Erica Lay - Mickey Callway: To Be Or Not To Be?

According to Wikipedia, a baseball manager “is responsible for overseeing and making final decisions on all aspects of on-field team strategy, lineup selection, training and instruction”, which includes “choosing the batting order and starting pitcher before each game and making substitutions throughout the game.”

So how much impact does an MLB manager have on the outcome of games? Probably not much.  

A manager can do everything right: get the correct statistical matchup, call the right play, pull a pitcher at exactly the right time – but ultimately – if the players don’t perform as expected, none of it matters. 

A manager’s greatest impact on a team is their ability to consistently put players in a position to succeed. A successful manager must keep a team afloat during a rough stretch and keep them focused on what’s making them effective during hot stretches. This means not only making decisions that give a player the greatest opportunity to succeed based on their strengths, but also limiting exposure to their weaknesses. A good manager must also keep his players mentally engaged and prepared to do their job to the best of their abilities.

So, what have we learned about Mickey Callaway so far? Is he a manager who puts his team in a position to win most nights?

Callaway makes questionable decisions on a regular basis: his strange use of the bullpen, his insistence on sticking with a lineup that’s not producing, pulling his pitchers with low pitch counts just as they seem to have figured it out, his constant positivity despite embarrassingly bad play. The list goes on and on.

Much of the losing can (and should) be blamed on the players, but Callaway has not yet shown that he’s able to put his players in the best position to maximize their talents. And he certainly hasn’t shown an ability to get anything extra out of borderline talent, (ie: Bobby Valentine).

And where’s the accountability he constantly preached about during spring training? 

I don’t recall Amed Roasario being taken to task for not running out pop-ups. Or Jay Bruce being called out for not getting it done. Or Jose Reyes being talked to for getting picked off one of the few times he’d actually reached base this season.

I’m not saying he needs to publicly berate guys, but there needs to be some accountability for bad play. And maybe this is happening behind closed doors and we just don’t know about it. But that’s hard to see when he continually puts Rosario and Bruce out there. Every. Single. Day. (At least before Bruce was mercifully DL’ed). 

Now, I understand that much of this can rightfully be blamed on Sandy Alderson. It’s hard to sit Rosario for a few days when your primary alternative is Reyes. And it’s not like he had many options for replacing Bruce with Cespedes and Lagares on the DL.

But, it just doesn’t feel like he makes decisions that are putting this team in the best position to win.

And for all the seeming love and positivity coming from Callaway, you’d think they were sitting on a record of 41-31, instead of eleven games below .500. Meanwhile, Callaway continues to defend the players who have made him look bad on a pretty consistent basis.

For the record, I was excited when they hired Callaway. I thought he was the perfect pick – a positive, yet straightforward guy who seemed like a great communicator. I really believed his success as a pitching coach would help us get the most out of our talented staff. Now…

Well, I think it’s still too soon to give up on him. It’s hard to be a great manager without great players. Callaway still has a chance to be good, but I do think he needs to re-visit his maxim of holding players accountable and he also needs to show more flexibility. He seems so committed to doing things a certain way, but sometimes a game or a situation necessitates a change to the game plan.  

Fingers crossed that he can make the adjustments needed to become the manager we thought (or hoped) we were getting.

Follow me on Twitter: @EricaOutEast