For a few moments there, Craig Counsell was in such demand that I thought perhaps his 2024 managerial schedule would look something like this:
Monday and Tuesday: Brewers
Wednesday and Thursday: Mets
Friday and Saturday: Guardians
Sunday and every other Monday: Astros
He was in demand as the best free-agent manager available, so much so that a team that was not even on the managerial bingo card — the Cubs — fired their manager (David Ross) to create an opening and then paid Counsell a per-annum record of $8 million on a five-year, $40 million contract.
He was clearly the domino that controlled the managerial market — in the short and long term.
In this offseason, the Guardians learned Counsell was not coming to work under their stable front office, so they pivoted and Monday named Stephen Vogt the manager. Vogt had coached just one year for the Mariners. But there was belief that in two or three years — because of strong inter-personal skills — Vogt would have more experience and also then more suitors. So Cleveland decided to go with inexperience in replacing Terry Francona.
The Mets were interested in reuniting Counsell with David Stearns. But the money for the Mets and/or the geography for Counsell did not work. A Steve Cohen team is not often going to blink at dollar requests, but it appears the Mets did not want to go these financial extremes for a manager. And, even if they did, Counsell had at least toyed with taking a year off to watch his daughters compete in high school sports at home in Wisconsin and to see his sons play baseball at the University of Michigan and University of Minnesota. By taking the Cubs job, Counsell remains in Big Ten country.
But Counsell did more than that. As a player, he was very involved with the union in negotiating collective bargaining agreements. He believed and was willing to fight for the right to have a fair market determine a player’s financial value.
He wanted to do the same now. In recent years, manager salaries have plateaued or gone down as part of the Moneyball phenomenon has been to demystify and remove the power base from managers and move that power fully to baseball operations. It is not uncommon to hear that with baseball operations departments providing input (or more) on what lineups to use and providing strategy scripts (or more) for how to run the game that a manager is worth less than in the past.
I would argue that a manager’s job has never been more difficult.
First, most owners hide and you never hear from them no matter how odious their policies or spending patterns become. And more often these days, the heads of baseball operations make themselves less and less available to reporters. But from the first day of spring training until the last game of a season, the manager meets with reporters twice a day.
The manager is the forward-facing figure of an organization. The mandates come from above him, but the manager has to sell whatever is being offered by a franchise — and not infrequently, that is garbage. They are doing this an age with more different types of media than ever before and they are doing it with more real-time implications via social media than ever before. A misstep can become an instant wildfire. Deftness in real time is vital, as is forming relationships for tough times.
And even in situations in which the front office is dictating lineups and game strategy and pitcher usage, when it goes wrong, the blame isn’t falling on the front office. It is falling on the manager.
You want to to know what is tired in 2023? A front office saying it only offers the managers strategies, but lets the manager decide what to do. Yeah, but would they hire a manager who didn’t listen to their strategies? Would they move to fire a manager who kept taking the data and ignoring it? So, please — these front offices are usually expecting the manager to fall in line.
All of that makes the job tougher and means the managers should be paid better, in general.
The Rangers paid lefty reliever Will Smith and Bruce Bochy roughly the same in 2023 — $4 million. Is there really a question about who has greater value to the franchise?
Counsell perhaps is resetting managerial pay at a higher level, which is the long-term impact of the dominoes that fell on Monday.
On the subject of Bochy, he elevated what already was a Hall of Fame career by winning a fourth World Series title as a manager.
The Giants had not won since 1954, when they were still in New York, before Bochy’s club won titles in 2010, 2012 and 2014. The Rangers had never won a title dating to their 1961 Washington Senators roots before Bochy’s first year on the job in 2023.
Want to add that in the Padres’ 55-season history, they have finished first five times and gone to the World Series twice (losing both times) — and four of the division titles and one of the pennants came with Bochy in the dugout?
He has a no-brainer résumé when it comes to Cooperstown.
And after watching him work this postseason — great feel for his bullpen and for how to engender respect with players/people — I left even more impressed.
But after watching him work this postseason, I also think we should strongly consider the Bruce Bochy Rule.
Bochy is 68, and among the many ailments from a playing career as a catcher and advancing age is that he has had both hips and one knee replaced. Now, he is a tough guy. But I was with the Rangers for their final 12 games, and it was painful to watch Bochy struggle with his gait, so I could just imagine how it actually feels.
I wondered why he didn’t just let veteran pitching coach Mike Maddux make the pitching changes. I guess he either wanted it to take longer so his relievers could warm up further or he wanted to honor tradition.
But it leads me to a bigger question: Why even have the manager leave the dugout to make a pitching change?
One of my common refrains is that each year the rulebook should be pored over to see — among other items — whether anything has become antiquated. My way of thinking about it is this: Say the rule didn’t exist and it was proposed now, how would you react?
