Management as Nurturing

 

We don’t talk that much in our league about our management philosophies when it comes to our players.  Sure, we know a little about each other when it comes to acquiring players (Peshastin likes “Shock and Awe” bidding; Cottage maximizes the volume of players like a whale sifting krill through its baleen, hoping to find gems; Pittsburgh has a keen eye for generational talent; some managers prefer various MLB teams, perhaps to a fault; the Kangaroos have a similar soft spot for former Hagerstown Suns;  Haviland believes 14 innings in the hand is worth 21 in the bush; Old Detroit regularly botches his drafts and then tries to make up for it by bamboozling others in trades).  But we don’t talk much about how we attend to our players’ needs while we own them.

Yesterday I got to sit in on a remarkable presentation by the General Manager of the Flint Hill Tornadoes, devoted entirely to  explaining his current thinking on managing players under our charge. (The audience included some non-fantasy-baseball types, so he referred to “children” and “youth” instead of “teams” or “players” — but it was obvious to most in the audience what he was really talking about.) He called his approach “Nurturing.”

I was so taken with his talk that I listened to it again an hour and a half later.  Below are  comments drawn from my notes taken during the second edition of the presentation.

 

Old Detroit: L, 1 – 4. .208, .269, .313; 0 ip, 0 er.       As Jamie mentioned, Jesus said “The last shall be first.” That’s the Good News!   But there’s some bad news, too:   “And the first shall be last.”

This is bad news. The Wolverines haven’t been last yet, at least not this year.  Pittsburgh, Kaline, Canberra and Portland are the only teams to have met this basic eligibility requirement for winning.  Do the W’s have time to make a quick excursion to the basement and then complete the round trip back to first before the season is over?  I don’t know, but the team played on Sunday like it was in a hurry to begin the trip.

 

Haviland:  “L”, 5 – 4.  .286, .350, .429; 22 ip, 13 er. (Archer! 7 ip, 0 er.)  Jamie told a story about Grandma Heyward — not his real grandma — who used to give him a $1 bill every birthday when he was a kid. He said he would look forward to that dollar for months! Which tells us a bit about the Haviland approach to “nurturing” his players: let them get used to hardship.  Make them learn piano, don’t let them go on sleepovers, put them in such a severe place all year that Grandma Heyward’s annual dollar looks like a magical treasure. Maybe not quite like the Tiger Mom, but Oliver Twist’s orphanage had nothing on the Dragon Dad!  (Is it any wonder Colby Lewis sickened and died when exposed to the harsh regime in Haviland?)

 

Peshastin: L, 1 – 5.  .188, .204, .396.  6 ip, 3 er.   Jamie said youth he had talked to really appreciate it when adults in the community unrelated to them know them by name.  I am sure the Dominant Pear knows his players by name — that’s easy on a 32-man roster.  But, said Jamie, what’s even more powerful is when the adults show interest in the young person’s life, without it being attached to some agenda the adult has.  Yet I had to sit there and listen yesterday after church while the Dominant Pear complained that Jake Marisnick was doing badly lately, and Jay Bruce was a “disaster”.  Marisnick at that very moment was compiling a 2 for 3 with a homer and an hbp, and Bruce was embarked on a two-home-run day!

Come on, Mr. Pear — keep up better with what’s going on in people’s lives. For example, when the Wolverines drafted Logan Morrison, I started following him on Twitter. I took an interest in finding out who he is, what his life story is, etc.  After all, I’d spent a valuable first round pick on him.  (What I learned was a major part of my motivation for trading Mr. Morrison less than a year later, which kind of mucks up this vignette as an example of what Jamie was talking about, maybe.) Have you, Mr. Pear, followed any of your players on Twitter?

 

Flint Hill: L, 1 – 5.  .174, .220, .239;  12.3 ip, 9 er.        Flint Hill was doing the preaching.  Let him interpret what it meant.

 

 

Cottage:  W 1, L (-1);  8 – 1.  .452, 500, .774 (!);  15 ip, 5 er. (Every Cottage hitter had an OPS of .833 or better — 7 were 1.000 or better — except Ben Zobrist, who struck out in his only plate appearance.)

I’m not sure exactly how this next one comes out for Cottage, but another comment Jamie made struck home for me: youth can only be nurtured if we don’t allow ourselves to be consumed by our electronic devices.  Ouch. Luckily for me I had indulged on Saturday evening in a long after-dinner conversation with Ben,  letting him take the lead and spending 95% of my time listening.  This delayed several electronic projects I needed to work on, not to speak the internet distractions I didn’t at all need but which I probably would have pursued anyway. (What will NASA do if an astronaut dies in space near the beginning of a long mission?)

I use my electronics for my living, but they aren’t the CORE of my work.  What about Dave? Dave nurtures us in large part by putting his nose firmly to the virtual grindstone. But if he does this at the expense of nurturing his players? Or his wife? Or employers? We should be more careful not to let this happen.

 

 

Pittsburgh:  L, 0 – 4.  .097, .171, .226;  7 ip, 2 er.  Jamie said one of the things that most helps young people is when elders don’t try to hide their weaknesses. The corollary to that is: be sure to have weaknesses!  If you don’t have any weaknesses, you don’t have anything not to hide.  And the young people around you will be left floundering for nurturence!  Fortunately, the Alleghenys appear to have realized this in the nick of time, just before they soared out to a massive lead in the EFL race and receded so far from our view that we couldn’t have spotted their weaknesses had there even been any.  Instead here are the A’s right in the midst of the standings because (in June) the 3 – 7 slots in their rotation have stunk, going a combined 22.7 ip and allowing 27 earned runs.  Hey! I’m a younger person (than the Peak Allegheny), and I can feel my character developing right this moment! Thanks, Alleghenys!

 

Kaline:  “L”,  5 – 4.  .310, .326, .476;  8 ip, 3 er.  Jamie told how one girl mentioned how meaningful it was to her when an adult came and played dolls with her, joining in the fun just like she was one of the kids.  Which is as precise a description as I can think of for what the Wizard of Whidbey has been doing with us this last decade or so.  Even the part about the dolls fits, when you think about it. Maybe Kaline could realize its championship ambitions if the Wizard could find a way to play dolls with players on the Drive.

 

Canberra:  W (-1), L 3;  3 – 15.  .194, .216, .250;  1 ip, 0 er.  (Not nearly enough for a double header; Canberra is swamped with replacements, I’m guessing.) Jamie described someone he knew when he was a youth, a kid about 12 or 13 who had way too much self confidence (probably from getting too many $1 bills as gifts).  This kid needed older, wiser people around him, an entire community of them, to help him find his way to a wiser balance as an adult. Notice how well this describes the EFL?  We’re half full of older, wiser people, and half full of young people needing a community of elders to help them grow and develop.  And then there are the ballplayers. Who in the EFL  approximates a 12 to 13 year old with way too much confidence, baby, better than Bryce Harper?  The Captain Kangaroo is just the man to come alongside young Bryce and walk with him while he finds a better balance between constructive confidence and crippling conceit. Didn’t you once say you might go into youth ministry, Ryan?  Well…

 

Portland: L, 7 – 8.  .379, .438, .586;  0 ip, 0 er.      If the last-shall-be-first thing works, the Rosebuds are preparing for a long tenure atop the league. Although, I will mention one other very important point Jamie made: when you are trying to raise people from the dead, prayer is essential. In fact, Jamie was very specific on this matter, quoting Mark 9:29 to support his position that some resurrections “can only come (ab)out by prayer.”

 

NOTE: Sunday was not a good day for the EFL as a whole.  We officially went 0 – 9. Only Cottage recorded an actual win.