Cooking with Moderate Heat

On the majority of Sunday mornings during the off-season, the Defensive Specialist occupies himself with what he likes to call ‘web based research’. This is a sophisticated expression used to make Mrs the Defensive Specialist believe that the Defensive Specialist is busy at work, searching for threads and angles that can be used at Deep in the Hole. In reality, it’s basically the Defensive Specialist goofing off and surfing the net. As you can probably imagine, it took Mrs the Defensive Specialist about 3 minutes to figure it out. Anyway, while surfing the net, the Defensive Specialist stumbled across a little article about the ABL – specifically the Perth Heat.

As fans of the new Australian Baseball League will attest, news has been a little on the limited side so the Defensive Specialist hastily clicked the link and dived in. It was an interesting bit of reading to say the least and it had the Defensive Specialist stewing over a couple of things. Firstly, the article indicated that Perth Heat Manager Don Kyle had turned down the managerial job because the salary offered was described as a ‘pittance’ by CEO Geoff Hooker.

Kyle is one of those dedicated people who’ve chosen to work in the amateur sporting industry for a lengthy portion of their career. While there are many perks such as working outdoors and with talented athletes, the counter to that is that they’re woefully underpaid for their efforts. The reason for the Defensive Specialist mentioning that fact is that for Kyle to turn the job down and for Hooker to come out with guns blazing, it would have to mean that not only was the money bad, it was poor enough to offend a guy who has devoted significant sweat and time to the game for limited remuneration.

This post isn’t meant to be a paean to Don Kyle by any stretch of the imagination, but it is another example of how things are being handled poorly from an administrative point of view on the eve of the ABL launching. Before the Defensive Specialist launches into that, there’s another paragraph that caught the Defensive Specialist’s attention:

The Heat is one of six teams that will battle for the first ABL title when competition starts in November. But it has no idea who will be head coach, with the ABL taking on all responsibilities of hiring staff for each club.

The Defensive Specialist sat in front of the Deep in the Hole supercomputer scratching his head. You know those moments when a thought won’t properly formulate and you’re left perplexed? This was one of those moments. The Defensive Specialist started rooting around in the Deep in the Hole post archives and then it hit him. Not so long ago, the Defensive Specialist caught up with Peter Wermuth, the CEO of the Australian Baseball League and he and the Defensive Specialist had an exchange where the Defensive Specialist suggested:

There had been scuttlebutt that the ABL was pushing high profile former Australian baseballers over perhaps more experienced coaches.

Wermuth responded:

There is a wealth of talented coaches in Australia and franchises have control over whom they appoint into the roles. MLB may bring over American coaches to assist and be involved which is a good thing for the league because they will bring a different perspective.

The Defensive Specialist found it very interesting that the CEO of the league would indicate that franchises were free to appoint their own personnel but a local news outlet would suggest otherwise in light of a local coach being offered what he considered a low-ball offer. The Defensive Specialist has also learned that the offer came directly from Ben Foster in the ABL office, which supports the Defensive Specialist’s assertion that the ABL is controlling coaching appointments. An easy explanation for the situation would be to say that the Heat has only just found itself a new General Manager and that he wasn’t involved in the decision making process. Unfortunately that would serve to completely undermine his position (seriously, what General Manager wouldn’t want to have their say in both the manager and his salary?) and reinforce that the franchises are merely puppets.

This all leads to the greater question, what the hell is going on? The Defensive Specialist has intimated in the past that 2 GM’s have already left their posts following disputes over salary. Now we have long time servants of the game being offered salaries well below expected levels and walking away from roles that they have previously succeeded in.

Major League Baseball and the ABL seem to have missed a key piece of the puzzle. This isn’t the United States. In the US, young men are eager to work in baseball and often do so for a pittance. The thought process being that they’ll serve their time, prove their worth and eventually end up in a high paying, high power position. Unfortunately, Australian baseball doesn’t have quite the career path. Sure there are people who love the game and are happy to work in jobs that may not pay as much as the real world but everyone has to make ends meet and if you keep chopping away at the cash flow, eventually enough is enough.

