Throw a parade! NOW the Pirates are going to hire a managerial genius and become a force to be reckoned with. It's great that the organization is so fearlessly demonstrating its commitment to improving itself in every way possible. I'm sure it will put a deep amount of thought and effort into picking precisely the right man to lead the team into its glorious future.

My sarcasm detector just overloaded.

Sources say that the Pirates have contacted the San Diego Chargers about the possibility of getting Norv Turner out of his contract with them.

Your 2009 Brewers manager, everyone!

Was he that bad a manager? I really wouldn't mind if the Royals interviewed him.

Was there anything else more predictable than this?

Of course not -- I think all of us knew eventually Britney was going to pole dance.

No, Tracy's just your garden-variety inside-the-box J. Random Manager. Doesn't do anything notably well or poorly, and the "poorly" part of that statement makes him at least an average-to-above manager.

This is the perfect time for them to do this! Isiah Thomas was hoping to try his hand in a new line of work!

No, Tracy's just your garden-variety inside-the-box J. Random Manager.

I don't know, in recent years he's seemed more willing to deliberately hurt his own team to sabotage his GM than most managers would be. He's also shown more than a ready willingness to throw his own players (and anyone else) under the bus in order to divert blame from himself.

He seems to be a lot worse than your garden variety clock puncher manager.

Man, if only the Pirates had waited they could have had Jocketty AND LaRussa as a package deal.

Of course not -- I think all of us knew eventually Britney was going to pole dance.

She should have her kids taken ... oh wait, nevermind.

I don't know, in recent years he's seemed more willing to deliberately hurt his own team to sabotage his GM than most managers would be. He's also shown more than a ready willingness to throw his own players (and anyone else) under the bus in order to divert blame from himself.

I agree with what you're saying, I think the same way about Tracy.

He seems to be a lot worse than your garden variety clock puncher manager.

However, that doesn't necessarily make this true. Maybe if Tracy was hired to manage a good team and had a good relationship with his GM, therefore being in a situation where he didn't have reason to whine and do stupid ####, then he would do well as a manager. He might just be a crappy person as opposed to a crappy manager.

Primey for #11

Man, Tatum O'Neal looks older than 43. No wonder they call it junk.

For Tracy's first four seasons in Los Angeles, I thought he was one of the best managers I had ever seen. Seriously. Personnel management, in-game tactics - all of it. He was great.
But during the 2005 season, he completely lost his touch. It was baffling to watch.

"Doesn't do anything notably well or poorly, and the "poorly" part of that statement makes him at least an average-to-above manager."

That's true, except for the part about him not doing anything poorly.

Seriously, he's god-awful. He'll refuse to use players purely out of spite, he'll lobby incessantly to pack the roster with ex-Dodgers, and he's not satisfied unless he's got eight relievers at his beck and call (not that he knows the first thing about running a bullpen). Even worse, the next time he takes personal responsibility for a loss will be the first. Every time the team wins, it's because he had a brilliant strategy, and every time the team loses, it's because the players didn't execute.

I think that this incident is a fitting capstone to his Pirates career. I hope he never works again, in any capacity, anywhere.

He'll refuse to use players purely out of spite
Tracy's treatment of Hee Seop Choi was painful to watch.

"Maybe if Tracy was hired to manage a good team and had a good relationship with his GM, therefore being in a situation where he didn't have reason to whine and do stupid ####, then he would do well as a manager."

Tracy and Littlefield had a great relationship; they had a history together that stretched back to Montreal (where Littlefield was one of Dombrowski's lieutenants and Tracy was Alou's bench coach), and Tracy was choices A, B, and C as Lloyd's replacement. They only turned on each other at the end when it became obvious that firings were in the works and it was every man for himself.

I think that this incident is a fitting capstone to his Pirates career. I hope he never works again, in any capacity, anywhere.

I'm surprised you don't hope he manages the Cardinals. I do, assuming your comments are accurate.

