Well, the managerial carousel is starting to turn, as the Angels and Giants have each found their next manager, each coming in a bit of an odd setup, albeit in different ways. The Angels hired former Brave Kurt Suzuki to a one-year deal with former Atlanta executive Perry Minasian, in what seems unlikely to last longer than that one year for a franchise in dire straits. Really a strange choice to deliberately hire a manager for just a one year contract, in a situation that is unlikely to be a winning one, especially for a novice manager. The Giants, meanwhile, are hiring the head baseball coach of the University of Tennessee as their new manager, which seems very risky to me since they are very different jobs and managing the egos of college players is different from that of wealthy professionals.
Meanwhile, the Braves may have narrowed their search to two former Braves players working as bench coaches under respected managers in Ryan Flaherty (Craig Counsell) and George Lombard (AJ Hinch) and a former colleague of Alex Anthopoulos in Danny Lehmann, the Dodgers’ bench coach. All of these candidates are likely to have good tactical decision-making and analytical skills based on their current roles and backgrounds. I still think Lombard might be the best fit given his resume, his reputation and his roots in the region, but I could be convinced quite easily about Lehmann as I trust Anthopoulos a lot and he should have a very strong feeling for Lehmann. Flaherty might be a harder sell for me, if only because of his shorter coaching record and perhaps less robust analytical and tactical background. An argument could be made that the longer no announcement is made, the more likely Lehmann will get the pick, as he is the only one of the three candidates who cannot be taken today due to his participation in the World Series. However, the timeline could only be a coincidence and a new hire could be announced before the end of the World Series.
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