"Skipper": Scott Miller's last gift

The knowledge and passion that Miller brought to baseball writing has come together in this book about MLB managers.

It is not a tidy subject, because it has evolved through decades now and spread through 30 franchises. How has major league managing changed? How did we get from the dominance of Dick Williams, Sparky Anderson and Billy Martin to the tiptoe accommodations that are forced upon Dave Roberts, Kevin Cash and Terry Francona? When did the boss get so many bosses?

Scott Miller decided to find out. He has written baseball, literally coast-to-coast, and was a beat reporter in San Diego and St. Paul. He also wrote for CBS Sportsline, Bleacher Report and the New York Times, and wrote his first book, “Ninety Percent Mental,” on the way baseball incorporates sports psychology, with pitcher Bob Tewksbury as the protagonist.

Casting a net as wide as the contacts he had built, Miller came up with “Skipper: Why Baseball Managers Matter (And Always Will).” He parallels the managing evolution with the analytics revolution in baseball, and with the economics that took baseball into a different universe.

He frames it between two World Series events that even the disengaged fan can remember. In 1991 Jack Morris rejected manager Tom Kelly’s plan to lift him after nine innings of Game 7, in Minnesota, and won the game and the Series in 10. In 2020, Tampa Bay’s Blake Snell was mystifying the Dodgers and threatening to take the World Series into a Game 7. But Cash, managing Tampa Bay, removed Snell with one out in the sixth. In the other dugout, Mookie Betts winked at Roberts, the Dodgers’ manager, and Los Angeles beat up the Tampa Bay bullpen and won the championship. One move was dictated by faith and experience. The other was dictated by a spreadsheet that said Snell’s effectiveness dwindled when he faced hitters for the third time. Somewhere in the middle is where Miller plants today’s uneasy dance between manager and front office. Traditionalists like Brian Snitker of Atlanta, Dusty Baker of Houston and Bruce Bochy of Texas may have balanced the trends by winning recent World Series, but the analysts are in every front office, every ballpark and even in some clubhouses.

“People who otherwise couldn’t get in the game, the Ivy League analytic mindset, found a way,” said Kenny Williams, who general-managed the White Sox to the 2005 championship. “They not only found a way, they took this shit over.”

Obviously the Moneyball days with the Oakland A’s are the reference point, thanks to the book by Michael Lewis and the subsequent movie. Miller interviews general manager Billy Beane and manager Art Howe, who were portrayed as malevolent opponents, and Howe’s treatment was particularly rash. Beane regrets that, and gives Howe credit for the way he insisted that Johnny Damon should play centerfield when the A’s got him in 2001. Eventually Beane insisted that the A’s bunt less and take more pitches, and when he began ordering Howe to make certain moves and call certain pitches, Howe left for the Mets. Those particular A’s never made the World Series.

But Sandy Alderson, their general manager, spoke for the new world when he said, “Managers are here to implement basic company philosophy, not to purvey their own.” When Earl Weaver was managing the Orioles in the 60s and 70s, their “basic company philosophy” was whatever Weaver said it was.

Some managers refused to assimilate. When the Angels gave their analytics guy a locker in the coaches’ room, that was the end of the rope for Joe Maddon. Mike Scioscia also fumed over interference from upstairs and apparently hasn’t cooled off, since he is the only significant manager of this century who isn’t quoted in Miller’s book.

Jim Tracy is also somewhat bitter, but he did explain his difficulties with the new wave that confronted him in Los Angeles and Colorado. The Rockies actually told him to go to a four-man rotation and limit those pitchers to 75 pitches per outing.

Analytics have always been with us. Allan Roth became the Dodgers’ statistician in the late 40s, broke down performances in all kinds of categories, and invented on-base percentage. There’s a difference between WHIP (walks and hits per innings pitched) and other stats that don’t actually measure performance, but break things down into probability. “Runs saved” is a formula. It treats all batted balls the same. When an outfielder leaps to bring back a grand slam, he doesn’t get four runs saved, although that’s what he actually did.

Beyond that, analytics don’t have predictive value in the short term and, when you think about it, everything in the game is short term to the players involved. The modern approach is to get the right pitcher against the right hitter at all costs, to win every matchup. When you have a 26-man roster and you play 162 games, that’s impractical and damaging. Tom Hoffarth, who collected the essays that made up the book “Perfect Eloquence” about Vin Scully, says perfection doesn’t belong on the field. The appeal of the game is the bad bounce, the unexpected hero, the third out that doesn’t get made. Baseball brings out everything noble and frail about its actors. Robots need not apply.

The truth is that every manager wants all the information he can get, from the time Weaver asked the front office to give him hitter vs. pitcher stats, which weren’t easy to fetch back then. But he also has to deal with 25 insecure athletes whose every action is flashed upon a scoreboard for a stadium to see. Communication is paramount. Cubs manager Jim Frey once responded to a pitcher’s curiosity about his role by saying, “Your role is to get sons of bitches out. If you do it, you’ll pitch when we’re ahead. If not, you’ll pitch when we’re behind.” Obviously that doesn’t fly today. Roberts makes sure he at least “touches” each Dodger, each day, whether it’s a hello or a long talk about anything and everything. A growing majority of managers spend batting practice on the field, going from player to player and having private and sometimes tough talks with everyone, and not a soul knows the details.

Miller also deals with inequities, particularly for Black managers. Roberts and the Angels’ Ron Washington are the only ones. Ageism rears its head. Baker, a jazz follower, wonders why old musicians are welcomed into the band but old managers rarely get an interview. And then there’s the money. Craig Counsell of the Cubs is the only skipper making as much as $8 million a year. Some college coaches make more than MLB managers.

There’s far more, and, unfortunately, there’s more than one reason to buy “Skipper.”

Deep into his acknowledgements, Miller casually writes, “One thing I do not recommend while in the middle of writing a book is being diagnosed with a life-altering medical condition.”

In this case it was pancreatic cancer. He mentioned it to a friend during a typically long and winding phone conversation three years ago, after they had broken down the state of baseball and newspapers and mutual friends.

The doctors gave him a bad report but, hey, they’ve got a new regimen and they’re pretty optimistic. Yeah, it sucks, but it’ll be all right. That was Miller’s official position while he was herding all the quotes and stories for this book.

He was at Cooperstown on Induction Weekend last year and looked like he always looked, healthy and energetic. He seemed perfectly attuned to the job he had chosen, primarily because he could always connect.

Baltimore pitcher Eric Bedard was a curmudgeon to the press but was also an All-Star pitcher for a time. There was a day when Scott needed one thing from him, so he said, “Look, I’m not asking for much of your time, and I don’t care how you grip your curveball, and I don’t care what your dog’s name is. I just need to ask you this.” Bedard said sure.

I still remember a piece he did on J.D. Martinez. They met for lunch in one of Martinez’s favorite places in Minneapolis, and Martinez opened up about his obsessive notes on hitting. It was a window, the kind that is often fogged up by restrictions on player access, or the general protectiveness that seems so necessary. Scott spent his career opening such windows, letting us see where baseball lived.

Scott was scheduled to return to Cooperstown on June 12 and talk about “Skipper,” as part of the annual Author Series at the Hall of Fame. He was entering hospice care at about that time, and he died last Saturday, only 62. His wife Kim and his daughter Gretchen, in their grief, assuredly know how much he adored them.

“Skipper” is the last thing Scott gave us. It’s revelatory, funny and clarifying. It also hums with enthusiasm, an endangered resource that Scott had in abundance. It’s a shame more people didn’t know him, but maybe if you buy this book, you will.