BREAK UP THE F-ING NATIONALS

[DeathFromAbove1979]

Fire Davey!

[shemptiness]

Just looked back at a couple baseball preview issues.

World Series pick:

Sporting News: Angels over Nationals
Sports Illustrated: Nationals over Rays

[DeathFromAbove1979]

Shit! Must have been the first time sports publications have been wrong about something.

[vansmack]

I'm sure for the right money the Nats could hire him but they won't do that.. they will prefer to go in house and go cheap...

edit: just to add a bit more on the nats direction, i think they should go with a smaller name guy. no dusty baker, no jim leyland, no joe girardi (obviously), no established name that would add even more pressure on this team to win big. idk if im sold on randy knorr but i like that direction a lot more than any of the big name guys

I think the Nat's talk should stay in the Nat's thread.

Ausmus would be cheap and would provide the team new life which the team needs aftet this season.

So he meets both of your requirements.

[gaaaaaaaaah]

im on board with ausmus, though im not all that familiar with him. everything ive read seems like hes exactly the kind of guy the nats need right now. plus, catchers tend to do well as managers.

my hesitance with knorr (or to a lesser extent, jewett) is the fresh blood thing. i guess its good that the team is already familiar with him, but i think they need a bit of a shakeup. nothing drastic, but i fear hiring davey's right hand man will just continue a lot of the nats' bad habits from last year.

im not opposed to ripken (the experience argument against him is silly. the guy has spent his whole life around baseball, and that has to count for something), but i dont think itll happen. too big a risk of a.) the pr disaster of disappointing performance and having to consider firing a local legend and b.) cal eventually bolting should the orioles job open up. mostly i think it comes back to the pressure thing. this team doesnt need more of it, and hiring a hall of fame player to manage is an invitation for the media to pile it on

[hutch]

I prefer experience.. a proven winner. except in the case of Cal and anybody waiting in the wings baseball GM Smackie endorses....

[gaaaaaaaaah]

you want a proven winner so you want dusty baker?

[hutch]

you want a proven winner so you want dusty baker?

Dusty's gotten enough teams in the playoffs to be a proven winner in my book...

I didn't say a World Series winner did I?

why so argumentative dude..its boring.

[gaaaaaaaaah]

but if experience matters so much why is regular season success good enough. the nats choked just fine in the playoffs without dusty, they dont need him around to destroy the pitching staff in the process

[hutch]

but if experience matters so much why is regular season success good enough. the nats choked just fine in the playoffs without dusty, they dont need him around to destroy the pitching staff in the process

well... I don't know...I mean I don't think there are any guarantees the Nats will make the playoffs again...  until proven wrong to me last year was a fluke...

I like managers with decades managing...different teams...

my worst nightmare is a guy like Manny Acta..

[vansmack]

For what it's worth, my buddy, who's a sports personality, says he'll be all but shocked if the Nat's don't hire Matt Williams. 

[hutch]

For what it's worth, my buddy, who's a sports personality, says he'll be all but shocked if the Nat's don't hire Matt Williams. 

yah.. him and knorr are the two guys i heard are the main contenders..

I find these choices rather boring but who knows... I mean maybe Williams turns into the next Girardi..of course when the Yankees hired Girardi he had some proven experience..

I'm wary of giving new guys a shot.. cal is an exception to this rule.. i like what i hear from him as a commentator...  I think if you're spending tens of millions on player contracts you should spend some good money on getting the best manager to handle those players... but i'm not sure who that even is.. I'm sure Leyland doesn't want the job and Dusty Baker seems controversial....

[gaaaaaaaaah]

doesnt mike matheny kinda shoot down the "managing experience is critical" thing?

i mean sure he inherited a winner tony la russa helped build, but hes done a damn good job on his own since then.

i agree that cal's been great on tbs. idk if hes treating it as a sort of coaching audition, but his analysis has been great.

my question on the matt williams thing is what would that do to the coaching staff? does he get to assemble his own or is that rizzo's call? knorr seemed to be gunning pretty hard for the coaching job late this year, so i cant see him hanging around if he doesnt get it. ive got no opinion on schu as a hitting coach (or either base coach, really) but i so hope mccatty sticks around. the pitchers seem to love that guy

the thing is, you say "the best manager to handle those players," which is why the whole thing's really a bit of a crapshoot. how can you know who the best manager to handle your players is without having him go out and actually do it. ozzie guillen had loads of experience but his time in miami was a disaster. im not comparing the nats to the marlins in any way, its just hard to see how a guy will fit in with your specific group of players.