For example, clear your brain, act as if we are first determining how to replace a pitcher during an inning. It has never happened before. Say I suggested that under my plan a 68-year-old manager could limp his way to the mound, dawdle a bit until an umpire (also often well beyond middle age) also walks to the mound and requests a decision, at which point the manager raises his left or right hand to signal which reliever he wants to enter — when regularly there is just one reliever warming up.
I would get laughed out of the room.
So at a time when we are trying to speed up the game, why is this allowed?
I get it. There is tradition. There is a decision involved — sometimes the manager wants to talk to the pitcher before making a judgment what to do. Sometimes there’s drama when a pitcher does not want to give up the ball. So if you want to leave that stuff in, then make the Bruce Bochy Rule that on the second trip in any inning that mandates an automatic change of pitchers, there is no second trip. The manager just waves the pitcher in from the dugout.
Really, I would remove all visits to the mound. Better prepared teams would get a huge edge. The idea that there are five visits allowed, but you get a free one if there is a pinch-hitter … really? I listen to so much bragging about pre-game meetings and prep work, and then the first time a pinch-hitter shows up, there has to be a refresher course? That is just ridiculous.
But as a first step, I am willing to eliminate only all the mound visits with a second trip. Just change the pitcher with a signal from the dugout. No need for two older gents — manager and home-plate ump — to convene on the mound. Every time the main actors on the field are not players, it is usually unnecessary and boring.
So I present the Bruce Bochy Rule.
Logan Gilbert from the Mariners to the Rays for Junior Caminero and Brandon Lowe
The two teams did a test run with a off-the-radar trade Monday, swapping minor league catchers: Blake Hunt to Seattle, Tatem Levins to Tampa Bay.
On bigger subject matter, will the Mariners use their starting pitching depth to address their need for more offense, or will the Mariners simply look to buy a Cody Bellinger and/or Jorge Soler or maybe even try to win the bidding for Shohei Ohtani — who can hit in 2024 and perhaps help the rotation in 2025?
That is probably the wiser way to go as long as ownership is on board with expanding payroll.
The Mariners are one of the few teams that currently does not have to chase rotation help: They have Gilbert, Luis Castillo, George Kirby, Bryce Miller and Bryan Woo. They still have Marco Gonzales under contract for $12 million in 2024, and Robbie Ray could be a second-half possibility as he rehabs from Tommy John surgery.
It might give them the surplus to augment a positional group that has strength up the middle with catcher Cal Raleigh, shortstop J.P. Crawford and center fielder Julio Rodriguez, but falls off from there, especially if they do not retain the power bat of Teoscar Hernandez.
The Mariners particularly could use an upgrade at second base, where they received a collective slash line of .205/.293/.313 last season.
The idea of trading Gilbert is hardly appealing. He just went 13-7 with a 3.83 ERA as he made 32 starts for the second consecutive season. He is only entering his first season of arbitration, and can’t be a free agent until after the 2027 campaign.
Opposing executives indicated they believe the Mainers would not talk about Kirby and were more open to trading someone such as Miller. Someplace in between there is Gilbert.
In this hypothetical, what entices the Mariners would be getting the Rays’ top prospect in Caminero, who made his MLB debut in September after turning 20 in July. He projects to be an above-average hitter who can play anywhere in the infield and ultimately can become the full-time replacement for third baseman Eugenio Suarez, whose last guaranteed year on his Mariners contract is in 2024.
Lowe would move right in as the Mariners’ starting second baseman. He is due $8.75 million in 2024; they would have decisions to make about his 2025 club option for $10.5 million (or a $1 million buyout) and 2026 club option for $11.5 million (or a $500,000 buyout).
Lowe has been on the IL three times in the past two years, and most concerning is that twice it was for lower back issues. He still hit 21 homers in 109 games in 2023 with a 113 OPS-plus. He profiles somewhat similarly to Mariners outfielder Jarred Kelenic — lefty power and strikeouts.
It would be tough for the Rays to move middle infielders, especially with no idea when (if?) shortstop Wander Franco will next play as MLB investigates alleged relationships with underage women. But they still have middle infield depth with Taylor Walls, Jonathan Aranda, Osleivis Basabe, Vidal Brujan, Isaac Paredes and Curtis Mead, plus touted prospect Carson Williams getting closer to the majors.
They have a rotation issue, at least in the short term, with Shane McClanahan, Drew Rasmussen and Jeffrey Springs uncertain for 2024 following arm surgeries. The Rays are terrific at incubating starters from seemingly nowhere such as Springs and, late in the 2023 season, Zach Littell. Still, the Rays could use some more depth, especially if they want to turn right around and trade Tyler Glasnow.
Glasnow is due $25 million in 2024, which is particularly substantial for the Rays. They could look at moving that salary and Lowe’s as not only returning something in trades, but potentially allowing them to redistribute the money to other areas of need.
We are up to No. 28 on our 30-to-1 ranking of rosters that can be assembled with players who signed their original pro contract with a team. The Nationals — as with the A’s last week — are perennially at the bottom here. The Nationals had just 32 originals in the majors this year; only the A’s at 28 had fewer.
