By Jim R.
Editor’s note – This article originally appeared on AstrosConnection.com on October 19, 1999.
Smug smirks and an occasional loud guffaw greeted the announcement of Larry Dierker’s appointment to be manager of the Houston Astros. Absolutely no one predicted that decision. Dierker was an entertaining and successful broadcaster, was an erudite occasional newspaper columnist and showed the world a personality that was relaxed to an extreme. Nicknamed “The Wrangler” by broadcast partner Milo Hamilton, he affected Hawaiian shirts, did not mind hoisting a few and spent more time on golf courses than in ballparks. Media wags suggested he would manage more like Jimmy Buffett than Jimmy Leyland. Yet Dierker has had the last laugh on his initial detractors, and no one honestly can say “I told you so.”
Dierker’s three-year record is amazing and speaks for itself: three consecutive Central Division championships under his leadership. His teams have won 199 games the last two years, and his 1998 team won a franchise record 102 games. He and his pitching coach have reclaimed several previously ineffective pitchers from the ashes, have developed strong and deep pitching staffs, and they produced two 20 game winners in 1999. His teams have established numerous club records. He has managed the Astros to a championship with a double-digit lead in 1998 and to a championship in a down-to-the-wire, last game race in 1999. His teams play hard, have outstanding character, do not cause trouble on the field or in the clubhouse and are a perfect blend of stars and role players. Larry Dierker has been uncommonly successful as a National League manager.
Yet Dierker, like his teams, is flawed. His 1997 Astros were overmatched badly in the Division series and were swept in the first round; his heavily favored 1998 team and his very competitive 1999 team also were eliminated in the first round of the playoffs. His teams have not hit well in the playoffs, and they do not seem to be able to win unless they hit. Astros fans everywhere are struggling with this stark reality and simply do not understand why this very good, sometimes great, team cannot win a playoff series. The conventional wisdom is to blame the offense and to lament, or curse, the lack of timely hitting, especially by the team’s best players.
It is far too easy, however, to blame Astros’ hitters for the annual early exit, although certainly they do share whatever blame there is in losing and deserve criticism for their lack of production when it counts most. There is more to the Astros’ playoff failure than lack of clutch hitting or the occasional poor pitching performance. In my opinion, Dierker’s laid back style of managing, which endears him to the fans and media and which makes him a consummate players’ manager, directly contributes to his teams’ three-year inability to advance beyond the first round. In a very real way, his most outstanding characteristic also becomes his biggest fault when playoff baseball begins.
The essence of Dierker’s managing style is “let ’em play and see how it comes out.” His players have unheard of freedom to exercise their own judgment throughout the games, no matter the score. He exerts very little, if any, control during the games. Every player has a green light on the basepaths, but Dierker occasionally will use a “don’t run” sign if he wants someone to stay put in a given situation. He expects his starting pitchers to go deep into games and uses his bullpen sparingly. He expects his fourth and fifth starters and his mopup relievers to get themselves out of trouble just as he does his top starters and his frontline relievers. His hitters are aggressive and rarely take pitches.
Dierker appears to consider each player a veteran during games, regardless of relative experience or ability, and he manages them all virtually the same. Simply put, he appears to be the players’ dream manager. They are on their own to go out and play the games. In baseball as in most games, superior talent wins over the long regular season, and the Astros’ clear superiority in the Central Division has resulted in three consecutive titles under his laissez faire style of managing.
Playoff games are much different, though, from regular season games. Every poor play and every wrong action or inaction is magnified tremendously. Each game is played harder and at a much higher intensity level, and each player is under a great deal more pressure than during the regular season. Instead of taking 162 games to decide matters, the current playoff system requires teams to select a winner after only five or seven games. Only the cream of a team’s rotation pitches in a playoff series, so the hitters will see nothing but good pitching and will get far fewer pitches to hit. Top starters often pitch in relief. There is almost no margin for error in a tight playoff game, and individual at bats or pitches take on immense significance. The emotionally charged environment and the high stakes of a short playoff series often cloud a player’s judgment. It is in these now-or-never situations that Dierker has come up short thus far, due primarily to his willingness to let the players decide the games through the freedom he gives them to play without direction or control from him. This style, which works wonderfully well with a talented, veteran team over a long regular season, is not suited for consistent success in an evenly matched, intense playoff series in which one bad play or failure to score can send a team home for the winter.
