See, Chad Tracy? It's not that hard.
Being an MLB manager has many difficult aspects. No skipper, no matter how accomplished, has ever been a master of all the intricacies of overseeing everything that unfolds in a clubhouse and on a baseball field. But no manager has ever succeeded without effective communication. A strategy is nothing without an effective message to get everyone on board.
Walt Weiss this weekend showed how it's done. In doing so, he underscored just how much Tracy needs to develop.
With the Atlanta Braves desperately needing a win in Game 2 of their National League Division Series against the Los Angeles Dodgers, Weiss made the bold call to delay Chris Sale's scheduled start. Instead, the Braves went to Ray Kerr, who combined with five relievers -- most notably Didier Fuentes delivering a 3 2/3 innings gem -- to carry Atlanta to a 3-2 victory and even the series at 1-1. Since all went right for the Braves, Weiss looks like a genius. If it hadn't, he would have been subject to criticism.
At least Weiss explained his rationale, however -- most importantly, to his pitcher.
"Chris always wants to throw," Weiss said, per MLB.com's Mark Bowman. "Sometimes you have to take it out of their hands, because he'd pitch every day if we asked him to. We know our club very well. We know Chris Sale very well. That's a decision we made to pitch him in Game 3."
Now the Braves have the former NL Cy Young Award winner on deck to start Game 3 on Tuesday on extended rest. Strategically, the decision was sound. Communicatively, it was handled just as deftly.
Contrast the Sale situation with that of Sonny Gray, who took umbrage with getting an early hook in Game 2 of the Boston Red Sox's AL Wild Card Series against the New York Yankees. It was apparent from Gray's postgame comments that he not only didn't agree with Tracy's decision, but that he didn't even understand it. Making matters worse, the word salad Tracy provided in his explanation revealed that it wasn't merely a tactical blunder, but an interpersonal failure as well.
"We're trailing. We're struggling to score runs," Tracy said, according to MassLive's Christopher Smith. "And when you get in spots where you're struggling to score runs and you're already trailing, you feel like you've got to be aggressive and go."
Sure, OK. Got it. Except -- huh?
You needed to pull your pitcher because you're struggling to score runs? Is this an NL game in 1994 and the pitcher is due up in the next inning? What correlation is there between keeping your pitcher in a game and scoring more runs?
Clearly, that wasn't the actual reason Tracy opted to yank Gray. So the fact that Tracy couldn't explain it -- not to his team, not to the media, not to his pitcher -- is alarming, considering the Red Sox just removed the interim tag for Tracy's job title. In the absence of overwhelming talent, interpersonal communication is vital to a team's success. And now the Red Sox are stuck with a guy who can't sufficiently tell his pitcher why he's taking him out of a game.
The Braves' job is far from over, so we can't crown Weiss as a historic leader of men quite yet. He's far from it, in fact, but that's the thing. If merely communicating with your team and your fans is this simple, the inability for the Red Sox to do the same becomes even more glaring.