Cleveland Sports Forum

If that resume isn't a red flag for being fired, I don't know what is. Nothing like job security. I think these guys have to start wiping the chocolate from their noses.

J.R. wrote:Do you have data on how many road trips other GMs take with their teams?

I'm pretty sure no one clocks GM travels with the team, but I think most in sports fandom would be shocked that the Cleveland GM admits he hits the road with the team only three times in a 162 game season.

My theory is still that Antonetti is uncomfortable being with the players, as is Shapiro.

Neither played the game beyond their formative years, and they collectively hired a Manager who never made Major League Baseball that they fired today. For the record, Antonetti and Shapiro have been in Tribe leadership positions for the firings of Charlie Manuel, and the subsequent hirings and firings of both Eric Wedge and Manny Acta.

Their comfort seems to be in staying in Cleveland and purporting to do important things they purport could not be done while traveling with the team......which is pure BS in today's world of technology.



Again, my theory is still that Antonetti is uncomfortable being with the players, as is Shapiro.

And again, I find it incredible that Antonetti only makes three road trips a year with the team, because honestly, I think if he loved The Game of Baseball he'd want to make all the games he could.

I assume the GM makes trips to all the minor league affiliates.

seagull wrote:I assume the GM makes trips to all the minor league affiliates.

Pleasant assumption, but does anyone track THAT stat?


I just launched "Moneyball" for about the 7th to 10th time. If I feel a need for a leak, I wait for the scene with Mark Shapiro in Cleveland, as the pompousness Hollywood gave his character is unbearable.

Especially in retrospect over this past season.

Antonetti and Shapiro apparently honestly thought the stupid moves that were made last offseason made sense. NO ONE in their right mind believed that opening the season with 7 LH hitters in the lineup made sense. Not much logic to 5 RH starting pitchers. And this self-justifying comment:

Over the winter, Cleveland traded for Derek Lowe and Aaron Cunningham, and added Jose Lopez and Jeremy Accardo as Minor League free agents. All four underperformed.

is untrue. All performed precisely to the level of their proven talent.

The season opened with a roster guaranteed to lose. Somehow they overperformed for a couple months, perhaps due to high quality managing, and then they reverted to form.

Perhaps Antonetti will try something new for next year. Maybe he'll trade Choo and Perez and load up with Brent Lillibridge-quality mid-career utility players who can't hit or field. An exciting 2013 looms.

If they are convinced of trading Perez, the Brewers need a closer badly.

Dare we try a trade with them again?

Peter Gammons ‏@pgammo


There is mutual interest between Francona and Indians. They'll all know better after weekend. Peace, love and understanding may be >$

Gammons is best friends with Theo.

I comprehend quite well Joe. You don't. Only reading your posts because I love when you are making excuses and I knew that you would be whining as usual.

Acta will get another MLB managers job when Joel Skinner gets one. Other words never.

seagull wrote:I assume the GM makes trips to all the minor league affiliates.

Yes, and depending on whether it's one of our fire sale seasons or not, probably a good many minor league teams in other organizations.

Francona would be an obvious choice for us if he's really interested in the job, though the last time we hired an ex-Red Sox manager, it didn't work out so well.

The Tribe has had a few managers who have won titles after first managing here, but I don't think we've ever hired anyone who has won a World Series already.

Well Rusty got his wish we canned Acta or whatever his name is. We now are after Francona. I assume he is using us to get some other job. I know that I wouldnt want to work for this mickey mouse organization. In the next six games we will be able to find out whether what's his name was the problem. The horrible thing is I couldnt even name the starting lineup for the minor league outfit. Who is our first baseman? I think Joel Skinner would be a wonderful choice for manager. He would come cheap and that is most important.

AAA manager gets high marks. He'd be even cheaper than Sandy, I imagine. And he'd inspire no interest from the fans. [Except the few who fondly remember Sarbaugh as a remember of the replacement Indians about 10 seasons back in Spring Training.] That sounds like a perfect fit choice for Markandchris.

Omar Vizquel ¿nuevo mánager de Indios?

CARACAS. -

Omar Vizquel is in the final stages of his playing career. Has repeatedly stated that he would immediately start his coaching career and now in Venezuela, the Caracas Lions made ​​known their intention to have him, at some point, with the leadership roll.

Fox Sports reporter, Jon Morosi , consulted with Vizquel and asked whether or not he would be interviewed by the Indians to occupy the position of quarterback, to which the Venezuelan replied: " Depends on what I hear from them and my agent when the season ends. " Vizquel reiterated to Morosi that he will retire after next Wednesday, the last day of the 2012 season.

would be interviewed by the Indians to occupy the position of quarterback,
Now I see the problems with our front office.

