Chicago Has the Two Worst Baseball Mangers?
According to a recent SI poll of 380 basbeball players, Lou Pinella and Ozzie Guillen have been voted the 2 managers that players would least like to play for. That is very suprising to me, especially Guillen. I may not be a Sox fan, but I don’t hate Ozzie. Now let me say that players could not vote for their own managers, so these numbers are not coming from the two managers’ players.
What this is pretty much stating is that Chicago has the 2 worst managers in the league according to the players. And you can add this to Lou Pinella’s bad week. He has been critized for having lost his “fire”, and was forced to apologize to Milton Bradley. On the other hand, Ozzie Guillen has always been a “different” manager. He has been criticized for some tactial stuff but overall it seems like his players and Sox fans both adore him.
Both teams are underplaying preseason expectation. The Cubs currently have a 36-38 record, and are 4.5 games out of first. The Sox currently have a 39-38 record, and are 4 games out of first. But records don’t seem to have swayed the players who voted. There are plenty of other teams with bad records, but their managers did not make the top 5, not even the Nationals’ manager Manny Acta!
To me this was a huge shocker. I would have never guess Chicago has the 2 least liked managers. I am sure both Cubs and Sox fans will also be shocked.
Tags: baseball, chicago cubs, Chicago White Sox, lou piniella, MLB, ozzie guillen, Sports Illustrated
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I do think this is somewhat surprising. I know that both Ozzie and Lou have volatile personalities, but they’ve also been pretty successful over their careers. Most players, I think, want to win…and Ozzie and Lou usually win. But I guess if there are two guys who could get bad reputations just based on perception and some of their crazy antics, it would be these two.
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Tony LaRussa was third. I think Ozzie’s “old school” manager quote says it best. Here is what was on whitesox.com
http://chicago.whitesox.mlb.com/news/article.jsp?ymd=20090630&content_id=5620072&vkey=news_cws&fext=.jsp&c_id=cws
“I don’t blame them,” Guillen said of the players that voted in the poll. “To know I’m No.1 with the White Sox is all I really care about. I demand discipline. I demand that players work hard. Outside the lines, I care about them more than I care about my own family. I know for a fact that our rules are pretty easy — our Spring Training is the best. My relationship is open with my players.”
“Maybe [players] don’t like old school managers,” Guillen said. “If you play for me, you’re going to have fun. Meanwhile, you better be ready to show up every day and be a pro.”
I didn’t hear any worthwhile response from Lou which makes him number one I guess because sometimes he just doesn’t care enough. You can see that when he was in Tampa (and their pennant coming after he left). This year is the same while the Cubs can’t execute to save their careers and lets the batting coach go down first. PS Milton Bradley is a virus.
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JRod Reply:
July 1st, 2009 at 9:59 am
@KVB, I love the old school guys. And I definitely think Ozzie has proven over the last few years that he is old school, but also better at relating to the “new school” age than a true old-schooler like Piniella. The White Sox defied expectations to win the Central last year, and are showing signs this year of weathering another early season storm to compete for another division title. The Cubs had a great regular season last year and then flopped in the playoffs…and their flopping has continued so far this year.
Basically…I love Ozzie.
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