Cincinnati Reds manager, Bryan Price, spent a good five and a half minutes ripping the local media for divulging player statuses, injuries, and generally helping out opposing teams and screwing the local team in terms of personnel availability, roster moves and strategy. Does he have a point? In the age of instant up-to-the-second media information is it ok for the media to divulge that kind of detail that could potentially help out an opposing team? Or is he making excuse for crappy managing and a long losing streak? Or both?
ETA: bah… botched the apostrophe in the title. please ignore that bit
No. This is possibly the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard a manager say, and that’s a long and distinguished list. The local media doesn’t draw a paycheck from the Reds; promoting the team’s success on the field is not, in any conceivable way, part of their job description.
While I don’t necessarily disagree with this, it IS a 180 change from the way things used to be. It used to be local beat writers were homers and wrote from a perspective of helping the team.
Maybe so. But those days are gone, and have been for a very long time. Those reporters are people with careers, who presumably want to advance in those careers and gain more recognition, status, respect, and money - just like everybody. Who the hell is Bryan Price to tell them they should make his career advancement more important than their own? The entitlement and stupidity reflected in that expectation is staggering; if I owned the Reds, he’d be looking for a new job by now.
I think, in interpreting his words at face value, its more of a symbiotic thing. You help me out; I’ll help you out. You keep some shit on the down low; I’ll give you some straightforward honest stuff post game. You go around me and tweet out some potentially strategic shit you found out on the side; well fuck you in getting decent insight from me. He mentions several times where he has been open, up front and cooperative with the media. Now, I guess, he will clam up and not cooperate… assuming sincerity. I’m not necessarily convinced he isn’t just blowing steam having a long losing streak. I do, however, see some validity to the crux of the idea though.
If the local media can find out those things, then clearly there’s little to nothing stopping opposing teams from acquiring the same information, or for that matter, keeping Mr. Price from acquiring similar information about his teams’ opponents. He’s a moron.
This is what happens when you start sipping your own Kool Aid. Baseball is a game, who wins and who loses is not actually important to society as a whole. Reporters aren’t divulging military secrets to the Nazis, they’re informing their readers more deeply about the ENTERTAINMENT franchise the reader is interested in.
If you want to have a miserable relationship with the Media, who happen to be your Entertainment Company’s primary vehicle for generating interest in your product, then go right ahead. But don’t kid yourself that the media should help you keep secrets, you’re not that important.
While it’s not a reporter’s job to promote the team’s success, it does help them. More people read about and watch successful teams. That’s only natural.
That said, reporting up-to-the-minute injury status isn’t new and certainly isn’t exclusive to Reds reporters.
Price was also upset that news broke of a player being called up before he could tell another player he would be sent down. Well, tough shit Bryan Price. If that’s a high priority for you, then you better make time to inform players of their status immediately.
What a crock. Half the fun of watching baseball is second-guessing the manager, and part of that is knowing who’s playing hurt or who’s in the manager’s doghouse, just as much as knowing a batting average against left-handers or successful steals against a catcher.
I’m quite sure if the situation were reversed, Price would be thrilled to know that Yadier Molina wasn’t with the Cardinals on their flight to Cincinatti.
And if Tucker Barnhart’s in the f****** airport when the club hasn’t spoken to Kyle fSkipworth, whose f fault is that? I agree the club owes that f******* kid the right to be called and told that he’s going to be sent down as opposed to reading that Tucker Barnhart is on his way from Louisville. So why the f*** couldn’t someone from the f******* front office take five f******* minutes to call Skipworth before Tucker made it up there all the way from f******* Louisville (which had to take at least a couple of hours whether he drove or flew to Cincy?
Maybe if Bryan f******* Price spent more time making sure that Billy f******* Hamilton got enough therapy on his f******* sore finger and less time “f****** p****** up a rope in this f****** business” he wouldn’t be stuck in f****** third place with a losing record.
One perfectly predictable press response to that type of sentiment would be “Hey, I write good stuff using the decent insight you give me, or I write about how much of a raging press-phobic prick you are. Same number of column inches; both sell papers just fine.”
It was a foolish tirade. There was no upside, other then getting it off his chest. He’ll get no sympathy, or consideration, from anyone he was already complaining about. And almost everyone else would see, not a team manager betrayed by the local press, but a team manager trying to deflect blame using the most shallow and ridiculous pretext.
The notion that the media is in some way to blame for reporting that Devin Mesoraco wasn’t with the team is, frankly, insane. Of course the Reds’ opponents would have known that anyway, since the roster status of a Major League Baseball team is public knowledge, and even if Mesoraco was officially on the roster but not with the team, the Brewers would have known that when, you know, Mesoraco wasn’t there. Nor, for that matter, is that information in any way going to change the way the Brewers prepared to play the Reds. Nobody in the Milwaukee organization is going to say “Holy shit, Devin Mesoraco isn’t here? This changes everything! Change the game plan! Change the lineup! Call up these five guys and send down those five guys!” I’m not sure teams would change anything they were doing if Mesoraco had been replaced with the resurrected form of Ted Williams in his prime; you pretty much just go out and play the best you can.
