"Amanda Comack of the Washington Times reports that Bo Porter is on the Nationals' list of four names to possibly take over for manager Davey Johnson next season. Comack also mentions Diamondbacks third base coach Matt Williams, a name first reported by CBS Sports' Jon Heyman Thursday. She also lists Nationals bench coach Randy Knorr and Nats third base coach Trent Jewett as possibilities. Since the Nats have known all along that this would be Johnson's last year, they've had plenty of time to get a preliminary list together, so it would be a little surprising if their next manage didn't come from this group. Porter, of course, was the Nats' third base coach from 2011-12 before taking over the Astros' manager gig. " I hope Bo hangs around for a while. No doubt that the Nats have a lot more talent than the Astros right now, but if Bo believes Crane really will open the checkbook up at the right time, he surely thinks there is enough talent in the pipeline to make this thing work here. What is the general opinion here on Porter? Who likes him and who wouldn't care if he flew the coup?
I have heard negative gossip about him as a pony league/all-star team coach (not joking). He seems like he doesn't know the game particularly well but is great at motivating players. I like him but don't believe he is capable of coaching a championship caliber team, which we won't need for a few years at least.
Personally, I think it is really hard to tell if he is capable of coaching a championship team. He certainly doesn't have the talent right now needed to compete at a high level, and some of the game decisions he makes are surely made because of a lack of other options.
From someone who had a son on a team. Apparently he charged $200/player for food for a tournament and gave the kids PB&J. Pretty hilarious
He has also made some boneheaded moves, including the time he replaced a reliever who hadn't pitched and claimed he misunderstood due to a rule change. I think he generally does well as a manager, including infields shifts. He has repeatedly gone to relievers when they aren't pitching well, game after game. I understand some of that is due to a lack of depth. I like how aggressive he is. We'll see if he's capable of coaching a winning team, much less a championship team.
In baseball, though all you need is a good motivator. It really doesn't matter at all how well they know the rules. When he broke the rules by subbing a pitcher out before having him throw a single pitch, that was the fault of the umpire not him. Now Tony LaRussa is one thing, but I don't think anyone ever considered Joe Torre or Bobby Cox to be great X's and O's guys. Leave that stuff for football and, to a lesser extent, basketball. In baseball you just have your geriatric men put on jumpsuit costumes and prance around and get ejected every once in a while. In that sense baseball managers are really more like mascots...
While the umpires should have known that rule, so should have Porter. Porter helped turn that inning into a circus rather than simply having it continue normally. If a manager does not know the rules, he will lose the respect of his players and fellow competitors.
It actually does when you consider how many of our best young players he'll be influencing. I like Bo Porter.
Yea I think it is very important, we really need someone to mold these guys as they come up I think the rule situation in ONE game says very little about his ability to be a good manager And as for judging his ability to manage a pen, he has had almost zero options. Lets see how he handles that stuff when he has a few down there that can get people out
I think its overstating things a bit to point to that one incident and make the assertion that Bo don't know the rules or that the players respect for him was changed one iota. If every couple games such was the case, then perhaps. Bo's first priority is making the players on his watch better. And I think he has been decent to pretty good at this to this point IMO.
Managers can certainly influence young players... to a point. After that point, their efforts are either redundant or the player just starts tuning them out. Managers need to be able to construct/handle a bullpen well, and not make stupid in-game decisions that lose games (attempts to steal/hit and run without much regard to game situations, poor choices with sacrifice bunts or suicide squeezes). Porter hasn't had much of a bullpen to show if he can do much "managing", so I'll wait till they get some talent back there before judging his "managing" skills.
While what you wrote is probably true, I have been watching/listening to Houston MLB since 1962 and can not remember any incident where a manager did not know a rule, especially a routine rule. On the other hand, I guess it says something about Porter that he was able to convince the umpire that he was right. On another note, I did not like the way he pulled Martinez from a game when he swung at the first pitch immediately after another player had done the same thing AND did not pull Altuve when he did the exact same thing a week or two later.
He pulled Martinez because the pitcher had just experienced a long and rough inning, and he was going to stay in. He TOLD the team to be patient, not go up there swinging at the first thing they saw, and we can't have a quick inning. That was the situation from all reports. Then JD went up there and hacked at the first pitch. It isn't some kind of team rule you don't swing at the first pitch, if that was the case this team would have no players. It was a situational thing, and I love the fact that Porter had the cahones to pull him for not following a directive, very very few managers would have the nuts to do that
If he indeed told the team to be patient and not swing at the first thing they saw, why was Carter not benched? He swung at the first pitch he saw preceding the Martinez at bat.
No idea on carter I just remember that is what was reported at the time about why Martinez was pulled.
Also, maybe JD had already had several instances of not following directives and Carter didn't. So much that goes on thy we don't know about. A manager needs to be able to run a club and have players do what is asked.
