From Moneyball to now: J.P. Ricciardi talks front offices
LOS ANGELES - Ron Roenicke has landed in a good place.
With the rain pouring back in Boston, the now-special assistant to the general manager with the Dodgers roams the Dodger Stadium field under the sun-soaked atmosphere that will soon include the same sort of postseason excitement he experienced on the visitors' side during that 2018 World Series.
"Yeah," Roenicke told WEEI.com, "I really enjoy working here."
But was content as Roenicke seems while wearing the Dodger blue and white, he hasn't been blind to what has been going on in the place he served as both bench coach and manager. The man who hired him to replace Alex Cora as skipper in 2020, and also fired him with one game to go in that same Covid-skewed season, Chaim Bloom, has been let go.
Roenicke isn't without some thoughts on the matter.
"In the game, some organizations stick with people a long time. Some organizations are win-oriented and if you don’t win you’re gone, and you know that. There are some things that still surprise me, but Boston, the people there, they expect to win," he explained. "If he’s in another place, I’m sure he would have stayed longer. He’s coming from an organization that has been very successful and they go about it a little different way and they are still successful. I’m sure time was a big thing with him. I think he needed years for him to do what he needed to do. Really brilliant guy and super nice man. He’s just in a situation where they felt they needed to win."
After experiencing the high of highs as Cora's bench coach for the 2018 world champs, Roenicke's second chance at managing included some of the organization's most unique chaos. There was the unexpected departure of Cora, which followed by Covid's hammer that limited MLB to a fan-free 60-game season. And in the middle of it all was the reality of managing a team that had just traded away one its most iconic players, Mookie Betts.
Roenicke had experienced his fair share of unique situations both as a player and as a coach and manager - having guided the Brewers from 2011-15 - but riding this wave with a first-time chief decision-maker (Bloom) in a place like Boston was a new one.
"Mookie, they offered him a nice contract and he turned it down. He wanted a number I guess they didn’t feel comfortable with. To lose Mookie and not get anything for him would have been pretty tough. Look at all the conversations we’re having about (Shohei) Ohtani. OK, you hate to see the guy go but it comes to see him walk away and you get nothing in return. And that has happened obviously many times. But Mookie is a special player, and to lose him for nothing, I don’t know if you can do that," Roenicke said.
"I think just the history and the winning atmosphere … You have a city that is great in football and they want to win. Hockey, they want to win. Basketball. The city expects to win. All the sports teams, they expect to win. And I’m not saying that doesn’t happen in other places. But it’s at a higher level. It’s a different atmosphere. Every game is like a playoff game-type of atmosphere. It’s the best atmosphere in baseball. I’ve never been anywhere like it. Every single game is like, ‘Wow, this is really cool.’ The people, you just feel it. There is no other place like it. Wrigley, sometimes, maybe they are playing a playoff game and it’s packed it probably has that same type of feeling. But it’s intense and everybody feels it. So the players who go in there and play well, they can handle it. It’s not an easy place."
Despite that 24-36 stint as Red Sox manager, the 67-year-old certainly knows what success looks like. He saw it before during the Sox' 118-win season, and has been experiencing the good life with the Dodgers since being hired in February 2021.
That doesn't mean, however, how it all has changed - and continues to change - has been lost on Roenicke.
Boston was Boston. Los Angeles is Los Angeles. And baseball is, well, that's an evolving conversation. With fungo bat still in hand, these are all the realities the former Red Sox manager continues to accept.
"It has changed so much in the last 10 years," said Roenicke when asked about the evolution involving the relationship between the front office and the manager. "Now it is an everyday occurrence if a GM or president is down in the office with the manager. He’s down talking with players. Back 10, 15, 20 years, when a GM came into the clubhouse it wasn’t usual. Even when I was managing, (former Brewers general manager) Doug Melvin would come down because he communicates really well and he’s a very personable guy, he would come down. For me, he started that, noticing you would see him all the time. But it has changed quite a bit and I think with the GMs, some places they are very involved as far as baseball. Who is pitching. What your relief guys are. Lineups. It just depends from team to team how much influence. How much say-so they have.
"The thing about the analytics, is everybody wants information. Every manager out there wants information. It’s how you get that information to the players. Some organizations think you overflow with numbers and that dictates lineup and everything. And then there are other organizations that want that information, but there is still the human element to it. There’s still, ‘This guy is really scuffling and he needs a day off.’ Or ‘This guy is locked in and we’re going to keep playing him because he is locked in.’ Some analytics think that’s the way to do it, some do. So it’s different."
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