Buck Voted "Manager You Would Not Want to Play for"

[Luke-OH]

Just now, AZRon said:

In your opinion, what is (are) the issue(s)?

His ambition.

[Aglets]

1 minute ago, Luke-OH said:

His ambition.

Interesting.  I would not have guessed that.   You think he is after a front office job?

[Luke-OH]

19 minutes ago, Aglets said:

Interesting.  I would not have guessed that.   You think he is after a front office job?

He's wanted overwhelming control of the baseball side of operations at every stop. It's the same here. With the same thing coming out at the end of his tenure with the Diamondbacks and the Rangers, and the reporting by Tony, Ken Rosenthal, and others, it's kind of hard to deny. 

He either wants to be the GM/President or wants someone who is his puppet to him to be the GM/President.

[Aglets]

2 minutes ago, Luke-OH said:

He's wanted overwhelming control of the baseball side of operations at every stop. It's the same here. With the same thing coming out at the end of his tenure with the Diamondbacks and the Rangers, and the reporting by Tony, Ken Rosenthal, and others, it's kind of hard to deny. 

He either wants to be the GM/President or wants someone who is his puppet to him to be the GM/President.

OK I find all of this hard to dispute.......as you said it's happened with him before.  I guess I'm having trouble making the final connection here though to the survey questions.  It seems like for most years here players were fairly quick to praise Buck and say they enjoy playing for him.   Yea there was the 2016 playoff game incident.......and now we're terrible.........I feel like there's still a piece I'm not seeing.

[Spy Fox]

Not great to hear, but I do think Buck is probably over-represented here just because he's been around forever and is one of the top few managers in name recognition. 

The players aren't really picking Buck as last out of 30 because I doubt many of them could name more than a handful of managers outside their league or maybe even division. I know I couldn't currently. 

[NashLumber]

I doubt many of the opposing players see Buck’s postgame interviews, but in my opinion he’s often testy and seems bent on (and prides himself with) giving the opposite answer a reporter is expecting. He seems cranky and contrary. Of course, I’ve noticed it more this year with the weight of all the losses bearing down on him. So maybe they see stuff at the top of the dugout steps we’re not able to see as clearly. 

[Luke-OH]

Just now, Aglets said:

OK I find all of this hard to dispute.......as you said it's happened with him before.  I guess I'm having trouble making the final connection here though to the survey questions.  It seems like for most years here players were fairly quick to praise Buck and say they enjoy playing for him.   Yea there was the 2016 playoff game incident.......and now we're terrible.........I feel like there's still a piece I'm not seeing.

 

This is an interesting re-read, it was written at the time of Buck's hire and looking back it's practically prophetic. I'll paste some select passages, but it's worth a full read.

https://www.camdenchat.com/2010/8/2/1600436/a-ranger-fans-view-on-buck

One of the most memorable episodes in Showalter’s tenure with Texas was his showdown with Rangers' owner Tom Hicks in mid-2004.  Hicks hired John Hart in 2002 with the understanding that he’d groom Grady Fuson, brought over from Oakland, to be Hart’s successor, taking over for Hart after the 2004 season.  Fuson and Hart weren’t exactly best buddies, and by spring 2004, there were two camps forming, with Showalter and Hart aligned in one camp, and Fuson and his people in the other.  The scuttlebutt was that Showalter was a big fan of Hart, because Showalter wanted to have a lot of control and say-so in what happened in the organization from top to bottom, while Hart was more interested in playing golf, and was happy to cede control to Showalter.

Hicks, who was supposedly tired of having a wildly unpopular GM who wasn’t interested in dealing with the media, agreed to a new deal with Fuson that was to be announced over the All Star Break, formalizing the succession plan that was to occur after 2004. Showalter and then-pitching coach Orel Hershiser then met with Hicks and, according to reports, informed him that if Fuson took over, the two of them would leave the organization with Hart and go to a new team.  Hicks would be left with losing his manager, pitching coach, and general manager on the heels of the team’s most successful season in years.

Hicks panicked, agreed to keep Hart on, and Hart, naturally, fired Fuson.  After a disappointing 2005 season, Hart stepped aside, with Jon Daniels taking over as general manager.  This was widely viewed as Showalter’s doing, since Daniels, the youngest GM in baseball history, was viewed as being a Showalter puppet, who was installed simply to do Showalter’s bidding.  Daniels, as it turned out, was his own man, and fired Showalter after the 2006 season, and has steered the Rangers on a path that has them heading to the playoffs for the first time in over a decade in 2010.

Sounds familar huh, substitute John and Lou Angelos for Hicks, DD for Hart, trying for the Blue Jays job for playing golf, Brady for Daniels and you've got practically an identical situation.

[AZRon]

8 minutes ago, Luke-OH said:

He's wanted overwhelming control of the baseball side of operations at every stop. It's the same here. With the same thing coming out at the end of his tenure with the Diamondbacks and the Rangers, and the reporting by Tony, Ken Rosenthal, and others, it's kind of hard to deny. 

He either wants to be the GM/President or wants someone who is his puppet to him to be the GM/President.

If he were to occupy such a position with the Orioles, wouldn't that result in the O's continuing disposition to overvalue past performance -- Hardy, Davis, Tillman?

[Luke-OH]

Just now, AZRon said:

If he were to occupy such a position with the Orioles, wouldn't that result in the O's continuing disposition to overvalue past performance -- Hardy, Davis, Tillman?

IMO, the real problem would be that Buck only trusts himself, a GM needs to trust scouts, analytic department, coaches. I've heard it stated a number of times that Buck Showalter thinks he's the smartest person in every room and he's unwilling or unable to delegate.

[SteveA]

1 hour ago, Aglets said:

So am I reading that correctly that for the question about which manager you'd MOST want to play for.............Buck Showalter got maybe one vote.....at the most?

Man, there's something else going on that we don't know about I think.  

They must not have sent ballots to Chris Tillman, Caleb Joseph, Ryan Flaherty, Craig Gentry, Chris Davis,...

[Luke-OH]

FWIW, here is the conclusion of the article I shared from Adam Morris of Lone Star Ball (This is from 2010).

Given where the Orioles are right now, Showalter is probably a good fit for the team.  He’ll come in, bring energy, bring organization, implement change top to bottom.  He’ll weigh in on minor leaguers and who the team should draft next July.  Baltimore will probably see its fortunes turn around pretty quickly.

I just wouldn’t expect him to be there for the next decade, or anything like that.  Likely, in three or four years, his act will have run thin, he’ll have alienated too many people, and someone else will be brought in to try to take what Showalter has built to the next level.

[Can_of_corn]

1 minute ago, SteveA said:

They must not have sent ballots to Chris Tillman, Caleb Joseph, Ryan Flaherty, Craig Gentry, Chris Davis,...

Couldn't vote for your own manager.

[Rene88]

2 hours ago, Moose Milligan said:

Looks like the players sent their ballots to @Rene88

What does that even mean? I like Buck.

[Aglets]

Thanks Luke!   I will admit I see a lot of similarities there between past and present.

This part seems opposite of what he says in pressers all the time, though:

"Buck was also seen as a "grass is greener" type when it comes to personnel…the feeling was that Showalter was the type of manager who seemed to only be able to see the shortcomings of his players, and not the positives, while being way too enamored with players on other teams."

He literally says the opposite pretty consistently.  But other than that quote I think it matches up pretty well.

 

[Aglets]

20 minutes ago, Can_of_corn said:

Couldn't vote for your own manager.

Flaherty and Markakis then. 

Could ex players vote?   We don't know how Ubaldo would answer.........