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Old 03-26-2020, 03:08 PM   #4
progen
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Interviews/Selecting an Assistant GM and Manager:

Week of September 8th – So after spending hours on the phone through the first week of September, interviewing candidates for both the Assistant GM, and the Manager position, I decided to bring three candidates in for a face to face interview, which included both myself and the owner. And while the three candidates were all content with their current positions, at the respective ballclubs, they all showed a great deal of excitement about the opportunity of being involved in an expansion team. Both the owner and I felt that it was important to get an Assistant GM in place in order for that person to take care of some of the administrative positions in the office, and also as a third voice in the hiring of a Manager.

All three candidates interviewed very well, and here’s a summary:

Jeremy Haber – Haber is the Assistant GM for the White Sox and has the least experience of all the candidates I spoke with. He has an M.B.A. from the Harvard Business School, and years ago was hired as an intern with the Red Sox. With the White Sox, he makes player acquisition recommendations, and has started to make scouting trips within the US. Lately, not only Haber, but the entire White Sox front office has taken an abundance of criticism as the team has really struggled the last few years.

Robert Bush - Is a former professional baseball player and currently the Assistant GM of the Chicago Cubs. He currently works with Theo Epstein on player contracts, and is involved in the hiring process of the field and scouting staff. When I spoke to Epstein, he mentioned that Bush was a tireless worker, with a great attention to detail. Bush played for the Twins from 1982 to 1993, playing mainly in the outfield and as a DH.

Chris Pittaro – Has been a scout and Assistant GM with the Athletics since 1991. I spoke to Billy Beane and he mentioned that as a scout, Pittaro was willing to rethink everything he knows about baseball. He also has Manager experience at the Class A level, and was named Field Coordinator for the A’s from 2002 through 2007. He became the club’s Director of Professional scouting from 2008 to 2011. He was named Assistant GM after the 2011 season. He played three seasons of professional ball with the Tigers and the A’s from 1985-1987.

It was a tough decision for both the owner and I to make, and we went back and forth on the strengths and weaknesses of all three, but in the end, we decided on Chris Pittaro. I very much liked the fact that he had scouting experience, and having been around Billy Beane for so long, he could think “outside the box” when it came to some baseball decisions. Chris was so excited when I called him, and he flew to Montreal the very next day! He even gave me an autographed photo of himself in a Twins uniform. Later, I stashed it away in one of my filing cabinets, never to he hung up in my office!

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“Can we get a Manager please”!! Those words reverberated through our offices, as the owner was getting antsy about getting our coaching staff in place, as was I. We ended up phone interviewing more candidates then we had originally planned, mainly because Chris kept coming up with names, that in the end, we couldn’t pass up!
And as we did with the Assistant GM position, we whittled it down to three candidates:

Gary DiSarcina – DiSarcina played his entire career with the Angels from 1989-2000. After retirement, he skippered the Lowell Spinners of the Short Season-A New York–Penn League for three above-.500 seasons (2007–09) and served as the Red Sox' minor league infield instruction coordinator in 2010. More recently, on November 11, 2016, he went to the Red Sox as the 2017 bench coach on the MLB staff of manager John Farrell. DiSarcina served one season in that post, until Farrell's firing two days after Boston fell in the American League Division Series. On November 5, 2017, DiSarcina took over as the 2018 bench coach of the New York Mets on the staff of new manager Mickey Callaway. After one year as bench coach, he was reassigned to become the Mets' 2019 third-base coach. He’s very personable, and is more of a Sabermetric type of Manager. He likes working with veterans mostly.

Howard “HoJo” Johnson – After his playing career, in 2011, was the first base coach for the Rockland Boulders. He was named hitting coach for AAA Tacoma Rainiers of the Seattle Mariners organization for the 2013 baseball season. He joined the Mariners as a hitting coach for the 2014 season, part of the new coaching staff. He was replaced by Edgar Martínez on June 20, 2015. Johnson managed the single-A Down East Wood Ducks in 2017, and was hitting instructor for the AAA Round Rock Express in 2018.[16] In 2019, he was the hitting coach for the AAA Nashville Sounds. He mentioned that he had a verbal agreement with the Toros de Tijuana club of the Mexican League as their hitting coach, but his first choice is to get back to the majors as a Manager. He was very intense in our meeting, and when I asked my owner and assistant GM what type of Manager, they thought he’d be, they replied “temperamental."

Jay Bell
– From 1986 to 2003, Bell played for five different teams, including the Indians, Pirates, and Mets. Back in 2006, he served as the bench coach for the Diamondbacks. Bell was hired as the hitting coach for the Pittsburgh Pirates on October 31, 2012. On November 11, 2013, Bell was named bench coach of the Cincinnati Reds. On October 22, 2015, it was announced that the Reds would not renew Bell's contract. On January 13, 2017, Bell became the manager for the Class A (Advanced) Tampa Yankees. On August 29, 2017, Bell became the manager of the Scottsdale Scorpions of the Arizona Fall League. On January 25, 2018, Bell was named the manager of the Trenton Thunder, the New York Yankees AA affiliate and in 2019 he was promoted to manager of the Scranton/Wilkes-Barre RailRiders, the Yankees AAA affiliate. Bell has a verbal agreement to be the manager of the Rocket City Trash Pandas, the Double-A affiliate of the Los Angeles Angels, for their inaugural season, but feels his experience and management style would be an asset to a start-up club like the Expos. All three of us felt he was the strongest candidate, but decided to give it a couple of days before making a decision.

September 15th, 2020 – Well after a couple of days of some serious thought, we all agreed that Jay Bell would be the best fit for our club, as we usher in a new era for baseball. We held the press conference, and once again, just as they did with me, the press corps treated Bell with kid gloves. The other really good thing about Bell, is that he already has in mind his bench, pitching and hitting coaches.

As we chatted in my office, Bell was really excited, with a lot of energy. And just like with Pittaro, Bell gave me a picture when he played for the Pirates. Not sure why all these former players think people want their pictures, but I accepted it of course, and then stuffed it in the drawer with Pittaro’s.

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Later I relaxed at home with a couple of cold ones, as I knew the next huge step was the Expansion Draft!

Last edited by progen; 03-26-2020 at 03:11 PM.
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