My firmly held belief is that in many, if not most, close games, there will be at least one moment, and perhaps more, at which a manager’s decisive action or carefully considered inaction can assist his team to win the game. Conversely, if the manager is unwilling to take control of the game for this key moment, he will directly contribute to the loss if that occurs. A manager’s unwillingness to take control at these critical moments in a close playoff game takes on added significance. In these potentially game-deciding moments, Dierker’s “let ’em play” style actually works against his teams and makes it more difficult for them to succeed under the intense pressure of playoff baseball. Although each of us may find a different “key moment” in a game, the bottom of the twelfth inning of game three of the 1999 NLDS illustrates the point for me.
In that frame, the Braves held a two-run lead with three outs to go, and the Astros had Caminiti and Everett to begin the inning, with Ward available on the bench. Any high school coach worth his salt would have had the hitters “taking a strike” and also taking on 2-0 and 3-1, especially when Millwood was wild to begin the inning. Baserunners were absolutely essential so that Ward could be brought in for his game winning home run potential. Instead, Dierker “let ’em play” and relied on his veterans’ judgment to know when to take and when to swing. Cammy swung at a 2-0 pitch at the bill of his cap and was the first out on a 3-2 pitch. Everett swung at very bad pitches on 2-0 and 3-1 and was the second out on a 3-2 pitch. A simple take sign likely would have put two runners on and would have given the Astros a chance to win with Ward. Instead, the pressure of the moment got the best of the players’ judgment, and the Astros lost the critical game of the series without Ward’s being a factor. Would they have lost anyway? Perhaps–maybe even probably. But Dierker failed to direct his players at this do-or-die moment, and his “let ’em play” freedom became their, and the team’s, final undoing by not giving them a chance to win.
Dierker is not indecisive; he simply declines to exert control over a game, including a playoff game, even in the defining moments of the game. Because he prefers to let the players play, he often loses the opportunity to make the difference in a critical game. Of course, the hitters must hit in important situations, the pitchers must pitch well and the defense must make the plays. Dierker must, however, at least during postseason play, forget that he was once a player, and he must become a manager. He must give the steal sign when he wants his players to run and the stay sign when he does not, he must give the hitters a take sign when baserunners are a must, he must not wait for mediocre pitchers to work their way out of jams the same as he would for his top pitchers, and he must not depend on his players’ judgment to be as good in the intensity of a playoff game as it would be on a lazy summer evening during the regular season.
Larry Dierker is a baseball man to the core, and he is intelligent and insightful. The Astros in the 2000 season likely will be his strongest and most talented team. His style of managing and the organization’s insistence on and development of talented, high-quality individuals insure that the Astros will be championship contenders for years to come. If Dierker will take advantage of the opportunities he will get in close playoff games to exert his will on the game at that moment, the Astros will succeed in the playoffs as well. Not everything Dierker tries will succeed, of course; his players still must execute his decisions. Sure, he will make mistakes, but his baseball acumen will enable him to succeed much more often than he fails.
A “let ’em play” managing style simply will not succeed consistently in a hard-fought playoff series between evenly matched teams. When the game is in the balance, Dierker’s preferred style must be tempered by a willingness to take control of those situations that allow a manager to make a difference in the outcome of the game. When he becomes a manager in those situations, instead of a former player and a fan watching the players play the game, we will all be celebrating a World Series championship in Houston. We should all hope that 2000 is the year in which Larry Dierker’s evolution from former player to championship manager becomes complete.