Published Oct. 4, 2021
The effectiveness, or lack thereof, of a big league baseball manager is something that is fun to debate but is an argument that neither side is going to win. The metrics that one would normally use first, i.e. wins and losses, are basically tossed out the window.
It’s an argument filled with immeasurables. Intangibles. Guts. Feelings. Perceptions.
Did a guy win because he had all the talent in the world? Was he merely a man who filled out a lineup card? Or did he have that je ne sais quoi that no one can quite put their finger on, yet mattered so much?
OK, but then how many wins did those intangibles translate into? Oh that’s right—-wins and losses aren’t the measure.
You could go through a couple bottles of whiskey at the bar and not come to a resolution. Oh, but the fun you’d have!
It’s not like that in pro football. Too many ill-timed or just plain bad decisions can often directly lead to a team losing a game on any given Sunday. And with just 17 games to work with, the margin for error is that much thinner. Witness the curious things Dan Campbell did in the Lions’ latest debacle.
AJ Hinch is a good manager. I always believed him to be good in Houston, though the talent indeed was supersonic. I never thought of him as just a lineup card filler outer. He inherited a team on the brink of greatness with the Astros but he accelerated that with his smarts, baseball intellect and his ability to relate to his players. My opinion—and I’ll be happy to share it with you over some whiskey at the pub of your choice.
The Tigers lured Hinch to Detroit moments after his one-year suspension by MLB was lifted, largely (I’m theorizing) by convincing him that the baseball situation was on the upswing in the Motor City—that the combination of young talent and an owner willing to spend to send things over the top, plus the organization’s commitment to bright young minds to decipher the percentages, trends and such, were all too much to dismiss. Add to all of the above, a fan base that is sure to fill up Comerica Park on a nightly basis when the winning returns, made the Tigers job highly attractive.
Yet Hinch didn’t have to return to the dugout in a Tigers uniform. He could have bided his time. He could have waited until the suitors were numerous—and they would have been, eventually. He could have spent the 2021 season in an MLB Network studio, for example. It wouldn’t be the first time a high profile manager or coach played around at being an analyst before going back to doing what he does best.
Tigers GM Al Avila moved swiftly and did the sell job to perfection, apparently. That Hinch played for the Tigers probably didn’t hurt, but it was mostly about the future direction of the franchise. It was telling, for example, when it was revealed that Hinch’s contract with the Tigers includes an opt out clause—on Hinch’s part, not the team’s. In other words, if Hinch saw something go awry or is amiss, he could walk. And no doubt he’d find another skipper’s job elsewhere. He’s only 47 years old.
Something is happening with the Tigers and it’s not just a team emerging from the ashes of a rebuild.
The 77-85 season wrapped up on Sunday, and the 77 is a big number. The Tigers flirted with a .500 record as late as two weeks ago, when they were 74-78. It was an amazing feat, given that the roster is still far from set and injuries took their toll, especially on the pitching staff. That Hinch won 77 games with the ragtag lineup he was forced to use for much of the season is not a small deal.
But that’s not all that is happening in front of our eyes, hiding in plain sight.
Hinch isn’t only winning games on the field, he’s winning a power struggle.
Of course, it may not be so much a struggle as it is a passing of the torch.
The Tigers made a number of front office and minor league moves this summer, and if you think they weren’t done with Hinch’s happiness in mind, you’re either naive or nuts.
There’s nothing to document this, of course. No smoking gun, no transcript of secret conversations. But you don’t need that to see that it’s happening.
The Tigers are one of the few teams in big league baseball where the manager holds such sway over an entire organization. That’s not always a good thing. Revisionist historians would like to expunge the sordid back end of Sparky Anderson’s career, for example.
But Hinch has earned it. He’s accelerated the end of the rebuild by indeed instilling that je ne sais quoi throughout the clubhouse. The Tigers genuinely expect to win now, despite their sub-.500 overall record. They don’t let the opponents get those final three outs very easily. An early deficit is no longer a death sentence.
“Our guys believe that they should win today,” Hinch told the media over the weekend. “I know that sounds like something I’ve said since Day 1, because it has been. … I think our belief needs to be here before we’re going to go accomplish something. That in itself, from Day 1, has been something our players have bought into.
“I think progress is key. I think we have to keep pushing because we’re not close to where we need to be, but is has to start with belief.”
Hinch has instilled that belief and he’s whip smart. It’s easy to see that he acknowledges the importance of players and the relationships they have with their manager. He said so at his opening presser.
Now he’s putting his imprint on how the Tigers organization approaches the game and how it measures and develops talent. It may not be Hinch vs. Avila—it probably isn’t, frankly—but it’s at the very least the flexing of Hinch’s muscle with the Tigers.
And that’s a good thing.
Out of Bounds 