The Yankees should hire Buck Showalter.
But not to manage.
I believe the Yankees would do better creating an executive of quality control who has an unquestioned understanding of what works on the ground in the majors to help bridge a divide between philosophy and application in the big leagues. Showalter would be an ideal hire for that.
You can argue Showalter is a better manager than Aaron Boone. I am not here to fight that. I just want to deal in the world of reality, and in that space Hal Steinbrenner likes Boone and will lean heavily to keep him.
The Yankees’ top baseball officials are set to begin meetings Wednesday in Tampa as they do a postmortem into why the organization just had its worst season since 1992. Within this, Boone is expected to have a face-to-face with Steinbrenner at some point this week.
Boone was hired to be the anti-Joe Girardi — to form a better bond between the players and the manager. But it would not surprise me if Steinbrenner’s revised marching orders include a need to get tougher with players such as the disrespectful Carlos Rodon and/or be more forceful about who has access to the players and with what information.
Aaron Judge has developed a strong bond and influence with Steinbrenner, and when the usually controversy-adverse star publicly questions what data is being provided and how it is “funneling … down to the players,” it is going to resonate with the owner. Judge also has championed Boone to return.
And Steinbrenner is wise enough to know that the problems undermining the Yankees do not begin in the manager’s office and that they also did not begin this year, unless you want to rely solely on bad-injury results for a team that annually is near the top in injury games lost.
Uneasiness exists between the analytical and traditional baseball wings of the franchise — about what is taught through the system and how, about what is prioritized in valuing players both internally and externally and about determining which strategies play best over 162 games and in the postseason.
Steinbrenner has yet to reveal — and actually might not know yet — how much change he will demand. But he intends to keep Brian Cashman, who has been fiercely loyal to his people and their process. But even if there are wide-ranging dismissals of department heads and/or coaches, there are problems that have been mounting for years and, thus, will not be remedied in one offseason.
For example, the Yankees emphasize data that shows the most offensive damage is done to the pull side and in the air. But what is lost as an overall tough out to get to pull-in-the-air exit velocity, and also how good of an overall hitter will a player generally be if that is the obsession? Power hitters such as Shohei Ohtani, Matt Olson, Austin Riley, Ronald Acuña Jr., Freddie Freeman, Yordan Alvarez, Bryce Harper and Juan Soto — to name some — pull the ball below the league average and are good overall hitters besides being homer threats. The well-rounded hitter creates more angst for a pitcher than the one-note power threat with lots of holes to exploit.
The Yankee philosophy was not only espoused by the since-fired hitting coach Dillon Lawson in the majors, but preached through the minors. Let’s be fair that the Yankees’ attempts at diversity with players such as Andrew Benintendi, DJ LeMahieu and Anthony Rizzo have been disrupted by injury/regression.
But you have to start somewhere, and Showalter’s soul is in minor league development and his brain is filled with what works in the majors. He was dismissed over the weekend as Mets manager. He would like to manage again. But having already done so for five organizations and with a reputation as not the easiest to get along with from the executive suite, at 67, those opportunities might be gone.
And the Yanks would have to make clear to Showalter he has no shot to manage the team and any sense of politicking for the job would be met with dismissal — Boone does not deserve to have a lingering figure of stature hovering near his job.
What the Yankees would be appealing to if Showalter would even consider this is that at his core he is a Yankee. That the organization that drafted him and gave him the first chance to manage in the minors and majors remains his true home base, and putting the franchise back on a championship path would be ultra-meaningful to him. And that he has a relentless passion to improve the quality of players combined with as keen an eye for what is working and what is not as anyone in the game. And that this role might be his last best shot to make a difference for a major league team and win an elusive World Series ring, albeit not in the dugout.
Steinbrenner and Cashman would need to clearly define the role — we will meet weekly to take seriously all of your recommendations as you travel the system and offer what you think is valuable, but you cannot turn negative if each of them is not applied. I think Showalter still has a lot to offer, especially to a minor league group without much major league experience to know what works in the bigs. I think he cares greatly down deep about the Yankees. And I think if unleashed to provide insight into what is and isn’t working and how to fix it, his creative mind would be engaged and incredibly helpful.
If I can have an outside firm or Buck Showalter audit my organization for what might be amiss, I would pick Buck Showalter.
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