The Marlins will ask manager Dan Jennings to relinquish his managerial role and return to the GM position he occupied previously, Ken Rosenthal of FOX Sports reports. That’s largely a confirmation of expectations at this point — Barry Jackson of the Miami Herald and Jon Heyman of CBSSports.com each indicated in early August that such a move was likely. The more intriguing elements of the situation appear still to be sorted out. Yesterday, a report from the Herald’s Clark Spencer indicated that Miami has a lot of internal tension. Per the report, Jennings could end up as GM, in another front office role, or out of the organization altogether. And there are shakeups in the offing in the club’s scouting and player development departments.
Here’s more on the still-developing front office landscape around the league:
- Jennings has “strong interest” in pursuing the Mariners’ open GM position, Rosenthal adds. Of course, he’s still under contract in Miami. But it’s not clear at all what kind of front office alignment might be utilized were Jennings to move back upstairs. While Jennings has served as skipper, assistant GM Mike Berger has largely filled his role.
- Former Marlins GM Larry Beinfest is another name that could figure in the executive market this fall. He sat down recently with Spencer, explaining that he’s ready to get back in on “the everyday competitiveness” of MLB front office work. It’s a long and interesting interview with plenty of discussion of Beinfest’s time in Miami. “I was never frustrated by low payrolls,” he said. “What was more challenging than the lower payrolls was the roller coaster of the payrolls. They go up. They go down. It made it very hard to plan.”
- Angels manager Mike Scioscia says that he will not play a significant part in the club’s GM hiring process, MLB.com’s Alden Gonzalez reports. That would certainly be the case for most managers, but a highly-publicized feud with former GM Jerry Dipoto reportedly led to his departure from the organization, leading many to believe that the 16-year-veteran skipper holds outsized influence in the Halos organization. “I don’t plan on being part of any selection committee,” said Scioscia. “I know the role of a manager in an organization, and I love that part of it. It’s not to go pick a GM. I just think, just like any team, you have to be philosophically on the same page, all the way down from ownership to the general manager’s seat to the manager to the Minor Leagues and scouting director, everything that’s important in fueling your Major League roster. You have to be on the same page.” While Scioscia said that he is not sure what the organization is looking for in its new hire, he again reiterated that he would “imagine” they’ll seek “somebody who will be philosophically lined up with what we’re trying to do.”
This has to be frustrating, from a player point of view. To see your manager pulling the organizational strings and then acting like he’s not doing so, in his responses to the media.
Just like when GMs say they’ll give a guy more time and then DFA them the next day?
Scioscia is saying he’s not directly involved, and while I believe that, I refuse to believe that the Angels’ front office will be able to go through the hiring process without catering to what Scioscia wants.
I think the press made up this whole storyline about Scioscia’s influence over Moreno and his impact on DiPoto’s leaving. Jerry was too young to handle the situation and pushed too hard too fast in an organization he just joined? It’s not the job of the GM to set the batting order or anything else related to “managing’ the team, his job is to go out and get the players and manage the money. Many of the sports writers act like they know everything because they are wannabes, but they are mostly gossips, one level removed from soap opera junkies. Go Angels, Go Mike Scioscia. Screw the press.
I would say it is a role of any boss in any field to give an employee the best tools to do their job.
In modern baseball that’s a summary of what mountains of data indicate as the highest probability of success. Whether an employee uses those tools is another story.
He didn’t even do a good job of acting like he’s not doing so. In one breath he says how he’s not involved, and in the next breath he explains how what’s really important is for the manager and GM to be on the same page. The manager is obviously already locked in, or Dipoto would still be the team’s GM. So what he’s really saying is that what’s important is that they hire a GM who agrees with his way of doing things.
“I’m not involved, but what’s important is that they hire somebody who lets me do what I want.”
Hmm.