Chaim Bloom took a step toward actually locking in on a manager for the Red Sox Friday.
The Chief Baseball Officer interviewed Arizona bench coach Luis Urueta for the Sox' vacant managing position.
In an interview with WEEI.com and the Boston Globe Diamondbacks manager Torey Lovullo -- who had promoted Urueta to bench coach for the 2020 season this offseason -- offered some insight to who the Red Sox might be getting with Urueta:
What are Urueta's strengths?
A couple really, really great strengths, his communication skills and his ability to relate to players is really, really off the charts. He is bilingual and has the ability to communicate with just about any player on the field. He’s very comfortable stepping into normal conversations and very difficult conversations. I think those are some of the qualities that some of the best managers that I’ve been around possess.
His understanding for how a baseball game flows and how a baseball game feels is outstanding. He’s paying attention to the game on an impressive level. Some of the conversations that I’ve had with him pregame and postgame, he asks really good questions about some of the strategic moves that did and didn’t happen.
His role as a major league coach, a seventh coach, he was watching the game as closely as he possibly could to find out if, for me in particular, if I was giving away tendencies or habits. He was not in the dugout much, which gave him a good advantage. He wasn’t getting caught up in any of the emotions. He would follow the flow of the game. we would have conversations after the game about certain things that happened, why did it, how it looked, the shape of it from the outside looking in. He did some advance scouting. He did some video scouting of teams we were getting ready to play. He had heavy input in our advance process as we prepared for a new series and then he was just a mind and a voice that I turned to when I wanted to talk about what the team was feeling, how the team was doing. He had a really good perspective as to the mood and the mindset that the team was under.
On his experience with the front office
I think it would be more novel. There were comfortable interactions with the front office. He was able to communicate with them. They’d come down and ask certain questions at certain times and he was always comfortable speaking to the front office, but it wasn’t one of the things we asked him to do or was required of him.
On his experience with analytics
Something I’ve asked the entire staff to do is to trust their instincts, trust what their eyes tell them from experience, but also learn about and understand the analytics aspect. It’s an extra layer that we have to consider. It gives us one more vehicle to use to make good decisions. He’s really learned about the analytical aspects of how the game has run. It’s evolving, but he spends a lot of time looking at numbers. He’s looking at different websites to get information to help us get a little bit better. He understands a lot of analytical aspects of the game, yes, but he also takes it upon himself to look at what he can get on his own, to get as much information to pass along to the player or in this case myself.
Is he ready for the Boston market?
Yes. Boston is a very unique place, but I know that his game clock is on. He’d be prepared and ready for that challenge. He’s a very good baseball man. He is fearless in his ability to keep moving forward and learning about the game, never sitting still. And he’s managed in some high-pressure situations. He had his team in the WBC on the verge of advancing to the final round, so I know he gets a good response from players.
Thoughts on Urueta as a game manager. (He managed Colombia in the World Baseball Classic and Licey in the Dominican Winter League.)
I feel very comfortable knowing that he follows the flow of the game and he’s able to reach players. I can’t speak from any experience of him being in the dugout as a field manager – I haven’t been with him – but he’s always really ready. And I think he’s ready to go.