Gut reaction: Makes sense, and I think he'll succeed, whatever the expectations are in Cleveland. But I guess the Nats fans are going to have a different take on Acta.

I like Acta even though his flaws as an inexperienced manager were impossible to deny by the end there. I hope he's still young enough to learn from his mistakes and help the Indians, although I wonder how helming another team without talent or money is going to turn out for his reputation.

I'm sure that Primates who were hoping for Bobby V. are pretty dismayed about this.

UPDATE - First sign that Acta may actually have learned a little from his mistakes: he turned down the managing job with Houston in favor of the Indians one. No way was Acta going to go from Bowden & the Lerners to Wade & McLane.

According to Jose Ortiz at the Houston Chronicle, the Astros also made an offer to Acta on Saturday but didn't match the 3 year deal offered by the Indians.
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/sports/bb/6685437.html

The interesting aspect of that is that Acta had previously described managing the Astros as "too good to be true," as mentioned in Oritz's piece.

long painful sigh

and manny acta is a guy who worked in the astros Organization for a LONG time and he chose a different Organization when he had the choice

dear God i hope HOPE this does not mean phil garner round 2

because if it is, the astros and i are headed for divorce. there is only so much abuse this fan gonna take and i am not kidding. i am not one of those royals/pirates fans

Well, evidence that he learned would have been turning down the Astros WITHOUT another offer in hand.

bc, I surely hope that Mills gets the Astros' job. I don't know a heck of a lot about Mills, but I really don't want to see Round 2 of Phil Garner.

I hope Mills gets the Astros job too, so that the bench coach slot can be open for Jason Varitek and we won't have to deal with him as a player for another year.

Well, evidence that he learned would have been turning down the Astros WITHOUT another offer in hand.

Acta has a long, happy history with the organization. Honestly, I expected him to take the job and regret it immensely.

dear God i hope HOPE this does not mean phil garner round 2

Hate to tell you but that's exactly what I've been hearing.

tricky

either that or manny decided that he'd rather deal with dolan/shapiro than drayton/pam/tal/fast eddie

Surprised Valentine wasn't named, must have been a money issue. Anyway, Acta is a thoroughly uninspiring choice by Shapiro.

maury

i swear that if they re-hire phil that i am getting a divorce - or at least a separation - until tal/phil/fast eddie are gone for GOOD and drayton removes his head from his ass.

i'm not taking this abuse and i am not kidding

and yes i know that a whiole lot of astros fans want phil back. they are crazy is all i can say

wealz,
acta is better than phil garner, trust me on this

A hiring for those who missed the Dave Garcia regime.

Good for Acta. I think he'll thrive in a more progressive organization like Cleveland. They still need pitching help, and in that way, it's similar to Washington. But, the Indians seem to be forward-thinking, whereas I don't think anyone could ever say that about Jim Bowden-era teams or the McLane-era Astros.

As a long-time Tigers fan, I hated having to go through the horror that was Phil Garner. The Tigers weren't good then, but he did nothing to help. It's pretty amazing what one good year (Milwaukee, 1992) and a crappy Eckstein-esque nickname will get someone. Here's hoping Houston makes the smart choice (not likely) and goes for Mills or another young guy. If Ausmus were to retire, he'd be a good fit there.

It's pretty amazing what one good year (Milwaukee, 1992) and a crappy Eckstein-esque nickname will get someone.

That and a hellaciously pluperfect moustache.

Pluperfect? Is that how you conjugated that moustache?

Pluperfect? Is that how you conjugated that moustache?

Pluperfect is the new hilaripus, except it means something completely different. Also, I didn't punch that dogie! (I have no idea why that popped into my head. I guess those old Lite Beer commercials really were directed at children...)

#### this.

Acta will win a WS at his next job ala John Farrell and Charlie Manuel.


Shapiro can eat a dick.

there is only so much abuse this fan gonna take and i am not kidding. i am not one of those royals/pirates fans

Lisa:

You're always welcome to come join us Bucco fans :)

-- MWE

Cleveland's relief leader had 66 IP last year? I'd bet the over on that one!

What in the world did Acta do to deserve another chance without at least going the route of coach first? The Indians needed to excite their fan base with this hire. Not only doesn't Acta excite anyone, you can make a strong case that keeping Wedge would have been a better alternative than hiring him. Amazing that they hire the one candidate that makes Wedge look good.

