Leadership
Mike Salk is a co-host of Brock and Salk, which you can listen to weekdays beginning at 11 am on ESPN Radio 710. We’ve agreed to contribute to each other’s sites this year, and he brings a perspective to the game that we don’t generally write about.
When the Mariners decided to call a players only team meeting last week, it got me thinking about the importance of leadership. It may be the hardest trait to quantify. There is definitely no stat for it. It’s a label that gets applied typically to veterans, disproportionally to Caucasians, and usually to guys that hustle and speak well to the media. But that doesn’t mean we label the right guys.
So… who are baseball’s leaders? What to they do to help a team? And, why is leadership so different in baseball?
To start with, it seems to come in three forms.
-Quiet leadership by example.
-Vocal leadership in front of the team (team meetings)
-Vocal leadership behind the scenes, where the leader pulls another player aside for a quick talk.
The quiet leadership is easy to spot but harder to accept by those outside the clubhouse. Teammates point to Ichiro and Franklin Gutierrez as “leaders” because they arrive early to the park and conduct their business the right way.
“You see a lot more guys who lead by example,” explains Ryan Langerhans. “It’s much tougher to be a vocal leader. But Guti is a good example of a quiet guy who leads by example. He is always prepared. Always. He knows how to play this game the right way.”
That’s fine, but does it help a team through a tough spot? Does it help a young player eliminate mistakes or correct bad behavior? Does it offer encouragement when someone needs it?
That often takes a vocal leader, which are a lot tougher to fjind. That’s partly because it takes a certain type of personality to lead, but also because the culture of baseball tends to try to silence players. I figured players were reluctant to speak up because of a fear of standing out, but Josh Wilson explained it much more clearly.
“It’s maybe a little tougher to lead vocally in this league because it’s a game of failure,” reasons Wilson. “It’s hard for guys to stand up in front of their teammates and say ‘do better,’ especially when they know they could be in a slump next. The ups and downs make it so hard. And you have the split between the pitchers and hitters – guys don’t want to start blaming anyone or else the finger could get pointed right back at them. It’s real tough to play the blame game in this sport.”
That seems to be the central problem with leading in baseball and why it’s so hard to find a truly great leader. Football, basketball and most other team sports have an accepted level of consistency. Good players can, for the most part, play at a similar level throughout a season. Even more, their level of play can often be traced directly to their in-game hustle or pre-game preparation.
But baseball has slumps. Slumps unlike any other sport. And if you happen to be in a trough rather than a peak, it can be very tough to feel like a productive member of the team, let alone an authority figure.
It’s almost as if baseball players are too self-conscious to stand up in front of their peers.
But there are guys who have been through it before and know that someone needs to pass on words of encouragement or advice to the younger players. That’s why many leaders simply take a teammate aside for a quick conversation.
“Being vocal isn’t always about speaking at a team meeting,” offers Langerhans. “Often it’s just pulling a young player aside for some advice. Sometimes it’s baseball related, sometimes it’s how to deal with management, or the media or whatever.”
Ah, the media.
Baseball players worry about the media so much I sometimes wonder if they would need all the leadership if they could simply play without us buzzing around them.
“Having a leader is even more important now in the era of the 24 hour news cycle,” according to bullpen coach John Wetteland. “Guys have to know that they’re protected. In an era in which anyone with an opinion can say whatever they want and have access to an audience, there is something even more than a microscope. Guys need a safe place and a good leader can help foster that.”
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Ask a few Mariners about leaders they’ve been around and some of the names won’t surprise you. Coming up in the Florida system, Vargas was immediately exposed to a trio of young leaders when he first came up to the big leagues and was confronted with Josh Beckett, AJ Burnett and Dontrelle Willis. He says all three commanded respect and were excellent resources for all of his questions.
“The most important thing about leadership on a team is having veteran guys to ask questions of,” he says. And all three helped in some way. Being around Beckett myself, I would guess his advice was dripping with sarcasm and more than a little cynicism. But the best advice Vargas got was from Willis who warned him, “Don’t be nice! Not on the mound.”
Wilson has been in six organizations and can point to a handful of guys. Todd Helton stands out to him as does Mike Sweeney, Todd Jones and Mike Lowell. Langerhans came up with Atlanta where I expected veteran Chipper Jones to run the clubhouse, but he mentions John Smoltz as the true leader of that team at the time.
Going back a little deeper, Wetteland points to Kirk Gibson as one of the best leaders.