Vlad, out of morbid curiosity, who do you think is worse: Tracy or McClendon?

"Maybe if Tracy was hired to manage a good team and had a good relationship with his GM, therefore being in a situation where he didn't have reason to whine and do stupid ####, then he would do well as a manager."

Kind of like Dusty Baker. Give him an awesome roster and a situation where nothing ruffles his feathers or otherwise goes wrong, and he's terrific.

In the real world, of course, he's a steaming pile of crap.

Tracy's treatment of Hee Seop Choi was painful to watch.

In fairness to Tracy, he was about the third manager to do that to Choi, not that that justifies it.

One of my great disappointments as a baseball fan in recent years is Choi's failure to develop (aided and abetted by a series of managers apparently bent on marginalizing him, or worse).

In fairness to Tracy, he was about the third manager to do that to Choi, not that that justifies it.
Dusty Baker hated kids.
Tracy simply couldn't stand Choi, to the point of playing Jason "Professional Hitter" Phillips at first base.
What was Jack McKeon's issue? It appears he gave Choi regular playing time.

Tracy's treatment of Hee Seop Choi was painful to watch.

As was his treatment of Jose Castillo.

-- MWE

What was Jack McKeon's issue? It appears he gave Choi regular playing time.

Not sure. He did give Choi a good bit of PT, but the team jettisoned him awfully quickly, which (given that Choi hit well in Florida) suggests to me there had to be something going on there. Something other than the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to acquire Paul LoDuca, Proven Winner and Veteran Leader™, I mean.

As was his treatment of Jose Castillo.
What happened there?

George Bush hates kimchi.

PFC:

Considering that Choi played BETTER for Jack than he did for anyone else I doubt Jack wanted him out the door. Clearly Choi was responding to SOMETHING in Florida that he never had before or since.

who knows. Maybe Choi's perceived passivity really did work against him..................

What kills me about Tracy shivving Choi is that, despite getting only 300+ ABs for the season in 2005, he ended up tied for 2nd on the team in HRs, & 4th in walks. & his line for the FLA portion of 2004 was spectacular. Of course, him doing so poorly in all of 61 ABs post-trade, coupled w/ the stigma of being part of the LoDuca trade, and some defensive short-comings (including the time good old Jeff Kent showed him up mid-game like the veteran sack of sh!t he is) guaranteed him a spot in Tracy's doghouse.

Irony of ironies - he was in camp w/ Tampa Bay this year.

So now it becomes a real top-to-bottom restructuring.

-- MWE

"Vlad, out of morbid curiosity, who do you think is worse: Tracy or McClendon?"

Tracy, without a doubt. McClendon was a bad manager, but Tracy is a bad manager AND a bad person.

McClendon, for all his faults, appeared to genuinely want to do what was right for the team, and you could tell it just ate at him that he wasn't any better at his job. On a very basic level, it wasn't his fault that he was a bad manager. He just didn't have the skills for the job, and asking him to do it was like asking a dog to perform brain surgery. In contrast, Tracy really only cared about what happened on (or off) the field insofar as it reflected on him. He was happy as long as he got paid, and he'd throw his mother under the bus to deflect criticism.

Maybe Choi's perceived passivity really did work against him
I will say Choi took a whole lot of called third strikes along with those walks.

"As was his treatment of Jose Castillo."

I tried to draw you out a little bit on Castillo in another thread, Mike, but you'd already moved on. I have to confess that I'd pretty much written him off as a future contributor a year and a half ago, but I respect your opinion on players enough that I'm second-guessing myself, and I'm interested in what you see in him right now (if you don't mind sharing).

Of course, Choi is just one of many things the LA media has got wrong about the Dodgers.
Choi could hit.
Lo Duca was not a team leader.
DePodesta was not a disaster.
Etc.

Boston found sabefaves Choi and Petagine lacking.

Wasn't Choi hurt while in the Boston organization?

Wow, holy ####. Graham, Creech, and Mercurio also fired, and Doug Strange demoted.

