Early this morning I read about the Nationals’ trifecta of relative youth:
Paul Toboni, their new head of baseball operations, is 35. Newly hired manager Blake Butera is 33. And now Toboni has added Ani Kilambi to handle the day-to-day stuff as GM, and Kilambi is 31. Add all those two ages together, and you get, if not the average baseball ops honcho and manager, maybe something pretty close.
So at first I thought about whether we would ever see a younger GM. But then I remembered that Theo Epstein and Jon Daniels were both general managers before they turned 30. Those cases were a little different, as Epstein was under Larry Lucchino (then in his 50s) and Daniels “replaced” John Hart, with Hart still remaining with the organization in perpetuity as a “senior advisor.” But in any case, neither Toboni nor Kilambi are setting records in terms of age (except perhaps combined age, as mentioned above).
Then I wondered who the youngest field manager was. But it turns out…in 1914, at the age of 23, Roger Peckinpaugh was interim player-manager for the Yankees. Furthermore, a man named Frank Quilici managed the Twins in 1972 when he was still younger than Blake Butera next season as manager of the Nationals.
Anyway, Roger Peckinpaugh! He was pretty good. He had over 40 fWAR in his career. (Hilariously enough, he won the MVP award in a routine 2ish fWAR season. Oy.) He was only a player-manager because the team’s manager resigned with a few weeks left in the season. But anyway, too bad for Blake Butera and Frank Quilici and whoever.
So all that aside, if there were to ever be a player-manager again in the near future, which current MLBer do you think would best fit those shoes?
I think the obvious choice is someone like Salvador Perez (because Yadier Molina isn’t even around anymore). Albert Pujols became interested in management shortly after essentially taking up space on a bench and occasionally pinch-hitting. A backup catcher who rarely plays might as well be a player-manager in some ways. And Ehire Adrianza specifically showed interest in becoming a manager despite being a rarely used utility player. Maybe Kurt Suzuki can come back and be a backup catcher for the Angels this year as well?
#playermanager #MLB