The situation does lend credence to the Defensive Specialist’s initial statement that the ABL was looking to push higher profile coaches into the roles. Low-balling the incumbent coach knowing that he’ll reject the offer allows the ABL to say that he was the first choice while sliding one of their candidates into the gig. The Perth Heat franchise last year saw some of the effects of that when Graeme Lloyd took on the role of pitching coach. Sure, he’s a high profile name but can he actually coach? The appearance of long time Heat pitching coach Steve Kirkham late in the season suggests that perhaps Lloyd wasn’t quite ready for the coaching game.

The Defensive Specialist decided to speak with Kyle to get his insight. Kyle indicated that he currently works for the ABF as the high performance manager. As part of this arrangement, he is obligated to be on the Perth Heat coaching staff (not necessarily as the manager). The ABL indicated that the salary offer took into account what is already on offer from the ABF. The issue that Kyle had is that the ABF pays him to perform a role in the development of young talent. They do not pay him to be the manager of the Perth Heat. The additional time, stress and administration that comes with the managerial job was not being fairly compensated in the offer put forward by the ABL, hence the rejection of the offer.

2 questions arise.

1)    Surely the ABL has some idea of suitable salary packages to pay these guys? As the Defensive Specialist mentioned, for a baseball lifer to reject it, it must have been bad. Can’t they find a salary survey on line somewhere?

2)    Who’s going to do the job? The article suggested names like Lloyd, Kevin Hooker and surprisingly Luke Hughes. We’ve already touched on Lloyd and his readiness here. Hooker works in professional baseball and has coached at the Claxton Shield level making him an option. Hughes is still playing professionally and has no management experience. Whoever takes the job won’t be doing it for the coin!

The Heat had a guy who has had a hand in the development of every local kid on the roster, effectively watching them grow up. On top of that, he has a proven track record, winning a Claxton Shield 2 years ago. It’s a real shame to see a local coach pushed out over a contractual issue that paints the ABL as cheapskates and then leaves the franchise without too many viable options to replace him. There aren’t too many people in life who are irreplaceable (the Defensive Specialist acknowledges that he is the rare exception) and The Defensive Specialist isn’t suggesting that Kyle is. However, with all the noise that we’re about to start to hearing team names and schedules, wouldn’t you want your management structure in place and be building towards something rather than instigating a fresh coaching search that doesn’t include the leading candidate?

The saga continues……

It’s Tough to be Perfect

A couple of weeks ago, the Defensive Specialist was having one of his in-depth baseball conversations with his US correspondent when it became apparent that Armando Galarraga of the Detroit Tigers was inching closer and closer towards a perfect game. For those of you unaware, a perfect game is when a pitcher and team manage to record all 27 outs in the game without a hitter reaching base. To put things in perspective, there have been 18 perfect games since 1900 meaning that it’s pretty damn tough to spin one. When someone like Roy Haladay (arguably the game’s best active pitcher) throws one, you marvel at his mastery and tip your hat. When a journeyman like Galarraga is on the verge of history, you start to ask serious questions.

Unfortunately, no questions were needed because with 2 outs in the 9^th inning, first base umpire Jim Joyce made the worst baseball decision of his life by calling a hitter safe when he was clearly out by a step. Galarraga retired the next hitter for a tidy one hit shut out.

So with all that going on in the background and with 2 other perfect games having been spun this year already (Dallas Braden & Roy Halladay) as well as a no hitter by Edwin Jackson (who ended up throwing 149 pitches and winning a free elbow reconstruction in the future), the Defensive Specialist decided to pose a question to the US Correspondent:

“Is the recent run of pitching dominance just plain dumb luck, an aberration in the stats, or is it a trend that will continue?

The US Correspondent took a deep breath, exhaled and asked for an hour to mull the question over.

Precisely one hour later the phone rang.

“Look, you’re the Defensive Specialist, give me your take first,” requested the US Correspondent.

Never one short of an opinion, here’s what the Defensive Specialist theorised:

In the last 3-5 years there has been a significant backlash towards performance enhancing drugs. This backlash has not only taken place in the public forum. Major league Baseball has beefed up testing and punishment (although you have to fail about 3 times before you get any sort of suspension) and as a result we have seen offensive numbers decline noticeably. It wasn’t too long ago that Barry Bonds was dropping 70+ homeruns in a season with a handful of guys sitting in the 50’s. More alarming than that, you also had muscle bound utility guys popping the ball out of the stadium.