Creech deserved to be fired a thousand times over, but I didn't necessarily see the others coming. It's a great sign that Huntington was willing to cut the cord with these guys, since he'd worked with a lot of them in Montreal and Cleveland.

One of my great disappointments as a baseball fan in recent years is Choi's failure to develop (aided and abetted by a series of managers apparently bent on marginalizing him, or worse).

You'd think that if Cust and Pena could turn things around eventually so could Choi, but he was godawful in 2006 at every level- and went back to Korea.

If Choi actually had a solid productive 150g season in the MLB that would probably complete the stathead trifecta (Cust, Pena and Choi) that would drive a certain poster or to to drink and drink and drink....

He was happy as long as he got paid, and he'd throw his mother under the bus to deflect criticism.

Well, I suppose that wouldn't be entirely unwarranted. She IS largely responsible for Tracy's coming into the world, after all.

Boston found sabefaves Choi and Petagine lacking.

Petagine hit .327/.452/.635 in Pawtuckett.
He also hit .281/.361/.438 for the Sox (32 abs)

rumor has it that he was a pawn in the power struggle between Theo and Lucchino

The Sox also had David Ortiz.... But you'd think that Petagine could/should have eased out Millar...

Choi was horrific in Pawtuckett: .207/.347/.361

If Choi actually had a solid productive 150g season in the MLB
For kicks, I combined Choi's stats for his pre-concussion 2003 and pre-trade 2004:
In 416 at-bats over 144 games, Choi hit .262 with a SLG of .495. 29 doubles and 22 home runs. 81 walks to 126 Ks.
EDIT: I figured out his OBP: .388
So, his stat line was 262/388/495/883.
For a guy in his age 24-25 seasons, not bad.

For Tracy's first four seasons in Los Angeles, I thought he was one of the best managers I had ever seen. Seriously. Personnel management, in-game tactics - all of it. He was great.
But during the 2005 season, he completely lost his touch. It was baffling to watch.

Tom Boswell once had a write up about Rich Dauer. He was supposed to be the shining prospect for the Orioles. He had all-world written all over him. Then he made it to the majors and began one of the greatest slumps of all-time. Though he pulled out of it, he never quite recovered. Instead of all-world, he had to settle fore being a poor man's Jim Gantner.

Jim Tracy strikes me like that. For a few year he was so well-thought of. Since it fell apart on him, he's been totally unable to pick up all the pieces again.

As was his treatment of Jose Castillo.
What happened there?

Tracy decided before spring training that Sanchez was going to play second, rather than third, and that Castillo - who had never played 3B before - was going to have to compete for the starting job at 3B with Jose Bautista. Castillo hit over .300 in ST while Bautista hit .182, yet Bautista was given the job anyway. Castillo started at 2B at the beginning of the season when Freddy Sanchez was injured, but after 4 starts he was nailed to the bench on Sanchez's return, sallying forth only when someone else got hurt for most of the rest of the season. He had all of 20 PAs in September.

Castillo hit well for two months in 2006, culminating with a 6-HR in five game stretch at the end of May, yet all you heard from Tracy and his coaches was how dissatisfied they were with Castillo's tendency to be "pull-happy". He kept his BA up through June, although the power stroke vanished, yet the b****ing kept getting louder. Finally, everything vanished; Castillo was virtually useless the rest of the year, and immediately after the season the Bucs threw his job open.

-- MWE

Wikipedia says that Choi played in Korea this year, for the Kia Tigers. Anybody have any idea how he did? I found .jpgs of the Korean batting leaders but Choi is not among them ...

yet all you heard from Tracy and his coaches was how dissatisfied they were with Castillo's tendency to be "pull-happy".
Sounds like Tracy's M.O.

"Anybody have any idea how he did?"

Here's his stat line. From what I can tell, he's hitting .338 with 17 2B and 7 HR in 195 AB.

The season there seems to still be in progress.

Oh, god, I just realized this probably also means we can dump Jeff Manto! Sweet.