“Gibby was a great leader because although he was purposeful, he also kept it fun,” remembers the quirky Wetteland. “Those lemonsuckers get tiresome over 162 games. There is a time and a place for being serious, but you have to have some fun in this game or you’ll go nuts.”
And here we are back to the nature of baseball. It wasn’t a goal of mine to prove that baseball is different from other sports but the theme seems to be carrying over from my last piece to this one. Because baseball is played every day with lots of downtime and even more travel, chemistry becomes more relevant than in other sports. Because baseball is a game built around dealing with failure, you need leaders who can help you through the bad times.
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I was the first to scoff at the Mariners team meeting last week. It seemed like it was too little, too late. I wondered why any young player would possibly buy in when it was being conducted by a pitcher about to be traded, an infielder who had just complained about being dropped to ninth after not producing, and an outfielder who had abandoned his team just a month earlier.
I stand by comments. But maybe I missed one aspect.
“Team meetings are to make sure everyone still cares,” Josh Wilson explained to me. “I’ve been on teams where at the end of a long year where we are way out of it, people just play for themselves and their own stats. Guys get selfish. We don’t want to be that team – especially not now. Not this early.”
It’s about staying together and playing hard even when you’re out of it.
“And staying together and gutting out the end of a year can have a good positive effect on the next season. If you know that as a core team you fought together and battled and refused to give up, it really does help.”
I don’t know if Wilson is right. I don’t know if it caries over to next year. But it doesn’t really matter what I think. If the players believe it helps, then it will help. And if there is any chance that it has a positive effect on the team, then it was probably worth everyone’s time.
I just wish they had tried it a little sooner.
Rainiers on TV again
David Pauley takes the mound for the Rainiers tonight, and with no Mariners game, it will be on FSN at 7 pm. Tune in if you’re interested in seeing some baseball. There’s even the exciting chance that you might see Michael Pineda sitting on the bench eating seeds. That’s tough to top.
Minor League Wrap (6/14-20/10)
Everett did indeed start play on Friday, but you won’t see them below here because three games is just not enough to work with, so I’ll do a week and a half of Aquasox next week and most of a week of Pulaski, which starts on Tuesday. I’ll have a roster preview for them when I get it. Peoria starts today, but if you weren’t around last season, I just update some interesting statlines for the week rather than looking at individual games because the climate is too much of a mess to make any meaningful conclusions about what’s happening.
To the jump!
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Pineda to Tacoma
I could have held off until tomorrow, but it might as well be mentioned now that RHP Michael Pineda is in Tacoma according to Mike Curto and will be taking the mound in the Salt Lake City series.
From a practical standpoint, it makes sense because the Rainiers are going to be playing six games in a four-day span thanks to some earlier weather cancellations. We can also justify it from the Mariners’ perspective because the first half is over for the D-Jaxx and Pineda will probably be part of the team’s near-term future, so they might as well keep a close eye on him and give the local fans a taste of what’s to come. If it all goes well for him and he doesn’t run into any trouble or pass any alarming innings milestones, there’s a chance he makes a few appearances with the Mariners in September, since he needs to be added to the 40-man in the offseason.
From a fan standpoint, you should all go see him. Pineda is the best starting prospect we have in the system by a pretty good margin. He throws a low-to-mid 90s fastball, has a good grasp of what do with his change-up (though he doesn’t use it enough), and even without a tremendous slider, he was still leading the D-Jaxx with 78 Ks in 77.0 innings. His command is so good that he’s only walked four in 26.2 innings this month. When he’s healthy, he’s really, really good.
Since he started on Friday, the usual five-day rest schedule would put him on pace to take the mound again on Wednesday, barring any decisions on the Rainiers’ part to throw him in for one of the doubleheaders to lower expectations in his first outing. I’ll keep you posted if that changes any.
Game 69, Reds at Mariners
RR-S vs. Harang after a couple of hard acts to follow.
RF Ichiro!
2B Figgins
DH Bradley
3B Lopez
CF Gutierrez
SS Josh Wilson
1B Carp
C Alfonzo
LF Saunders
Jack Wilson was activated today, after a Tacoma stint where he was hitting pretty well and was even attempting to steal a few bases. Now the Mariners are going to have to decide whether to play him or occasionally intriguing Josh Wilson and oh my goodness this is one of the more interesting things we have to talk about regarding this team. Tui goes back to Tacoma to work more on defense or something.