No club had fewer originals take even 200 plate appearances than the Nationals’ four: Juan Soto, Bryce Harper, Luis Garcia and Michael Taylor.
Reynaldo Lopez appeared in 68 games, making him the only original National to appear in 40 or more games. The White Sox were the only other club to have so few.
Harper, an outfielder who played first base after Tommy John surgery, was the only original National to play that position in the majors in 2023. No original National played an inning at shortstop. Injuries to Stephen Strasburg (who now seems retired) and Robbie Ray diminished the one area of strength: starting pitching.
The Nationals are at the mercy of what they received in trades for players such as Soto, Max Scherzer and Trea Turner because here are the 10 homegrown players who played for the Nationals this year: Garcia, Joan Adon, Jake Alu, Jose Ferrer, Jake Irvin, Carter Kieboom, Victor Robles, Jackson Rutledge, Amos Willingham and Jacob Young. There is just not much impact there.
It underscores what a bad job the Nationals have done at procurement of amateur talent. Harper and Strasburg were no-brainer No. 1 overall picks in 2009 and 2010, and Anthony Rendon was the sixth overall pick in 2011. There is pretty much zero position-player success from the draft since then, though they have a few good pitcher picks: Lucas Giolito, Jesus Luzardo, Nick Pivetta and Dane Dunning.
Internationally, there is the great signing of Soto and then not much of value.
Here is the best team to be made from original Nationals who played in the majors in 2023:
C: Sandy Leon
1B: Harper
2B: Alu
SS: Garcia
3B: Rendon
LF: Blake Perkins
CF: Taylor
RF: Soto
DH: Robles
Bench: Kieboom, Young, Tres Barrera, Tyler Cropley
Rotation: Dunning, Giolito, Irvin, Luzardo, Pivetta
Closer: Lopez
Bullpen: Adon, Ferrer, Willingham, Pedro Avila, Jake Cousins, Taylor Hearn and Austin Voth
If I were ranking which organizations feel most hopeless right now, it might be hard to top the Rockies.
Colorado has a longstanding problem that has proved unsolvable to date: how to build a team that plays a mile high.
Since their 1998 inception, the Rockies have tried to figure out how to play where the ball flies, breaking balls do not spin quite the same and bodies do not recover as quickly due to the altitude.
They have never won the NL West, and have made the playoffs just five times. It is perhaps impossible to win for an extended period in this environment. I would think strongly about building as much quality depth in all areas as possible — something akin to the Rays — to throw as much capable personnel at this issue as possible.
Instead, the Rockies are insular. Few teams use their homegrown players to the volume that the Rockies do. They have over-rewarded that group with long-term contracts for players such as Kyle Freeland and Antonio Senzatela, who are unlikely to provide commensurate value.
They just completed a seven-year commitment to Charlie Blackmon that paid him $123 million. He had a nice 2023 season with a 107 OPS-plus. But he is 37 (38 next July). He is mainly a DH now with limited power who derives most of his offense from his home atmosphere (.905 OPS compared to .666 on the road). If he went out on the market, maybe he would get $5 million-ish. The Rockies gave him $13 million for 2024.
Perhaps it is a nice parting gift. He is popular. And no matter how bad the Rockies are, they do continue to draw well at home.
And a one-year deal for Blackmon is not the albatross.
No, that would be the seven-year, $182 million pact the Rockies signed when they went outside the organization in free agency to land Kris Bryant. There are five years and $128 million left on that deal, which would be on the shortlist for the worst current contracts. Bryant will play at 32 next year. In his first two Rockies seasons, he has mustered just 15 homers, a combined 93 OPS-plus and a minus-0.6 Wins Above Replacement (Baseball Reference).
It feels as if the Rockies operate outside the information superhighway in the majors, as if they don’t know what the next highest bid would be for players such as Blackmon and Bryant.
They have nine players on long-term contracts that go through at least 2024: Bryant, Blackmon, Freeland, Senzatela, Daniel Bard, Elias Diaz, Tyler Kinley, German Marquez and Ryan McMahon. Those nine will earn $105.8 million. That is a lot for too little.
McMahon has four years at $56 million left. He is a fine fielding third baseman with some lefty pop. But he strikes out a lot (31.6 percent of plate appearances last year), struggles against lefties (.573 OPS) and also has a big difference between his home (.816) and road (.690) OPS. Still, he is probably someone who could fetch a good trade return, considering the dearth of available quality third basemen.
The Rockies are so far away from being a good team that they should think seriously about trading McMahon and using the return to form a nucleus with shortstop Ezequiel Tovar and their top prospect, outfielder Zac Veen, who even more unfortunately for the Rockies missed the second half of last season after wrist surgery.
But one reason the Rockies are in this predicament is that they tend to overinflate who they are in their self-assessments. What they should see, though, is team No. 30 when it comes to whose next five years you would want.