I can understand Price’s embarrassment that Kyle Skipworth learned (we assume, and more or less) through the media that he was probably going to the minors before Price or another coach could speak to him. That sucks. But Jesus, maybe the lesson you should learn here is to go tell the kid he’s going to the minors before you put his replacement on a plane, huh? How hard is that? Is it really a surprise to someone in a bazillion-dollar entertainment business that the media might learn about this shit and maybe you should go talk to Skipworth now, rather than later? Jesus Christ.
Cincinnati had a rough week, that’s life, suck it up.
Can’t disagree with any of that and I honestly do think that Price was simply passing the blame of lousy team being run by a lousy manager…
(By the by, I’m a Yankees guy, so I don’t really have any dog in this particular fight. Just seem an interesting topic of conversation.)
Say, for the sake of argument, the tirade came from Brad Ausmus, whose Tigers are kicking ass and taking names, instead of lame ass Bryan Price. Is there any validity to the core idea that the local press should, as in the classic days of the game, have a working relationship of give and take with the local team?
It would seem to me a winning team would sell more papers than a losing one. A friendly paper and local press would get more out of the local manager and team as a whole, the Tigers maybe win a few more games, the Free Press sells more papers wit ha winning team, the beat writer gets more exposure cvering a winnign team, etc.
Sure, in this day and age, any team from anywhere can dish up dirt on any team to get strategic info, but why would the opposing team’s local press make it easy for them? Wouldn’t it seem most of the readers of that particular paper be local Tiger fans? Does it sell more papers to the local fans if the press says Miggy is out for the night with a tight hammy? I’m sure Ausmus doesn’t want opposition to know they don’t have to worry about Cabrera that night. Takes a bullet out of his gun, if you will. Miguel is dresed and looks ready to go but per the Tigers own local paper, Cabrera ain’t playing.
Maybe the Sox are in town and the Globe lets it out that Miggy isn’t playing. I can see that. That helps Farrell and Boston, their local team. But that’s the Boston press talking about the Tigers. It seems more legit coming from the Free Press, doesn’t it?
I don’t know, just remembering back to the days of home town cooking and beat writers. I’m old, I guess and perfectly willign to admit the world has passed me by.
I guess what I don’t understand is how this helps either team. If Cabrera is in the lineup, their opponent has to face him, and if he’s not, pleasant surprise, they don’t. The starting rotation is more or less set in stone long before a game time decision is made. If Smith is supposed to start, he’s gonna start; that isn’t changing because Cabrera is in or out of the lineup. There is no tactical decision that hinges on this information.
I can imagine a small tactical advantage, late in the game, from knowing whether Mesoraco is or is not available to substitute. In an extreme case Cincinnati might have run out of bench players, and knowing that the only available pinch-hitter is another pitcher might lead the opposing manager to make different decisions. (For example, to walk the batter in front of the pitcher.)
But it’s a small advantage, and even as a fan of my hometown team, I want the local media to be giving me information, not worrying about tactical advantages. That’s the team’s job.
Well there are tactical decisions later in the game… lefty/righty, saving someone who might have to face Miggy in a tight game or extras… Cabrera is on the bench and might come up to PH in a tight game might change how you pitch to the batter at the plate…yada yada… that kind of thing… yeah SMALL advantage… but definitely gamesmanship in play… which is a relatively good part of the game…
Yeah, it was very surprising (to me in the stands at least) that Meseraco didn’t pinch hit late in the game against the Cards in a very obvious spot for him. Because Price had specifically mentioned that he was available to pinch hit. Turns out he wasn’t even in the dugout.
Same thing happened with Billy Hamilton, I think - Price said he could run but then an obvious pinch running situation came up and he didn’t use him.
It’s pretty clear to me that the local media has absolutely zero obligation to the team to peddle Price’s BS and cover for the fact that he for some reason thinks it’s good strategy to only carry 23 players that can actually take the field. It’s not like hockey or football where being vague about injury status helps protect the players well-being (and has more impact on big-picture strategy).
As a Reds fan, I am embarrassed by Price’s behavior. Sure, it’s just sports, and everyone loves a rant and all (“playoffs?” “they are who we thought they were!”, etc, et al) but when Price says it’s not Trent Rosencrans’ job to “sniff out every little thing about the Reds and put it out there”…Um, yeah, it kinda is you big dummy.
That’s exactly his job. You want to go all Bill Belicheck with the local media? Fine with me, as long as you address the issues with the team, like injuries to star players like Mesoraco and Hamilton, your LF who can’t hit, having Jason fucking Marquis in your starting lineup, your inability to be creative with situational pitching with your incredibly gifted closer whom takes $100,000 naps in the dugout for eight innings, poor at bats/situational hitting, Jay Bruce being sub-par and on and on.
Fuck this guy. He comes off as super insecure and arrogant in that rant, and that’s MY manager.