We also found out today that Ian Snell has cleared waivers and accepted his outright assignment to Tacoma. A guy that once struck out 177 in 208.0 innings while running an ERA+ of 116 for the Pirates is now roughly on the same level of Jesus Colome and every other reclamation project we had in the past year or so that didn’t pan out. At least we still have Aardsma, right?
Josh Bard has also been seen rehabbing for Tacoma. This is probably good news.
Game 68, Reds at Mariners
Happy Felix Day!
RF Ichiro
2B Figgins
DH Bradley
3B Lopez
CF Gutierrez
SS Josh Wilson
1B Kotchman
C Johnson
LF Saunders
Game 67, Reds at Mariners
And what will the Reds fans do now that Griffey is gone?
Lee vs. Cueto, 7:05 pm PDT
RF Ichiro!
2B Figgins
DH Bradley
3B Lopez
CF Gutierrez
SS Josh Wilson
1B Carp
C Johnson
LF Saunders
Jose Lopez, our #4 hitter is batting .231/.242/.354 this month, with most of his hits coming in the early part of June. I am strangely numb to such revelations about our lineup. That Carp is hitting ahead of Saunders just seems funny to me at this point. Hey, Divish says we could activate Sweeney if he feels good after batting practice tonight. Baseball!
Cueto is better than his ERA would lead you to believe. This year, he’s cut the rate at which he’s been giving up home runs to three-quarters what it was last season. He’s also striking out more and giving up fewer walks. Sure, he’s no Cliff Lee, but a pitcher doesn’t have to be to get through our hitters.
M’s Come to Terms with Walker, Ten Others
Divish on the Twitter, pt. 1, pt.2. The second part also notes that Woodinville’s RHP Luke Taylor has spurned his commitment to Hawaii to sign with the hometown team. Considering we’ve poached three players off their incoming class, the Rainbows must really hate us now. A press release also lists RHP Tyler Burgoon (10th), 3B/1B Stefen Romero (12th), LHP Jason Markovitz (13th), RHP Jandy Sena (23rd), C Andrew Giobbi (32nd), OF Ethan Paquette (35th), RHP Joshua Krist (39th), C Billy Marcoe (41st), and RHP Tim Boyce (44th). Marcoe’s been long rumored as being on the way to Everett too. Walker will be at Safeco later today.
That Walker signed at all shouldn’t be a surprise to anyone. Certain people were concerned that with so much more press on him as a potential D-1 recruit for basketball, he was still more focused on that than baseball these days, despite his own comments in interviews to the contrary. Signing him was probably the easy part. Getting him to learn how to pitch like a natural will be a little trickier.
That brings us to another point, which is that of all the M’s vaunted top four picks, he was probably the easiest sign. Paxton, who’s tied to Boras, may take a little while, but given that he’s without much leverage, has an offer from his “hometown” team, and the track record is not great for indy league draftees, I’d say it gets done. More difficult will probably be Littlewood, who had agreed to play at San Diego, and Stanek, who has the commitment to Arkansas. I see Stanek as maybe being the toughest one. That’s not even touching on later picks like Jordan Shipers, who are wild cards at the moment.
We’re making progress, and still have a lot of work to do before August 15th.
Rainiers Game Thread, 6/17/10
Got to do something on the off day, right? Why not listen to Mike Curto? Game starts at 6:05 pm.
LF Ezequiel Carrera
SS Jack Wilson
1B Brad Nelson
DH Tommy Everidge
2B Jack Hannahan
CF Gregory Halman
C Guillermo Quiroz
RF Mike Wilson
3B Matt Mangini
P Andy Baldwin
That’s a different looking lineup. Mainly for Mangini being so low, and also the Jack Wilson factor.
Some minor league notes:
* 6th-round pick C Keanu Carmichael signed for $150k a day or two ago.
* Adam Moore’s rehab stint has been shut down.
* LHP Mauricio Robles gave up four runs in the first inning of a game against Chattanooga. The Diamond Jaxx are two games out of first with three left to play in the half.
* The Aquasox start their season in Salem-Keizer tomorrow.
Brandon League
My latest post is up over at Brock and Salk’s blog, dealing with Brandon League’s pitch selection and his disappointing performance so far this year. Check it out if you’d like.
We won’t be doing my radio gig this week, though, as I’ll be on an airplane, and I won’t be around much the next few days. If the team does something drastic, I’ll figure out a way to get a post up, but otherwise, you’ll be in good hands with Jay, Marc, and JH for the weekend.