Buck Showalter Astros
It’s still cold and the Super Bowl has yet to be played, but Spring Training is right around the corner. Now I’m peeking out from around a different corner to see if this thing still works the way it used to. It’s been a while since I’ve written in this space. It’s probably been even longer since you’ve read any of it. Toward the end of last baseball season, interest in the Orioles seemed to dwindle. Losing 108 games will do that to a fanbase. But the O’s are still a thing and they’ll continue to be throughout the summer. While 2020 surely won’t bring a lot of wins, it will hopefully provide a clearer vision into what is to come for the franchise in the next few seasons.
Former Yankees manager Buck Showalter interviewed with Houston on Wednesday and ex-Blue Jays skipper John Gibbons was coming in for an interview on Thursday, The Athletic reported. The Astros fired. Draft: Drafted by the New York Yankees in the 5th round of the 1977 MLB June Amateur Draft from Mississippi State University. Buck Showalter.
Craig Landefeld/GulfBird Sports
Let’s touch on a few things that are tangentially related to the Orioles, as I do regularly in this column.
1. Firstly, the Houston Astros have shunned former O’s skipper Buck Showalter for their open managerial role, instead choosing to hire Dusty Baker. This isn’t all that shocking of a decision to me. While those of us who are Baltimore fans would love to see Showalter get another shot at leading a ballclub, especially one with as much talent as Houston, he’s probably not their type.
It seems the Astros, when they aren’t banging on trash cans to tip pitches, are still way more analytically inclined than many other teams. While Baker isn’t the most analytical manager out there, neither is Showalter. My hunch is that the Astros are also a team that likes things to run from the top down, meaning the front office makes a lot of the calls and the manager has to deal with it. That’s also not Showalter’s style. Baker seems more like the type of manager, now 70 years old, who is willing to sit back and focus on managing from the dugout rather than from the front office.
Showalter always had his hand in a lot of decisions while in Baltimore, which is likely the source of many of his reported run-ins with executive vice president of baseball operations Dan Duquette.
2. Separate from the Astros’ managerial search is the scandal that led to it in the first place. As the whole thing unfolded this winter, eventually touching the Red Sox and Mets, I couldn’t help but think where else it might reach as it evolves.
Like, perhaps if the Astros had some members of their front office leave a few years ago and join a different team to take over a rebuilding project.
Maybe perhaps, in Baltimore?
No, it’s not like I think Mike Elias and Sig Mejdal were directly involved in this large scale scheme to steal signs in Houston. But I can’t prove they weren’t at least in the know. The revelations that continued to develop over the last few months weren’t shocking, but they did continue to unmask a program that is likely deeper within the game than we realize.
Jokes can be had about how the Orioles weren’t doing any of this sign stealing over the last two seasons, but don’t think these things aren’t thought about throughout the game. The Elias-Mejdal connection to the Astros is one that we all embraced when they were both brought to Baltimore. Has that changed now? Certainly there is still faith in what they are trying to build at Camden Yards, but does it ding your confidence at all? It’s something I don’t really have a great gauge for as of yet.
We’ll know our feelings more as results either come or don’t over the next few seasons.
3. The Orioles did not have their annual FanFest this month, and have instead planned a “caravan” for early February. These caravans are pretty common throughout the game, even if they aren’t familiar in Baltimore. Many teams do them prior to Spring Training. Some even call them the “Winter Warmup” or some other cute alliterative name (which the O’s had their own version of on Eutaw Street in December).
The caravan will run February 7-9 and hit 12 different cities and towns in the region, including York, Pennsylvania. York has long been Orioles territory in the same way that Washington, DC down into Northern Virginia once was. Things have changed. But the Orioles are doing their best to maintain their regional foothold, and a caravan is one way to do it.
I wonder if eliminating FanFest in favor of this caravan is an effort by the franchise to reach out and allow fans shorter distances to travel to see players and get a taste of baseball in the winter months. It could also be a concession that getting into downtown Baltimore to the convention center is not appealing to many. Parking is difficult and costly. It’s a one day thing. And for many reasons that are well above my knowledge and pay grade, there isn’t much desire for people to go into Baltimore City when they don’t have to.
