LAS VEGAS — Over the last few years it’s been observed ad nauseam that executives in Major League Baseball are beginning to fit a single archetype: Ivy League educated, analytically-inclined, and long-term focused.
As all of the managers in the game gathered in Las Vegas for the Winter Meetings, it became clear the same homogenization process is happening with that position. The preferred type seems to be “forward-thinking recent former player with limited or non-existent managing experience”.
This year, there are three new skippers that fit that description: Rocco Baldelli, Chris Woodward, and David Bell. That trio has those superficial similarities, but watching they also share another important quality: they are all polished spokesmen for their franchise.
Each of the three looks exceedingly comfortable in front of a camera. Politics would have been a viable career choice for any of them as they hammer home their talking points with aplomb. Take Bell’s answer to a question about banning the shift for example:
“First of all the most important thing is what the fans want. That’s what’s best to our game, what is best for our fans,” he says. “My opinion? I like the shift because as a defensive player and a defensive coach you want to play where you think the offence is going to hit the ball.”
If you’re aiming to offend nobody, you can’t do much better than that.
The same characterization could be made of the other recently-hired skippers in this mold: Kevin Cash, Dave Roberts, Craig Counsell, Andy Greene, Gabe Kapler, Alex Cora and Aaron Boone.
That’s what makes new Blue Jays manager Charlie Montoyo such an interesting contrast. He’s not obviously ill-at-ease, but he also doesn’t seem to enjoy himself. At one point during his Vegas media session a reporter even asks him if he’s nervous, which he refutes.
Ten years ago, no one would have blinked an eye at an exceedingly well-respected veteran Triple-A manager/MLB bench coach getting a look. Now it’s an oddity. Montoyo was even asked what had prepared him to manage a big league club. His answer indicated some confusion as to why it had to be asked.
“Eighteen years managing in the Minor Leagues and then being a bench coach last year helped a lot, is going to help a lot because it’s managing in a way, thinking ahead and helping Kevin Cash during the game,” he said. “So, 18 years and my four years in the big leagues.”
Unlike his other newcomers, Montoyo is not silky smooth in front of a camera. He is good-natured and unassuming, giving short to-the-point answers to whatever is asked. There is an element of English being a second language in play, but it has more to do with him not feeling the need to elaborate when simply answering a question.
None of this means Montoyo is going to be a bad manager by any stretch of the imagination. People in the game line up around the block to endorse him.
“Throughout the last four years every time we go to an opposing city a former player of his will come,” Cash say of his former lieutenant. “It’s impressive how he was a favourite of players.”
When Baldelli talks about his time with the Rays he calls sitting next to Montoyo for all those games a “great experience.” He lists him as one of the two primary people he’s asked for advice in his new role despite the fact they’re both big-league rookies — although that’s not a label Montoyo feels describes him accurately.
“You know what’s funny, when I first got the job to coach third base, somebody asked me, are you ready to coach third base in the bigs? Yeah, I’ve been practising for 18 years. So it’s kind of the same feeling.”
Montoyo is the man behind the Rays’ shifts, and he was also one of the progenitors of the opener strategy, but he doesn’t talk like a guy who’s dying to replicate the same tactics in Toronto.
“Yeah, I think that deal works,” he says. “We’ve got the right pitching to do it, we’re going to do it. If we don’t have it — you’ve got to have the right personnel to do it. And the Rays did it. They have the right people to do it.”
Contrast that with Woodward’s thoughts on the opener.
“We won’t have five starters that we can rely on to go 120 pitches. I don’t think anybody in baseball has that. What we’re going to have to do is decide certain days, whether it’s the piggyback situation, whether it’s an opener, our best way forward is to try to get a ‘W’ that day… we can’t ignore the fact that some of these numbers and things make sense.”
Or Cash, who Montoyo refers to as the “godfather” of the Rays coaching tree — a label that could be applied to his influence on this new-age wave of managers, of which he’s the first.
“We’re going to do it. Right now, we’re discussing internally whether we’re going to do it two times through the rotation or three times through the rotation.”
Until the Blue Jays start playing games, it’s too early to know what Montoyo’s on-field vision is. General manager Ross Atkins even explicitly said he and Montoyo wouldn’t be “proactively collaborating” on strategy until spring training.
It’s not too early to have a sense of who Montoyo is as a guy, though. He’s a “baseball man” through and through and if there’s a malicious bone in his body he’s done an exceptional job at hiding it for 53 years. His resume as a manager is beyond reproach.
“When you manage that many games, I don’t care if you’re doing it in A-Ball, Double-A, Triple-A ultimately he was managing right alongside me,” Cash says. “Charlie’s in-game knowledge is second to none.”
Even Baldelli, who was hired largely on the strength of his youth — he’s the only MLB manager born in the 80’s — candidly acknowledges there’s no substitute for that kind of experience.
“I believe experience does matter,” he says. “I think that there are huge positives to people that have gone through things in life and seen things and seen things on a baseball field that brings real value to the table.”
Montoyo’s combination of track record, reputation, and experience with a Rays team that’s on the forefront of in-game tactics is an undoubtedly appealing package. It’s just not the package we’re used to seeing in recent years because he doesn’t have front office or broadcast experience, he doesn’t have a silver tongue, and he hasn’t been in a ballgame in 22 years.
Those things never used to matter, but teams seem to be valuing them now. Ignoring them may yet pay off for the Blue Jays, but by making a traditional choice they are going against the grain.
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