On top of the performance enhancing drugs, there was also a crackdown on stimulants that once upon a time were rampant in baseball. Some will argue that amphetamines aren’t a performance enhancer but they don’t call them the dog days of August for nothing. Try playing a game of baseball on a scalding hot summers day on the heels of a night game and have 100+ games already under your belt. Any jolt in focus or energy is a performance enhancer of the highest order in that situation.

So all of a sudden you have a league full of guys who may be a little less powerful and a little less focused. It’s this situation that sees a dude like Armando Galaraga stymie a team through 9 innings. Many will argue that pitchers were as much a beneficiary of steroids as hitters (See Eric Gagne who started blowing 98 mph with a bugs bunny change up), but you have to remember that a starting pitcher gets 4 days off between starts which means that although they may have less fastball on their zip, they are at least well rested and competing against a weaker (both in strength and fatigue) opposition.

The US Correspondent cleared his throat, “Jesus, there’s a reason they pay you the big bucks!”

The Defensive Specialist was keen to hear his compadres thoughts.

“I agree that players being off the juice certainly plays a significant role. I believe that a lot of players are still trying to play that style of game, unfortunately 185 pound guys trying to go yahtzee on every swing turns into a lot of easy fly ball outs for pitchers.”

The US Correspondent continued, “Here's another theory; shoot me down if you think I'm crazy. I’m talking from more of a US perspective although with the MLB Academy on the Gold Coast there is some Australian relevance.”

Over the past 15 years there has been a huge shift to academy/ tournament/ showcase baseball. Whether this is an American kid who goes and does the summer showcase circuit as opposed to staying at home and playing for the local legion team, or international players who go to specific skill building academies (like the one held on the Gold Coast). These showcases and academies obviously have their merits; better competition, personal one-on-one instruction and a chance to play in front of more scouts and colleges. The scouts and coaches get the best players playing each other, all in one spot.

Seems like the best of both worlds, but I feel this is where some of the great pitching performances of the season have originated. When do these academy/showcase players ever learn to play the team game? Everything is based on personal advancement. In these settings winning isn't even considered, it’s all about how many at bats you get and whether or not you ran a good time in the 60-yard dash. Players are concerned about how they looked in the infield/outfield in front of the scouts. I think this mentality is carrying over to upper levels, specifically college and professional baseball.

Obviously professional baseball is about development and advancement but there is something to be said for "team at bats" and playing the game the right way. In a showcase tournament, you don't get any recognition for being able to get a guy in from 3rd with less then two outs. No one is looking to offer you a check for a million for getting a 2-strike ground ball in play to score the run. In fact, in some instances that piece of hitting is deemed a fail, when in reality it’s a damn good "team" at bat.

I may be off base here and the mentality in the Bigs has always been "me first" at bats, but I think this thought process is getting reinforced more and more at the lower levels. Guys aren't willing to sacrifice a little, to shorten up and battle for that line drive to the opposite field. The end result of all of this, is guys with swing and miss type stuff (Roy Halladay for example) exposing this approach at a higher frequency.

The Defensive Specialist waited to see if the US Correspondent had any more to offer. After 5 minutes of laboured breathing at the end of the phone line, the Defensive Specialist checked to see if his dear friend had come down off the ledge.

“I’m ok, I just get a little sparked by these horrible approaches I’m seeing at the plate on a daily basis,” the US Correspondent lamented.

The Defensive Specialist is impressed with the thought process and admits that it wasn’t something he had previously considered. We’ve always thought that baseball was a team sport played by individuals. The game is afterall a series of one on one contests played under the pretext of a group battle. But it would appear that our game has changed, we may now have a group of individuals fighting their own battles to the detriment of the overall war effort.

The Defensive Specialist is keen to hear the readers thoughts. Hit the comments section or fire an email Deep in the Hole. Special thanks to the US Correspondent for his insight and for not having a myocardial infarction mid rant.