As for the caravan itself, the team is bringing a good mix of players, prospects, coaches and legends along for the events. There seems to be a real embrace of getting prospects out into the community and recognizing that during this rebuild, fans are going to be super focused on those players. Might as well get them out in front of the public as much as possible. It’s also unclear, and likely extremely undecided, as to whether or not this caravan will be a long-term thing.
FanFest may eventually return, or the caravan could replace it in the long run. Feedback from the fans will likely determine the future of all such events.
4. The big signing for the Orioles this offseason was…Jose Iglesias? The 30-year-old Cuban was an All-Star back in 2015, but let’s not pretend this signing was a big deal. Let’s also not pretend that it was important for the Birds to make a big signing. This is going to be a very bad season, and a very long one. I think it’s important to keep reminding fans that this is Year 2 of what is likely a five-year rebuild.
It didn’t start in 2018 when the team went in the tank and traded the likes of Manny Machado and others. It started when they brought in a new regime last winter and came up with a plan. If the Orioles are still losing 90+ games in 2022 or 2023, we’ve got issues. Until then, embrace the suck. Enjoy the free agents like Iglesias, who I hope does wonderful things in the black and orange this season. I’ll root for him to be incredible. But let’s not pretend that we are ready for this team to call up it’s prospects and start winning games any time soon.
Iglesias likely won’t even be around when that happens.
Within the scope of the punishment levied against the Houston Astros by MLB, one issue is sort of set aside — the 2020 Houston Astros are, on paper, a pretty damn good baseball team.
The purpose of this missive isn’t to spend time debating the penalties. If anything, $5 million and the loss of four highly coveted draft picks in 2020 and 2021 is a bit on the lenient side. That is, until you factor in the one-year suspensions of general manager Jeff Luhnow and manager AJ Hinch, both of whom were subsequently fired by Astros owner Jim Crane.
Players play the games, but a GM and manager are the heart and soul of the day-to-day drip of activity that goes into roster building and player development. As skilled as Luhnow was in building up the Astros, the key job in Houston is now in the dugout. The next manager will have to be as skilled in public relations as he is in winning ballgames.
Let me be clear: There is nobody as good as Buck Showalter at doing those two things: making people feel upbeat and optimistic about their team and pushing the right buttons to win games.
Buck Showalter Astros
Former GM and current analyst Jim Bowden is pushing ex-Padres and Giants skipper Bruce Bochy for this position. While Showalter is not likely a Hall of Fame skipper, Bochy will certainly go into the Hall thanks to his three championships and four World Series appearances.
There is just one problem with Bochy: spring training convenes in less than 30 days, and he is still being cagey and vague as to whether or not he wants back in the dugout in 2020.
Showalter, on the other hand, might play cagey until the time the ink dries to extract every dollar of his worth. He is probably home with his wife, Angela, trying on uniforms and jackets to see the best fit.
Look, I know in the immediacy of such a turbulent couple days, Crane has to put a new front office and managerial team together. There will be some push to hand the job to Joe Espada, the Astros’ well-regarded bench coach. Prior to working with Hinch, Espada was highly thought of by the Yankees. He coached in New York under Joe Girardi from 2015-2017.
But in the light of day, one would have to believe this is a bit like asking the fox to guard the henhouse. Alex Cora, the bench coach of the 2017 Astros, was fired as manager of the Red Sox Jan. 14. MLB also has a bit of sketchy situation with Carlos Beltran managing the Mets.
Beltran said in November that he wasn’t involved in the Houston’s sign-stealing scheme, but MLB’s report specifically mentioned Beltran, a player on that cheating Astros team in 2017. While it’s unlikely he receives a suspension, could his tenure end before spring training? Beltran’s new bosses may feel his credibility in a tough media market forces their hand.
In my mind’s eye, I think this double whammy in Houston is going to hit the fan base a little like a natural disaster. It’s going to rattle the ground the fans have stood during these past five years of the Astros’ renaissance.
I can just see Showalter communicating to the local Houston media with them as the proper conduit to the fans by espousing warm wit, brilliant insight with just the right measure of shame for those that came before him — all the while making those around him feel hopeful.
He is one of the true difference makers I have ever been around in a locker room. He is what this very good Astros team needs right now. In fact, it’s fair to say he could do to Houston what Joe Torre did in New York after George Steinbrenner fired Showalter.
Buck Showalter Astros Club
As I recall, that didn’t work out too badly.
Buck Showalter Astros Stats
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