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| A Colorful Idea, Milwaukee |
New Cubs professor, er president, Theo Epstein is
looking for certain answers as he and his new faculty put managerial candidates
through some rigorous exam-taking.
Pete Mackanin, a South Side Chicago native, made sure
to get one thing right Friday as he met with Epstein and Co. at Wrigley Field.
"Obviously, now I'm a big Cubs fan," said
the 60-year-old Mackanin, a graduate of Brother Rice High School. "It would
be really exciting to be part of the Cubs going all the way."
Yes, Cubs it is.
"I grew up on South Side, probably closer to
Comiskey Park," he said. "However, although I was a Sox fan, I was
also a Cubs fan, and Theo informed me after that comment, 'Don't ever mention
you were a Sox fan again.' I've got to defer to him."
That was probably the easiest part of the job and
media interviews Mackanin went through Thursday night and Friday. He was the
first candidate to interview for the job. Milwaukee Brewers hitting coach Dale
Sveum will interview Monday. Texas Rangers pitching coach Mike Maddux is
expected to follow sometime next week.
Mackanin, the bench coach of the Philadelphia
Phillies, also has interviewed with the Boston Red Sox, the team Epstein
formerly ran.
Epstein, general manager Jed Hoyer and scouting and
player development boss Jason McLeod are putting candidates through tough
interviews, giving them game situations and seeing how they respond under
pressure.
"I've done this before," Mackanin said.
"It was very comprehensive. They didn't let me up for air. They just kept pounding questions at you, and it's very interesting.
It's fun.
"We had dinner last night, and they put me
through the grinder last night. I couldn't enjoy my dinner. They covered an
awful lot of ground in regards to strategy, different types of philosophy,
stuff like that. It's going very well."
Mackanin has worked alongside Phillies manager Charlie
Manuel for the past three seasons. A self-described baseball "lifer,"
Mackanin has gotten only interim-manager jobs in the big leagues, at Pittsburgh
in 2005 and at Cincinnati in 2007.
But he has managed in Venezuela, the Dominican
Republic and Puerto Rico in winter-ball stops.
"I think I'm quite patient," he said.
"I've had an ambition to be a major-league manager, and I'm 60, so I think
I've waited quite a long time. I've been in the game 43 years and I think it
takes a good deal of patience to manage at the major-league level, to do
anything in this business to scout, to coach."
Given the emphasis Epstein and his crew put on
statistical analysis, Mackanin was asked how he would balance that with
managing by gut feel.
"I think it's a combination," he said.
"I think any tool you can use to succeed, you better use it video,
statistics. Let's face it. Statistics mean something. It's not just a number.
If a guy is a .300 hitter, he's a .300 hitter. If he's a .250 hitter, that's
what he is. So it gives you an overall in-general look at what kind of hitter
he is.
"Then you can delve deeper into leveraged indexes
and ways of looking at how he's been used and what his replacement value is and
things like that. On-base percentage, OPS, those things all paint a picture of
what a player looks like, and in the end what he might be able to contribute.
It'll help you make a decision, and we spent some time talking about
that."
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