[hutch]

doesnt mike matheny kinda shoot down the "managing experience is critical" thing?

i mean sure he inherited a winner tony la russa helped build, but hes done a damn good job on his own since then.

i agree that cal's been great on tbs. idk if hes treating it as a sort of coaching audition, but his analysis has been great.

my question on the matt williams thing is what would that do to the coaching staff? does he get to assemble his own or is that rizzo's call? knorr seemed to be gunning pretty hard for the coaching job late this year, so i cant see him hanging around if he doesnt get it. ive got no opinion on schu as a hitting coach (or either base coach, really) but i so hope mccatty sticks around. the pitchers seem to love that guy

the thing is, you say "the best manager to handle those players," which is why the whole thing's really a bit of a crapshoot. how can you know who the best manager to handle your players is without having him go out and actually do it. ozzie guillen had loads of experience but his time in miami was a disaster. im not comparing the nats to the marlins in any way, its just hard to see how a guy will fit in with your specific group of players.

of course you can find a great manager with no experience but its far riskier.. for every Matheny you will have many Actas but at the end of the day everybody has to start somewhere , right?

I just don't see why one would risk that.. look for a guy with experience who embodies what you need in a manager.. and pay a lot of money for a good one.. that is what I would do...I just don't know who is on the market now that I would want... Maddon is not going anywhere...

of course you can give a new guy the shot and he could turn out to be the next great manager.. but its a risk.. and if i had a team worth hundreds of millions of dollars i would be very risk averse

i mean look at the nats track record:
1. frank robinson... lots of experience..i would say he was a good manager..i would have kept him actually.
2. acta. no experience .. a total failure in my book.the worst manager ever... he must give good interview to keep getting jobs
3. riggleman.. ok this guy had experience but a pretty mediocre record.. i think he had basically managed loser teams all his life....
4. davey...lots of experience.. a good manager in my opinion but maybe a bit past his shelf life. .i think he aged a lot when his daughter died.. i still think he was a good call and did well... but he was not the davey of before..

but guys like hurdle, maddon, even showalter.. middle age guys with proven managing experience and some success..that would be ideal... by my own criteria leyland and baker might be a bit past their shelf life.. not sure who else is available..

anyways all moot..they will get a nobody with no experience.

of course they could offer larussa $10 million a year and see if he bites...offer to build him a few animal shelters or something... . i found larussa kind of maddening but in the end had to agree he got results... but yeah i'd rather have larussa than some guy with no managing experience.. is that crazy? seems rational to me.. when you have an airplane do you want a guy with no flying experience to take you to paris? when you go to war do you put a liutenant in charge or a general who fought in the previous war?


oh there's also charlie manuel.. i can't believe the phillies let him go.... and manuel has the benefit that he would know the division backwards and forwards... of course they'll never go for it ..first of all i'm guessing the lerners will want to be cheap as usual and getting a guy with no experience is cheap... why do you think that is?

[vansmack]

Joe Maddon had two 10 day stints as interim manager in Anaheim before he was hired by Tampa to be their manager.  He was Anaheim's bench coach for years before that.  At that time, Bud Black was the pitching coach, and went on to San Diego for his first managers job and did well for a few years before the money dried up in SD.  I wish both of them were still in Anaheim.

Brad Ausmus is one of Bud Black's bench coaches at the moment.

Including Maddon and Black, the following managers are in their first jobs:

Ventura (ChiSox), Porter (Houston), Scioscia (Anaheim), Washington (Texas), Gibbons (in his second stint with Toronto), Gibson (AZ), Weiss (CO), Mattingly (LA), Redmond (FLA), Roenicke (MIL), Sandberg (PHI), Matheny (Stl).

And there are four three vacant positions now that Pryce will be named the Reds coach.  He has no managerial experience.