The Red Sox Choose Bobby Valentine To Manage

The Red Sox have finally rolled the dice and are hoping they come up with a seven! Bobby Valentine is an interesting choice (to say the least) and you have to be intrigued by his hiring. Even if you are convinced this is a near suicidal move by the Sox your curiosity still has to be piqued. We all know Bobby Valentine will crash and burn at some point while managing the Red Sox. It's inevitable. But when? Will it be 5 or 6 years from now after winning a Championship (or two) in Beantown? Or will it be only 3-4 months into the 2012 season when he and the team completes its transformation into the newest version of Cirque du Soleil?

The 61 year old Bobby Valentine wasn’t the first choice for the Red Sox. It would seem he wasn’t even in the top 5 originally. A month ago, if you said he would be tabbed to be the Red Sox’ next manager, no one would have listened to you (I certainly would have laughed at you). The Sox have gone on a 3-month dysfunctional roller coaster ride that includes; one of the worst finishes in baseball history, firing their manager (Terry Francona) and having their GM (Theo Epstein) depart under stormy circumstances. Throw in stories of beer and fried chicken being eaten during games by the players and Boston has become the new Bronx Zoo! As an old time Yankee fan I have been savoring every moment.

Just like the storied internal clashes the Yankee organization have repeatedly had over the years, it would seem the same power struggle is occurring within Boston. It is tough to get your house in order when everyone is NOT on the same page. The Red Sox scrambled to quickly hire a new GM, and did, by the name of Ben Cherington. The Boston ownership had probably assumed getting the GM situation quickly straightened out would then be followed up by hiring a new manager pronto. But, as we saw, that was hardly the case.

Charington was an easy enough choice for the principal owner John Henry since he has steadily risen within the Sox’ organization since 1997. Henry was also pleased that Cherington was a “new age” stat man like Theo Epstein and Billy Beane (from Moneyball we know the Red Sox ownership coveted the original new age stat man big time). The biggest difference between the old GM Theo and the new GM is that Cherington is more conservative; he would probably never have been bold enough to trade away Boston icon Nomar Garciaparra like Theo did.

But where John Henry is a fan of Charington, it turns out that the Red Sox President/CEO/minority owner Larry Lucchino probably not so much. He has presumably become even less so after this manager hiring schism, not to mention Cherington just plain reminds him of Theo Epstein. In fact, it turns out that Lucchino was basically always at odds with Theo, so much so that Theo briefly left the Red Sox for 3 months in 2005. Larry Lucchino is a strong personality, having been a former owner of the Orioles and Padres, and he is not afraid to push his opinions onto current ownership. He is as big a reason as any that Bobby Valentine has been hired (Lucchino was interested in Valentine being the manager for the Red Sox way back in 2003 before they hired Fracona).

Once Cherington was hired as GM, his first task was to assemble candidates for the open manager’s job. Bobby Valentine was not on his list of possible candidates. A list that Cherington strangely decided to publicly announce to the world at one point, he was so certain of getting a quick hire. The list included Dale Sveum, Sandy Alomor Jr, Gene Lamont, Pete Mackanin and Torey Lovullo (all are current coaches on various teams in the majors). Cherington wanted someone who is easy to work with, who would think along the same lines as him and not necessarily someone who previously managed.

Truthfully, his real top choice was John Farrell (the current Toronto Blue Jays manager and former Red Sox pitching coach). But, Toronto would not grant permission for Cherington to speak with Farrell (why would they?).

After everyone on his list did their preliminary interview, only Sveum was originally invited back for a second one. The interview process is at least 4 levels deep for the Red Sox organization (GM Cherington, President Lucchino, majority owner Henry and finally minority owners). Shortly after that second interview, Sveum signed with the Chicago Cubs instead, to be their new manager (I envision Theo making knife in the back motions!). I am sure this did not make John Henry happy. Not with how slowly and how poorly things were proceeding. This left the door open for Lucchino to push his personal choice Valentine forward.

Lucchino’s main argument was the discipline that was desperately needed and that only an experienced major league manager could be reasonably expected to follow up with that discipline. From his original list, Cherington could only try and keep the previous manager Gene Lamont in the conversation for consideration. The final piece for the decision probably fell to John Henry finding out that Valentine is actually a new age stat manager! Not many people realize this fact and Lucchino had to know it would sway John Henry (Gene Lamont’s managing style is considered old school).