Tribe should skip 'interim' and make Alomar skipper

By Anthony Castrovince | Archive
09/27/12 7:36 PM ET
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Sandy Alomar Jr. is popular with both fans and players, as well as highly regarded in the baseball community. (AP)

CLEVELAND -- The repercussions of a second-half slide revealed themselves on Thursday, though the Indians' dismissal of manager Manny Acta had felt increasingly inevitable in recent weeks.

No rational person could reasonably assert that Acta was solely to blame for the team's precipitous descent from American League Central contender to bottom-feeder. But at the rate the Indians were losing games (42 of their last 57, to be exact) and at the rate Acta was losing clubhouse influence, a reasonable defense became increasingly difficult to muster.

And so the Indians have replaced Acta with his bench coach, Sandy Alomar Jr., on an interim basis. And this, too, was inevitable, for Alomar is popular with fans, popular with the players and, more to the point, highly regarded in the baseball community as a manager-in-training and manager-in-waiting.

But general manager Chris Antonetti, who dismissed Acta three years after bringing him onboard, told a room full of reporters that this particular story is not yet complete. Antonetti will perform an extensive, time-consuming search -- though Alomar is, of course, a top candidate -- to find the right man for the job.

"It's exhausting," Antonetti said of finding a manager. "It takes a lot of time and effort and a lot of phone calls and trying to understand and get enough perspectives on individuals from a variety of areas to really have an informed opinion of someone."

My advice to Antonetti?

Save your time, save your cell phone minutes and save everybody involved the hassle of submitting to a process that seems to have yet another inevitable result.

Just name Alomar the permanent manager and be done with it.

This is not meant to belittle those who will be tossed into the fire of the rumor mill. Although it's silly to assume that Terry Francona would leave a cushy TV gig to manage a team likely in need of a rebuild on a budget, there is no shortage of promising up-and-coming candidates available. (Torey Lovullo, the Blue Jays' first-base coach, is a personal favorite, and he has past ties to the Indians organization as their former Triple-A skipper.)

Nor is this an affront against the benefits of careful deliberation and consideration. Even if the results are nowhere near as intended right now, the Indians do have a thoughtful process to the way they go about making decisions, and a managerial move is obviously a major decision.

But given these particular circumstances -- with a perfectly reasonable candidate in place and many pertinent and pressing questions being posed about the direction of the franchise -- I'd say Antonetti and Co. would be best served to place their emphasis and their time elsewhere.

For a team in need of some positive PR at the moment, Alomar is as positive as they come. For better or worse, many fans here remain enamored with those teams from Jacobs Field's nascent years, when division titles were as second nature as season sellouts.

Alomar was, of course, a popular part of those teams, and although nobody buys a ticket to see a manager in action, that popularity can't hurt.

(Granted, the Indians will never reasonably be able to satisfy that certain segment of the fan base that only wishes to dwell on the 1990s -- although Albert Belle did joke with an Indians staffer that he ought to be named the manager because he is, in his words, "the people's champ." So there's always that option...)

For a young team likely to endure a tough transition period, a rookie skipper such as Alomar, who can grow along with his players, is a fit. Even Acta, in his conference call with reporters after his dismissal, noted what a "good baseball man" Alomar is -- though Acta was also quick to joke that if he's not qualified enough to be this club's manager, he's not qualified enough to give his opinion on who the next manager should be.

And to this particular assemblage of players, Alomar is an ally. It's not exactly fair, but the current crop seemed to sour on Acta. They didn't feel that he stuck up for them enough on blown or controversial calls, and they didn't feel he associated with them enough in the clubhouse.

Indeed, it's telling that several hours after the news of his dismissal had gone public, Acta had only heard from one of his players offering condolences.

But Alomar is beloved by this bunch. Whether that amounts to much between the lines is a matter very much yet to be determined, because the talent is clearly lacking. For whatever it's worth, Baseball Reference's Pythagorean won-loss calculation suggests that the Indians should have had four fewer wins than they did under Acta this season, and Baseball Prospectus' manager data says that Acta's Indians outperformed its Pythagorean expectations more than any other AL club except the Orioles.

When you consider those admitted approximations and when you note the fact that none of the eight men who started three or more games for the Indians this season has an ERA below 5.00, you see that the Tribe has issues that go well beyond the managerial slot.

So that's my unsolicited advice to Antonetti: Give Alomar his shot and put the organizational emphasis elsewhere.

Take the time you would have used to conduct that exhaustive search and apply it to the other evaluations already taking place -- evaluations of the scouting, drafting, development and injury-prevention dynamics that put you in this hole in the first place.

Now that the ceremonial slaying is taken care of, get down the real roots of the problem at hand.

And to this particular assemblage of players, Alomar is an ally. It's not exactly fair, but the current crop seemed to sour on Acta. They didn't feel that he stuck up for them enough on blown or controversial calls, and they didn't feel he associated with them enough in the clubhouse.

Indeed, it's telling that several hours after the news of his dismissal had gone public, Acta had only heard from one of his players offering condolences.

In other words he was a flat liner.