Minor League Diary: May 17, 2006

“Philosophical Differences”

News item: Texas Rangers fire Tim Ireland as manager of the Oklahoma RedHawks, and issue a press release indicating that the firing was a result of “philosophical differences” between Ireland and the organization.

At the time of his firing, Ireland was under a 10-game suspension by the Pacific Coast League for an incident that occurred in the May 3 game between the RedHawks and Round Rock. This article notes that the Rangers were not happy with Ireland’s reaction, but that there were other contributors to the dismissal:

-- Ireland was not happy about being left short of players on a regular basis;
-- The players were not happy with Ireland’s “wacky” style, whatever that means;
-- The RedHawk ownership was unhappy with the team’s losing record.

I think Ireland was caught in a no-win situation. Ireland appears to be a pretty intense guy, which can rub people the wrong way, and which grates a lot more when things are not going especially well. Oklahoma’s management (as Scott Pruitt’s comments indicate) clearly expects to having winning teams on the field, and that’s hard to do when the talent is being churned continually. Ireland’s intensity, in that situation, probably made things worse.

That said, I cannot remember a time that a minor league manager was removed in-season where the team went out of its way (as the Rangers did here) to characterize the dismissal as due to internal disagreements between the manager and the team. It doesn’t make either the organization or Ireland look very good, and I have to wonder why the Rangers chose to spin this story in this fashion.

Hunt the Wumpus (I Feel a Draft)

The major league Rule 4 draft is scheduled for June 6 and 7. The complete first round order can be found here.

This draft class is universally recognized as being a fairly weak one, and - at this moment, at least - completely unpredictable. The Royals will draft a college pitcher with the first pick - but will it be UNC’s Andrew Miller (the consensus #1 coming into the season), teammate Daniel Bard, Houston’s Brad Lincoln, Washington’s Tim Lincecum (the current favorite), or Cal’s Brandon Morrow?

A couple of things that I’ve heard (don’t take them as gospel, though):

-- Colorado, at #2, will likely take Evan (not Eva’s brother) Longoria, the 3B from Long Beach State, even if Miller is available to them.
-- Tampa, at #3, will likely take Lincecum if he’s available.
-- Pittsburgh, at #4, is looking hard at Kyle Drabek (Doug’s son), even though concerns about his off-field character have surfaced.
-- Luke Hochevar is pitching well in indy ball, showing few signs of rust. There are some rumblings that LA might still sign him; they have until May 31.

John Manuel did a draft chat the other day on Baseball America, and will be doing one every Friday. BA’s coverage will ramp up pretty quickly over the next couple of weeks.

The mock drafts are starting. MLB.com has theirs through #20, showing Lincecum #1 (which I’ve seen several other places as well). John Sickels will host one on June 4 for the Minor League Ball community. I’ll post others as I find them.

Loss of Control

Last Friday night, the Carolina Mudcats and Chattanooga Lookouts met to start their third series of the season; the Lookouts had won seven of the first 10 games. In the top of the third inning, a pitch from Carolina’s Adam Bostick grazed the helmet of Chattanooga’s Chris Dickerson. It was pretty clearly a breaking pitch that slipped out of Bostick’s hand.

In the bottom half of the inning, the Lookouts’ Eddy Valdez started off 2-0 on the Mudcats’ Edgar Gonzalez, then hit him on the shoulder. Again, this was clearly unintentional. But Gonzalez didn’t think so, and charged the mound, attempting to land a karate kick somewhere on Valdez’s person. Both benches emptied, and your typical baseball fight ensued.

From that point on, things deteriorated. The replacement umpires had no idea what to do, looking more or less helplessly on, and eventually (as Mudcat broadcaster Patrick Kinas pointed out at least twice) the coaches and players themselves had to take control of the situation - but not before Lookout 3B Aaron Herr suffered a wrist injury (fortunately not serious) in the melee. Then the umps, after about 15 minutes, tossed both Gonzalez and (after a delay) Valdez. Owens was livid - as well he should have been, because (a) there was clearly no intent on Valdez’s part (b) Gonzalez overreacted, and (c) the umpires didn’t even issue warnings against retaliation. He protested the game at that point.

Things got even more interesting later. In the fourth, Carolina’s Lee Mitchell singled with two outs and runners on first and second. Kevin Randel attempted to score from second on the play, and clearly slid around the tag attempt by Miguel Perez (as Kinas noted, as did I sitting in the second deck immediately behind the plate). The plate umpire - whose view of the play was blocked by Perez - called Randel out. Dorante charged him, bumped him, and left the premises, but not before burying the plate under a mound of dirt in a passable imitation of Earl Weaver

In the fifth inning, it was Owens’s turn. The plate umpire called a ball against the Mudcats’ Jamie Athas on a pitch that looked pretty good (although I thought it was probably a good call, and one which at least had been made consistently all night). Perez held the ball in place for a second, and Owens emerged from the dugout and trudged slowly to the mound. He carried on a fairly long discussion with his pitcher, Brad Salmon, to the point where Kinas commented that he was clearly waiting for the ump to come out and break it up. The ump decided to take his sweet time brushing off the plate, and finally Owens decided he’s had enough and said something along the lines of “don’t turn your back on me” - at which point he got to join Dorante in the clubhouse.

It’s hard to keep writing about this (and I promise after this I’ll try to avoid another rant on the subject), but it’s also hard to keep sweeping it under the rug as MiLB is doing. I’m not excusing Gonzalez’s actions; they were totally uncalled-for, and I have no doubt he’s going to (and should) pull a lengthy suspension. But everything that happened after that happened because the umpires had no idea how to control the players or the managers. It’s affecting their umpiring - the hesitations on close calls are becoming both more obvious and more frequent. It’s affecting the players - Travis Chick last night lost it after several broderline calls went against him, and while he probably should have kept his cool, it’s hard to expect a player to hold it in every time out. It’s affecting the managers - there is a heck of a lot more bickering, above and beyond the normal jockeying, and tempers get overheated far too quickly.

It’s affecting the game. And it’s obvious that it’s affecting it. And while I can’t find the link now (should have posted it when I had the chance), at least one columnist has suggested that MLB has a stake in this, and it’s about time MLB got involved to bring about a reasonable solution. They won’t - but they should.