I'm not exactly sure what Acta can't do compared to Valentine considering the talent on the Indians next year.

On a related point, are the Nats not going to look for a manager?

bernal

count your blessings - it coulda been bob melvin or even WORSE (phil garner)

mike,
honestly i don't know how you do it. and the astros are headed down the toilet as fast as the 98 orioles and drayton is the spitting image of peter angelos

[24] Nats have been going about it quietly. They've been waiting for the Dodgers to finish up so they could bring Mattingly in. (He's probably the popular choice)

I wouldn't be shocked to see them bring Riggleman back. The other name that's come up is Bob Melvin. Sigh.

I wouldn't thought that Mattingly would leave since the plan since Torre was hired that he'd do his 3 years and let Mattingly to take over, but with the McCourts divorce, and Frank McCourt's claiming that Torre wants to stay beyond 2010. Mattingly might as well jump ship and see what happens with the Nats.

because if it is, the astros and i are headed for divorce

baseball chick, Frank McCourt says hello.

Mattingly interviewed for the Cleveland job (at least by phone), and seemed willing to talk to the Nats, so he's not going to wait around, apparently.

TerpNats Posted: October 25, 2009 at 10:11 PM (#3365695)

because if it is, the astros and i are headed for divorce

baseball chick, Frank McCourt says hello.

- well frankie-poo can take over as astros fan. and meanwhile i will root alongside his much smarter wife and her new baseball team

Plus failing with the Nats is apparently not a bar to getting another job, so Mattingly might as well take it if he gets an offer.

Acta could (and had others) blame Bowden for his failings. The next manager won't have an incompetent front office to blame. (Just incompetent ownership)

whereas manny would have the incompetence problem with the astros

what SERIOUSLY pisses me off is that when phil takes over, morale will be better so the team will improve a bit, but then it will begin the inexorable slide down the hill of crapitude.

and the fans will blame berkman, who they hate for not being bagwell, and oswalt.

Is the consensus really that Garner is coming back?

Yby

sigh

depressed

the FANS want him back, maury thinks it's gonna be him and phil definitely is a great drayton suckup

sigh

this is like watching your friend go on back to the guy who has kicked the shtt out of her for years and she tells you - but, i LOVE him. and he's changed. really

yeah. the only thing he changed is the set of brass knuckles he uses on your face

sigh

Acta could (and had others) blame Bowden for his failings. The next manager won't have an incompetent front office to blame. (Just incompetent ownership)

Well, unfortunately it's not like Bowden won't have any residual effects on the 2010 team.

My random thoughts on the hiring of Manny Acta.

I honestly expected a lot more out of that link. Okay, maybe not a lot more, but I wanted to hear more about Acta the manager, not Acta the generic statline.

If Berkman is really somewhat unpopular with Astros fans, I wonder if the 'Stros would do a Berkman-for-James-Loney-and-prospects deal.

As a generally skeptical Indians fan, I think I like this hire. I've complained in the past that they needed to throw the fans a bone, but in the end it's winning that matters. I can't pretend that I watched the Nationals enough to pass more than superficial judgment on Acta, but he seems to say all the right things and is generally likable.

Valentine was interesting from a sideshow perspective, but I never really saw how he'd fit into the team's management structure and I'd much rather see them spend another $2M per year on the draft, for instance, than a high-profile manager. He would've given the team a PR pop until the season starts, but you're crazy if you think Indians fans are gonna buy tickets to watch Bobby Valentine manage a team that's starting Jeremy Sowers or Tomo Ohka.

Acta didn't have much to work with in that Nats bullpen this year, but his mishandling of Hanrahan was criminal. He hit every wrong button you could hit with a flamethrowing but fragile modest closer, and Hanrahan had to be giddy to giddyup to Pittsburgh.

he seems to say all the right things and is generally likable

That's an accurate summary.

I was probably Acta's biggest defender during the slow process of him getting fired, but that was more because I didn't think that would solve the problem, and was thus the typically dishonest, unwilling-to-grasp-the-nettle corporate way of the Washington Nationals.The Lerners paid hundreds of millions for the franchise. They should have picked a fight with the Bewigged Satan over the refusal to waive the minority-interview requirement. Rizzo had clearly been brought into the organization to shadow Bowden. The minority-interview requirement should have been handled then and, if it had been, then they should have made an issue of the Commissioner's diktats. Everybody in baseball treats the Clown from Milwaukee like he's some kind of Stalin. These days the Lords of Baseball have no fortitude.

