Trying to know Dave Martinez

This post is rooted in a question Chiburb posed about Martinez in the Roundtable thread.  How do we know Martinez is stat friendly? 

But it's related to the question that follows every candidate for an open Manager/Head Coach position in any sport like Martinez.  What do we really know about him?  The answer almost always comes down to this: we know who he works for.

This time, I'm not going to let that be enough for me.  Dave Martinez is as close as there is in the online corners of Sox fandom to a consensus first choice for new Sox Manager.  Google exists, so I'm going to try to learn something about this guy.

First stop: We know he's Joe Maddon's Bench Coach.  Thanks to this Tampa Tribune article we know a little about what that means to Maddon.

"For me, a really good bench coach is basically another manager," said Maddon, whose club opens a three-game series against the Braves tonight at Turner Field.

"He needs to come to the ballpark on a daily basis as though he's going to manage - whether that's thinking about lineups, setting up defenses, or what he would do if he were running the game that day."

"There was no handbook on how to be a bench coach," Maddon said. "It was kind of an ill-defined or non-defined role. So I set out to define it, and it has morphed into a lot of other things, where it's not just sitting there whispering into the manager's ear."

Martinez, in addition to the typical duties of a bench coach, oversees the Rays' base running. He works with players as a teacher, and then, during games, often advises when to bunt, when not to bunt and when to pinch-run.

Right or wrong, I always saw Joey Cora as an extension of Ozzie.  Basically the same philosophically, possibly even more bunty.  Not a lot of individuation there.  That's not the Joe Maddon way.  Like the article says, "Maddon doesn't merely delegate; he encourages dissenting views"

Dave Martinez is not Joe Maddon's yes man, he is in that dugout to be Dave Martinez.  But, in this article and in the few others I can find, it is clear that he comes at his job as also being about learning, not just giving his opinion.  If he can hold onto that in the Manager's chair, it can be a major plus to him. I believe that is a central piece to what makes Maddon effective.

Taking Ozzie's talk at face value, I see him as a manager who thinks he has the answer to how you win ballgames.  From the Extra 2% I see Maddon as a manager looking for an answer.  His edge is his pursuit of every edge that he can get.  It opens his mind to more information and makes him more flexible.

That article leaves me encouraged.  But I'm hungry for more.

It mentions Martinez having responsibilities with base-running.  That called out my memories of the Extra 2%, so I grabbed the book one last time before returning it to the library.  

There, on page 200-201, Keri wrote about the Rays improvement on the bases from being terrible in '08 (making the second most outs on the bases in MLB).  In '09, Maddon insisted on being smarter while maintaining aggressiveness, which the Rays succeeded in doing somewhat, making 10 fewer outs on base.  Keri talks about Maddon implementing drills from his time with the Angels, including one that Morgan Ensberg loved that emphasized how to decide when to go for third on a single.  Keri points to 2010 as the big year for the Rays base-running transformation, when they took 196 more bases than average (per Bill James' website).  The story told may be about Maddon, but we know that is in Martinez's toolbox.

This 2008 Orlando Sentinel story doesn't yield a lot, but this quote does reinforce a lot of what the later Tampa Tribune story tells us:

"He's very good with the outfielders, and for me he's very good at game strategy. He's very complete. He's very complete, and he's very opinionated, and he doesn't back down."

No, definitely not there to be Maddon's drinking buddy.

Then there's the Fox Sports Florida story from last May I linked to in response to Chiburb's question.

The story aligns closely with the Tampa Tribune story, and takes us into the Maddon-Martinez dynamic.

"As far as I'm concerned, Joe's more of a good friend than anything," Martinez said. "We get along really well. We see similar things. We communicate really well I don't ever have a problem speaking my mind and he knows that. And it's vice versa."

I bolded the part that jumped off the screen at me.  Being completely real about it, a big part of why I like Martinez is because I want Maddon in the Sox dugout but can't have him.  One of the big risks I see in hiring the man who assists the man is the danger that he doesn't really see what the big man sees on the field, or looking at information.  Martinez allays some of that concern there.

From the FSFlorida story we know Martinez doesn't do much with pitching, which is fine, there are worse things a manager can do than nod along with what Don Cooper has to say about the subject.  He works with defense, he works with hitting, and he's in touch with his inner Maddon:

"With me, he knows in advance what I'm thinking so by the time I actually say it, he says 'I already talked to so-and-so.'  He's always a step ahead. He's very blunt and good with the players when we mess up. He takes care of a lot of stuff I don't have to take care of there.

And then there's the quote I pulled yesterday that fully encapsulates the Maddon-Martinez relationship in Dave's own words:

"Joe gives me a lot of leeway here," he said. "I suggest when maybe to pinch-run, when we might want to pinch-hit due to the matchup. I suggest when to bunt, when not to bunt. He lets me do a lot.  Every game I'm a student of the game and I've always been that way, even when I played. To me, Joe is probably one of the best if not the best teacher I've been around as far as knowing everything about the game. Not just the game, but statistics, using the computer. We talk. I listen. I'll pick his brain. Now it's to the point where I'm on the same page every day."

The great hope, of course, is that he has integrated those conversations about the game and the numbers into his approach. 

One last note on bunting:

Looking at Fangraphs bunt splits, the Rays are consistently among the 10 least bunty teams by PA.  When they do it, it is to great immediate effect, leading MLB in bunt RBI the last 3 years.  They are also generally at or near the top of MLB in BA on bunts.  If Martinez is the man suggesting bunts, by now he knows to get the most out of it and not give away the out casually.

In all, I like him.  This little Google adventure didn't necessarily turn up a lot, but it lead some positive places and at least we know a little more. And that beard! 

All this and that beard, I'm on Team Martinez.