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October 29, 2003 Prospectus TodayCut LooseMonday, the Red Sox announced that they would cut ties with manager Grady Little. The decision wasn't a big surprise; Little wasn't fired as much as he wasn't re-hired, given that his contract was just about to expire. Little was never the choice of the revamped Red Sox front office. He'd gotten the job as something of a little-known compromise candidate in early 2002 and guided the team to a 93-69 record in his first season. He was inherited by the new, performance-analysis-driven front office a year ago, and kept the job as much to provide some continuity as because of any particular skills to brought to the position.I think too much is being made of the influence on this outcome of the last major decision Little made. Little isn't unemployed this morning because he left Pedro Martinez in too long in Game Seven of the ALCS. Certainly, that decision will stick in memory for years to come, but I doubt there are a half-dozen cases in history where a manager lost his job for making one wrong move. I expect more from Theo Epstein and Larry Lucchino, and to say that Little isn't the Sox manager today because of that decision is to give them far too little credit. What that decision, and the Sox' subsequent failure to reach the World Series, did was make it easier for the team to let go of Little. He was never on the same page as Epstein and Lucchino. His resistance to the team's much-hyped decision to move away from the save-centric bullpen model, and his inability to adapt to the personnel he was given to do so, made the first two months of the Sox' season more painful than they needed to be. In the wake of the ALCS, Little-bashing has become a popular pastime, which ignores the good work Little did in his two seasons. Managing the Red Sox is a rough job, as the team's media and fan base turn two-game losing streaks into plagues of Biblical proportions. The Sox have a number of high-maintenance players, and for all the attention paid to the idea that this was a blue-collar team, it still had a nine-figure payroll and a three of the brightest talents ever to wear red and white in Martinez, Nomar Garciaparra and Manny Ramirez. Little handled the press relations and leader-of-men aspects of his job with aplomb, which made up in part for his strategic and tactical shortcomings. I can see situations in which he'd be a successful manager, particularly if paired with a bench coach who he trusts and who complements his skills with tactical savoir faire. As I wrote in a chat session last week, this type of division of responsibility, not unlike the way some college football programs are run, may be the natural evolution of the position of baseball manager. Without Little, the Sox can now bring in a manager who is on the same page as the front office. This isn't exactly the situation the A's have in Oakland or the Blue Jays have in Toronto, where the managers are, to a certain extent, low-profile guys in place to implement the ideas of the front office. Because of the players on the roster and the demands of the local media, you need a stronger personality than those possessed by Ken Macha and Carlos Tosca. At the same time, you need someone who is willing to accept the principles by which Theo Epstein is building his baseball team. The person with the right mix of skills isn't going to be easy to find, and while any number of names have been kicked around, none seem to fit the Sox' situation. Personally, I like the idea of Larry Dierker, who had a lot of success in Houston and is known for respecting performance analysis. He's one of the smartest guys in the game, someone who would work well with Epstein and not be afraid of doing things a bit differently. The downside of Dierker is that over a period of years he lost the clubhouse in Houston, and this was in spite of winning four division titles in five years. If you can't handle Jeff Bagwell and Craig Biggio, it creates a question as to whether you can handle Pedro Martinez and Manny Ramirez. Honestly, though, I think the next Sox manager is going to be someone who is off the radar screen right now. It wouldn't surprise me to see someone who has never managed in the major leagues before get the job, and moreover, be the guy who brings this team back to the World Series. Notes
Joe Sheehan is an author of Baseball Prospectus. 0 comments have been left for this article.
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