how other managers handle these situations. Is it common for them to say things like this about young players?

[Kobs]

Gardy is not good at the few minor things managers do that impact the team, and there is no reason to keep him around.

[Mike Sixel]

Say them in public all you want, but don't say them to the press first. I would also suggest that you might want to give your employee a few weeks and several pieces of feedback, before you go public with your comments.

[old nurse]

Baseball is a very public job. What you do as a player and manager is out there for scrutiny. Discussion of the good and the bad in public forums is part of the job.

How people see things is how they want to. That determines how big of deal anything is. The anti people again are making mountains out of grains of sand.

[ThePuck]

The posters on this board have thin skin. Even with military service they cannot admit they are wrong, did something wrong. Why project that on a player?

 

And which military person said they couldn't admit the were wrong or did something wrong? What Chief and I said wasn't anything like. We said real leaders don't do what Gardy did concerning Hicks. I'm not what Hicks did was even wrong, but since Gardy thinks he did (and he's the boss), that little outburst to the media should have been done it private...or at least in private first. Certainly not how he handled it.

 

And why project that on the player, you ask? Because Gardy himself has said the players have complained about him doing that in the past...and those are just the ones who had the nads to tell him it bothered them...and yet he continues to do it.

[Old Twins Cap]

The Twins have no accountability when it comes to Gardenhire. None.

 

Why do we even need to talk about Gardenhire's rants about players? Just look at results. We've got the worst record in AL two years in a row, now headed for a third. He has not win a post-season game, let alone a series, in how many years? The famed "do the little things right" team does not do the little things right. They can't pitch, can't field, can't hit cut-off men, can't keep teams from stealing.

 

And when you watch the Twins play, the listless, passion-less, drip-drip-drip to another loss -- I mean, how much further down to you have to sink before someone wakes up and realizes that it's time for an accountability moment. For whatever reason, he is not producing good results for the Twins organization. It happens after 10 years. A team gets stale and a new manager brings a new approach. Why is this so hard to comprehend? It's baseball. It happens all the time.

[jokin]

That determines how big of deal anything is. The anti people again are making mountains out of grains of sand.

 

Thanks for supplying the apt illustration. "Grains of sand" kind of describes the foundation that's been built for this current Twins season- and also for Gardy's job security.

 

Now that you've supplied the written pictoral, I'm sure Snepp can snap up the actual pictoral for us in the the hate-by-numbers crowd.

[snepp]

I don't know, this seems like an awfully small mountain being built here. As such, it should be displayed appropriately.

 

 

 

http://thumbs.dreamstime.com/thumblarge_633/131648943531c2aC.jpg

[TheLeviathan]

I love how people's reaction to these sorts of things is about making too much of something. This is a conversation about a sport - ANYTHING you become passionate about with a sport is taking something that is largely trivial, meaningless, and far from earth shattering and making it that way out of nothing more than your love for it. Whether that is positive elation about something, negativity about something, or just grumbling about something you don't like - it's all mountains out of mole hills. A board like this exists because we've all basically agreed that spending our time chatting about this is more relevant to us than volunteering at a soup kitchen. So please, cut the lectures about perspective. All sports conversations have already dropped that pretense the moment you started one.

 

Now back to Gardy's inept leadership strategies. It's been long overdue that he got thoroughly roasted for them.