Dirk Hayhurst Describes Managers' Difficulties In Asserting Authority Over Clubhouse
Toucher & Rich welcomed one of their favorite guests, Dirk Hayhurst, on Thursday morning, and given that the Red Sox are in disarray, there was plenty for the former MLB pitcher to discuss.
The Red Sox have had a number of closed-door team meetings recently, seemingly bringing about no results. So Fred asked Hayhurst if team meetings ever do any good. Hayhurst said they're typically good ideas, but they don't necessarily bring about immediate results in terms of winning games. But sometimes they're most useful for allowing players to say things privately that wouldn't be received well if they were said publicly.
"Talking to the media, if you do it or don't -- if you don't have anything good to say and you have no sense of self and you're struggling and you don't want to deal with people asking you why you're struggling, don't talk to the media," Hayhurst said. "Because something bad is going to come out of your mouth, and that is going to turn into a fire. So right now, only talking to each other in a closed-door situation, that might be the best option you have."
The conversation then shifted to the role of the manager. In the Red Sox' case, John Farrell has come under fire a bit for the team's underachievement.
"I'm firmly convinced that you could manage a baseball team with an iPhone app if you really wanted to," Hayhurst said, noting that most every decision made by a manager "can be distilled down into just some kind of data algorithm that computes best-case scenarios."
Hayhurst said there are only three scenarios for which Farrell or any manager should be fired:
1. It makes the fan base feel better.
2. He angered a superstar player.
3. He's turned the environment "toxic" by saying the wrong thing to the media.
"I don't see John Farrell doing any of that right now," Hayhurst said. "He's pretty much the same guy who won you a World Series a few years back, and he's tight-lipped with the media, which is great. I think he's the right guy. It's unfortunate that his team is putting him in this situation."
With the Wade Miley dust-up in the dugout still fresh on everyone's mind, some have questioned whether Farrell has "lost the clubhouse."
Hayhurst said the major, major gap in how much money the manager makes compared to how much money the players make generates a difficult scenario for the manager to assert his authority.
"Your team is bad, and you don't make anywhere near the amount of money that most of them do, but yet you've to claim authority over them," Hayhurst said. "The last thing you can do if you want to keep your stance as this person of power that needs to be respected is just let [Miley] crap all over you in that public scenario for cameras and fans and teammates to see. You've got to stand up for yourself and you've got to show, 'I may be a sleeping dragon, but I'm still a dragon when I need to be, and I can breathe fire too.'"
Hayhurst also discussed Pablo Sandoval's celebration of his 200th double and 1,000th hit, his iPhone game, the concept of leadership in the clubhouse and more. Listen below:
