If Trembley Goes: Eric Wedge?
Who’s up for déjà vu?
Once upon a time, the Orioles brought in a former Indians manager with a good-but-not-necessarily-great track record. It didn’t work out, but set that aside for a moment. The Indians canned Eric Wedge today and it only makes sense to consider if he’d fit here.
The thought blossomed for me when I read the article linked above and saw how much respect he’s earned. Both his players and his colleagues seem more than willing to sing his praises. That doesn’t always happen.
Then I looked up his record and saw that in seven seasons in Cleveland he had two great years, three OK years, and two terrible years. We’d swap our past seven for that, wouldn’t we?
Then I thought: it doesn’t matter. A manager’s success is mostly the result of two things: having the players to get it done, and having those players stay healthy. Right?
But…look at what Wedge worked with in 2007 when he won Manager of the Year. It’s a strong group but not exactly the ’98 Yankees. The O’s have the pieces in place for a team like that.
Around it comes again when I consider that Wedge never had to work in the AL East, the division with the least room for error in all of baseball. He seems capable, sure, but is he a difference maker?
I’m not calling for the dismissal of Dave Trembley, nor am I saying that Wedge should replace him. I bring this up because I think it helps put the “who should be our manager in 2010?” debate into focus.
Eric Wedge is a guy who has both experience and achievement under his belt. But it doesn’t take much effort to craft pretty solid arguments against bringing him here. You could go through the same process for any potential replacement. I’m a huge fan of Phil Garner, for example, but I doubt he’d do a better job than DT.
There are probably several versions of Eric Wedge out there. If Andy MacPhail chooses to let Trembley go, he has options. You have to ask, though, if any of them will really make a difference.
They might. But the more I think about it the more I hope that the O’s don’t make a move just for the sake of making a move.
It’s easy to call for Trembley’s head because he’s the guy at the top and he’s not winning. There’s more to it than that. Andy MacPhail’s responsibility is to consider every angle and not draw blood simply because it seems like the right thing to do.
I’ll point to Roch’s excellent post today with the Brooks Robinson quotes. The one that stood out the most to me was, “I think the big problem with the Orioles is they’ve never had any continuity in the last 12 or 13 years. You can’t just keep hiring managers and general managers. It just doesn’t work that way. And every guy who comes in has got a little bit different philosophy on how he should operate.” I agree with this – the Orioles have been so bad for so long because of many reasons, but certainly one of them has to be due to the high rate of turnover in the managing and general managing areas. Now obviously, a change in both manager (Perlozzo) and general manager (Flannagan/Duquette) were needed. However, now that we’ve got new guys in place who are on the same page following the same plan, the case to change manager isn’t as great. Perlozzo was lackadaisical, out of touch with the players, and a poor in-game manager. Dave isn’t perfect, but he hasn’t really done anything to warrant being canned. There’s no firetrembley.com. Consistency and sticking to the plan is important, and it’s hard to argue with a guy like Brooks.
Look at it this way, the O’s really can’t get any worse. It’s not like we’ve been winning for years and the all of the sudden we suck one year. I’m tired of the losing but I really like DT and think he’ll be THE guy to get us going in the right direction
funny…i was JUST talking to my friend and brothers (from cleveland) about this. my friend and me came to the conclusion that although we love DT from a personal side, he probably isn’t the guy to take this team to the promise land. the baserunning and defensive blunders we saw this year were inexcusable…not to mention the BAD streaks of losing we weren’t able to pull ourselves out of (the one right after the ASB as well as right now)..that to me falls on the manager.
I can certainly rationalize that wedge could fit here, and justify his botch of the world series by sticking by his guys (hafner and carmona) even when they were stinking it up. But i also follow cleveland sports pretty closely (my original hometown) and know that everyone in cleveland HATES wedge. my brothers included (vehemently… like firewedge.com hate). and they’re no slouches when it comes to sports knowledge.
So while it might seem like i fit, i would rather have an older, more experienced manager that gets the respect of the team..although i have no idea where that is gonna come from.
Yeah, I don’t think Wedge would fit here, honestly. If a change is going to be made, it should be somebody super-legit.
It should be noted, regarding the baserunning/defensive blunders, that they have basically been non-existant since the All-Star break. And that we haven’t had a real defensive 1B all year. DT wisely gave up on the hit and run after the All-Star break, it seemed, which was a good idea.
interesting observation dan the man. i didn’t think about that
Everytime I see you guys say “Wedge wouldn’t fit here” I can’t help but chuckle to myself. Not that I think it’s a bad idea or anything, I just get the visual of that Brian Billick commercial. “JUST WEDGE IT!!!!”
But on a serious note, in 2007 the tribe had C.C., Paul Byrd and Fausto Carmona who went a sparkling 53-23. I mean, I really don’t know much more about Wedge that you guys do. Anybody that comes to be our guy, DT or anybody else, I have to trust that Andy knows what he’s doing
Another thing to think about is that MacPhail knows that Trembley is already on board. They took over the Orioles together, basically, and Dave has had to be willing to go along with The Plan. In fact, he’s a significant part of that plan in that he’s a teacher of the young guys. To remove him now might even be a detriment to them, although that’s certainly debatable considering that managers don’t have all that much to do with winning baseball games. Point being that Andy already knows what he’s got with DT – a guy that will do what he says and works with him not against him. And a guy who is going to be really thankful to have another shot with a team of healthy young dudes, and probably have a little bit of a chip on his shoulder to boot.