Not a great start for the new GM, to say the least, even if he is ultimately OK with Valentine becoming the manager. After all, is Valentine going to work well with the young GM after this? I can easily see Valentine going around Cherington, instead to Lucchino, whenever things aren’t going the way Valentine wants them to.

But isn’t it possible Valentine will make a positive contribution to Boston? Isn’t it possible there will be no conflicts? Of course it is, especially early on. Valentine has a history of initially winning and a reputation of turning teams into competitive ones. But he also has a history of burning bridges quickly, of personal conflicts with ownership or his bosses, and of being very unapologetically outspoken.

Let’s take a good look at Bobby V’s managing history:

In 1985, when he was serving as the third base coach, the Texas Rangers abruptly fired the underachieving manager Doug Radar only 32 games into the season. The 35 year old Valentine was hired as the replacement. The Rangers limped to that season’s finish line with a 62-99 record. But surprisingly, the very next year, Valentine led them to a second place finish in the AL West with an 87-75 record. When the expectations became high for the under performing Rangers in the early 90’s, Valentine publicly butted heads with George W Bush (at the time running the team) and was let go in the middle of the 1992 season.

In 1995, Valentine took over managing the Chiba Lotte Marines in the Japanese baseball league. He was the first American manager in the Japanese leagues. Though the expectations weren’t high for the Marines that year, Valentine led them to a 2^nd place finish. Overnight, Valentine was a surprise sensation in Japan. But then just as quickly, he butted heads with the GM of the team and was fired before he was able to even start the second season of his 2-year contract. Typical Bobby V!

In 1996 he came back to the US and joined the New York Mets organization as a minor league manager. With only 31 games left in 1996 season, the Mets brought up the brash Bobby and gave him the reigns to run the team. Valentine helped the team start to strut its stuff by going 88-74 in both 1997 and ’98. 1999 and 2000 were very strong ones for both Bobby V and the Mets. The Mets won 97 and 94 games respectively and made the playoffs with the wildcard birth each time. Of course, in 2000, the Mets went onto face the Yankees in the World Series, though they eventually lost. Despite the team’s success during these 4 years, Bobby V and the GM Steve Phillips constantly butted heads. This included Philips firing 3 members of Valentine’s coaching staff during the 1999 season and hiring his own replacements without any input from Valentine. Bobby V, thanks to his team’s success, was able to hold out until Phillips finally fired him after the 2002 season.

As a quick aside, 1999 was when Valentine infamously returned to the dugout in a disguise after being thrown out of the game. Who can forget that moment when Bobby V hid in the dugout shadows with the fake moustache? That moment has become to define (for right or wrong) Bobby V.

In 2004, Valentine went back to Japan to manage the Chiba Lotte Marines for a second stint. In the second year he led the Marines to their first Championship in over 30 years! Bobby V became a cult figure with the Japanese baseball fans. But to no surprise, he butted heads with the club president over the next couple of years and was let go after the 2009 season. Amazingly, a petition was presented to the team signed by 112,000 fans to keep him on as manager to no avail.

Another quick aside, during this time Valentine had a movie made about him (called “the Zen of Bobby V”). ESPN made the film following him and his 2007 Chiba Lotte Marines team all year long. This film probably didn’t help the situation in Japan since their culture promotes team philosophy over individual attention. Something that is very tough to balance in a major sport like Baseball, in my opinion.

With this body of work, there is quite an obvious pattern here. No need to bring in any specialists to examine the clues! Bobby Valentine can win and he knows baseball, but in the end he rubs too many people the wrong way. This is usually the scenario after he has gotten his team to start playing winning baseball. He usually survives longer than his boss wants him to, because of his teams’ success. This shows he is used to managing in a dysfunctional atmosphere if nothing else. But there is no history of his helping such a team’s atmosphere improve.

Will Valentine help to cleanup Beantown’s dysfunctional atmosphere? History is against Bobby V on that one. He may help the Red Sox find some focus and start winning again, but that will only hide the underlining miasma. Sooner or later we all know Bobby V will crash and burn. It won’t be pretty. I can hardly wait to see a Kevin Youkilis or a Josh Beckett put Bobby V into a headlock!