Be that as it may, the biggest reservation I have about Acta is that I think he's liable to push players into situations for which they are not really suited. He ran an experiment of Dunn in right-field. Why not have him play centre while you are at it? Dunn is at best a left-fielder. He can play first, badly, and may have learned enough this past season that he'll only be the worst in the league in any given year, instead of historically bad.

He had Guzmán leading off for most of the first-half of the season, and Nick the Sick batting second. Guzmán is a better player than he's generally regarded around here, but that's not hard considering how lowly Primate esteem is for him. He'd be OK stuck in the No 2 slot in the lineup. Nick wasn't fast, but he gets on base a lot better, and Guzmán's BA-heavy value could 'move the runner over', as they say.

But my biggest peeve was how he handled Jesus Colome. After about two relief outings, it was pretty clear that Colome had problems in pressure situations. Yet Acta would run him out there time and again with men on base (often left there by Daniel Cabrera) and the game in the balance, and Colome would fail. This Jesus, to paraphrase what I wrote in a Game Chatter, would have made the blind lame, the lame blind, and starved the 5,000.

Now, you could say, and I'd agree with you, that Acta had to play the hand Bowden dealt him. But, when he was pencilling Dunn's name in the lineup card as a rightfielder, was that genuinely Bowden's fault?

As an Astros fan, Phil Garner wasn't that great, but the Astros aren't that great, either. Our problems are not really at the managerial level, so whoever gets picked is just going to get thrown under the bus 3 years from now when we're still eking out 83 wins and hoping for some Pythag juice.

So I just can't get as worked up as Lisa does over where the team is right now. Drayton is the cause of, and solution to, all of the Astros' problems.

And really there's no way we're getting rid of Berkman, he's a hometown boy and the Astros reward that disproportionately.

I'm probably one of the only posters here who watches more than 10 Nats games a year, so my thoughts.

I agree with fra paolo that his defensive placement of players was weird. Then again, Dunn was in right because Josh Willingham was in left, and Guzman kept playing short because Alberto Gonzalez is even worse defensively.

The Nats were a really poor fundamental team, but I think that's Acta delegating tasks, (baserunning and defense) to his coaches who weren't any good at teaching. After all, the team hit poorly and no one improved while Lenny Harris was hitting coach for two years and Acta let that happen, but they were better this year. (Part of this might be adding Dunn who helped the other hitters). It is ultimately still Manny's fault if his coaches aren't teaching players anything.

The Milledge thing was weird. He's not a real center fielder, but neither are Willie Harris and Elijah Dukes.

The pitching staff was terrible, but I still thought Acta made too many pitching changes. Then again, his starters didn't go long enough, and relievers were often pulled because of the trouble they got into. I'm worried he might have the same problems again in Cleveland.

I agree with fra paolo that his defensive placement of players was weird.

Sounds like it's a good thing Acta won't have to opportunity to put Ryan Garko in the OF...

[42] is a perfect summary of some of Acta's problems.

The problem with Acta is that he's such a positive person (think of a happy Buck O'Neil) that he manages as if everything is going to come up with the best-case scenario in a game that's built on failure.

You see this especially with the relievers. "Hey, I know we're only up by 1, but I'm sure that my 6th, 7th and 8th-inning guys can bridge the gap!"

He assumes that players are going to succeed in their roles, no matter what, even if all evidence to that point has shown that they're not capable.

Some of that's the hand he's been dealt, but as the other comments allude to, it's not entirely Bowden's doing.

“We are very excited to have Manny Acta as our Major League manager,” said Executive Vice President and General Manager Mark Shapiro.

I like how he had to specify Major League. It's as if he was afraid that the fans figured Acta would be managing in Buffalo.

I'm probably one of the only posters here who watches more than 10 Nats games a year

You poor bastard.

How the heck did I douple post that?

I like how he had to specify Major League. It's as if he was afraid that the fans figured Acta would be managing in Buffalo.

It didn't help that Acta put him on hold in favor of a guy who was inquiring about some whitewalls.

You poor bastard.

They're not my team, but they're local and there are only so many Mets games a person can take.