Man, Tatum O'Neal looks older than 43. No wonder they call it junk.

From the link: Tatum O'Neal: Britney Needs Help Fighting Addiction

Other headlines:

Rich Garces: C.C. Sabathia Needs to Lose Weight

Matt Clement: Carl Pavano Needs to Stay Healthy

John Kruk: Steve Phillips is an Idiot

Here's his stat line. From what I can tell, he's hitting .338 with 17 2B and 7 HR in 195 AB.

The season there seems to still be in progress.

So much for his hope to break the Korean single-season HR record.

asking him to do it was like asking a dog to perform brain surgery

Harsh, but funny.

Man, Tatum O'Neal looks older than 43. No wonder they call it junk.

Sure is. And she was once so eminently do-able.

And from such a nice family.

McClendon, for all his faults, appeared to genuinely want to do what was right for the team, and you could tell it just ate at him that he wasn't any better at his job. On a very basic level, it wasn't his fault that he was a bad manager. He just didn't have the skills for the job, and asking him to do it was like asking a dog to perform brain surgery. In contrast, Tracy really only cared about what happened on (or off) the field insofar as it reflected on him. He was happy as long as he got paid, and he'd throw his mother under the bus to deflect criticism.

I will put in another plug for McClendon...if you listened to him talk it was obvious he WANTED to get better, he WANTED to understand some of the more sabermetric aspects of the game. He simply never was effective at his overall job.


But I agree with this, there is no comparison between McClendon and Tracy.

"Harsh, but funny."

I mean it in the nicest possible way. Lloyd was a really nice guy and a really hard worker, but he managed games like Scott Bakula had just teleported into his body five minutes before.

He seems to be doing well in Detroit, which makes me happy.

And to think, Tracy didn't even have the shortest Vegas odds of being fired.

Tom Boswell once had a write up about Rich Dauer. He was supposed to be the shining prospect for the Orioles. He had all-world written all over him.

I'd heard that about Dauer too, saw him play, nothing special, from the Cube I see that he hit for half a season at AA and at AAA, was terrible for awful season of AA and a cup of coffee in AAA...

but having seen him play, I'd say he never really had the tools, the Orioles shouldn't have been fooled by him overperforming for a stretch in AA and AAA.... Easy to say that now.

The Orioles back then were a terrific organization, if they saw something, something must have been there.

#53
Felipe Alou 80/1 ????

Jim Leyland 10/1 ??!!11??!!11

I will say Choi took a whole lot of called third strikes along with those walks.

Not really. 28% of his Ks were called. Fairly normal percentage. He's averaged 157 Ks per 650 PAs.

Looking at the pitch data summary I can see what drove his managers nuts. His contact rate's the same as Adam Dunn's (though he struck out far less frequently by resolving PAs sooner.) That's always going to be an issue for somebody who doesn't have huge power.

George Bush hates kimchi.

Finally, something I can agree with him on.

Kind of like Dusty Baker. Give him an awesome roster and a situation where nothing ruffles his feathers or otherwise goes wrong, and he's terrific.

In the real world, of course, he's a steaming pile of crap.

Sure. I certainly don't mean to imply that if I was a GM I'd want Tracy as my manager, even if I did have a good relationship with him and the team was good I'd be afraid that the moment the team started slumping or we had a disagreement over personnel then he'd turn on me and start being a jackass again. No GM should be willing to take that risk even if the upside is the pre-2005 guy described in #15.

Not really. 28% of his Ks were called. Fairly normal percentage. He's averaged 157 Ks per 650 PAs.
Good to know.
Is a season-by-season (or team-by-team) breakdown available?

Irony of ironies - he [Choi] was in camp w/ Tampa Bay this year.

Emeigh has been beating this drum for a while, that the Rays are getting smarter.

Wait till the promising but quirky manager of Tracy's 7-11 finds out that his hours are being given to Jason Phillips.

Budddy Bell 5/1

Didn't Bell announce his retirement several months ago?