FanPost

The Importance of Leadership

Rick Osentoski-USA TODAY Sports

I was not alone last year in bemoaning the apparent lack of leadership in the dugout and on the field. Players appeared to be showing up and going through the motions. There was a lack of emotion. By the time the end of the season mercifully arrived, it seemed that even Goldy had been infected by the general malaise. For while he was still a very good player, his production dropped off by 4 wins above replacement (bWAR) from 2015.

2017 has been an entirely different season. And there is a lot of credit to go around. Torey Lovullo, of course, deserves every bit of credit he is getting. But I'd also like to point to two other places that I believe have made a big difference. One is quite noticeable. The other, not so much.

A healthy David Peralta has made a huge amount of difference. Peralta is, simply put, the emotional leader of the players. He plays hard (even when he makes the wrong play, which we saw last Tuesday in Detroit) and fires up the rest of the team with his play. He also fires up the fans. But even when he is not on the field, he still makes a difference. A few games ago, Chris Owings, filling in for Peralta in right field, got the stadium sound guy to play the train whistle when he got a hit. Everyone on the bench, Peralta excepted, seemed to be in on the joke. Not only was this fun, but it highlighted a confidence that the team lacked last year, and which Owings has never displayed in his career up to this year. He came to the plate expecting to get a hit, and had planned a little joke at Peralta's expense accordingly. (Peralta's emotional leadership started before the season. His prank on Goldy while Goldy was away at the World Baseball Classic was a sign that there was going to be a lighter feeling around the D-backs this year.) Peralta is also a good player. While his emotional leadership would be a nice addition even if he was simply replacement level, the fact that he has produced (to the tune of a career-high .321 batting average so far) is the icing on the cake.

Ron Gardenhire is the other key addition. When A.J. Pollock went down with an injury and certain people on this site (I'll admit to being one of them) were calling for what seemed an inevitable fire sale and swift journey to last place, Gardenhire joined the team after recuperating from his fight with prostate cancer. He came back the day after Pollock's injury (and at a time when Peralta was also banged up and relegated to watching from the dugout.) A team that was 21-18 and looking to fall out of the race entirely has gone 23-8 since, the best mark in baseball, and opened a 9 game lead in the NL Wild Card race. Gardenhire provides the experience Lovullo lacks, and it is successful experience, on a team not tremendously unlike the Diamondbacks. When his hire was announced, I thought it might be the biggest hire of the offseason. To pair a young, up-and-coming manager like Lovullo with the experience of Gardenhire (who finished in the top-three in manager of the year voting seven times in his thirteen seasons in Minnesota) was a significant step. But Gardenhire's experience with leading a team like the Diamondbacks goes back still farther. He was third-base coach for Tom Kelly for a decade, including winning the 1991 World Series. That Twins team was one of the biggest surprises in baseball history, and it resembles the Diamondbacks in some key ways. Consider:

  • Veteran starting pitcher leading the staff: (Jack Morris, Greinke)
  • Young up-and-coming pitchers filling out the rotation: (Scott Erickson, Kevin Tapani; Ray and Walker)
  • Swing-man capable of pitching well in multiple roles (Mark Guthrie; Randall Delgado)
  • Backup veteran outfielder playing a key role: (Randy Bush; Gregor Blanco)
I'm not saying the teams are equivalent, but Gardenhire has seen a similar situation before. Another similarity: that Twins team got off to a cold start, and was under .500 on June 1st, when they started a fifteen game winning streak which saw them go from 5.5 back to leading by a half game. Once they took the lead, they never relinquished it. This year's D-backs haven't gotten off to as poor a start, but they have gotten hot at a similar time. Gardenhire's fiery leadership style compared with the calm stability of Lovullo is doubtless part of the reason why.