Tim Cahill: The Politics of Baseball

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Tuesday, April 10, 2012

Tim Cahill, GoLocalWorcester MINDSETTER™

If you think politics can be tough on the psyche, try managing the Boston Red Sox right now. Coming off a meltdown of historic proportions last year, our hometown team has gotten off to an 0-3 start for the second consecutive year. New manager, new general manager, new shortstop, new closer, same result. I would not want to be Bobby Valentine right now (then again it's unlikely he would want to trade places with me either).

He inherited a potent line-up that scored more runs than virtually any team in baseball last year. But he also inherited three-fifth's of last year's pitching rotation which imploded down the stretch last September. Thus far the returns are not so good: 26 runs surrendered in just three games. But the biggest problem so far for Bobby V is that he is not in charge.

It was widely reported that he had wanted to start the season with the young, fielding sensation Julio Inglesias at shortstop and with Daniel Bard as closer instead of starter. He was voted down by top management on both decisions. We will see when Bard starts the next game how that decision plays out. The season will be at least half over before we know what the outcome of the shortstop position will be.

The point is: when you are put in charge, you are responsible for the decisions you make. It's the same in baseball, politics or business. You cannot hire someone to do a job and then criticize them when they do it. Or worse yet, not let them make any decisions at all. It has gotten to the point where one seems better off not to make the call, no matter how difficult, than to make it.

You lose the respect of your players or employees if the team knows you are not making the decisions. What usually gets someone the opportunity to be in charge of a baseball team, an office or a business, is their ability to determine the path to success, and then putting the right people in the right positions to execute that vision. If Bobby Valentine is not allowed to use his vast, baseball knowledge to get the most out of his team by putting the right players in the best position to win, then why is he the manager?

The Boston Red Sox and their manager, Bobby Valentine, are a symptom of the problem, not the problem itself. We do not allow the people we put in charge to make decisions-make them anymore. Every data point must first be imputed into the computer and then checked and rechecked by the suits upstairs, many of whom never played the game. We are so afraid to be wrong or to be criticized or to be fired, that the safe decision is the only decision unless it can be replaced by no decision.

I do not believe that the Red Sox will go 0-162 or even miss the playoffs. However I do believe that we will have missed a great opportunity if Bobby Valentine is not allowed to either succeed or fail by making his own decisions. The willingness to take chances is what led a " bunch of idiots" to break the curse in 2004. That and a manager who decided that Mark Belhorn was going to be his second-baseman no matter what any computer had to say.

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