Indians, Aeros and Major League Baseball

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Late Tuesday towards the end during his second interview in Cleveland, Manny Acta was asked what he would do if both the Houston Astros and the Indians were to offer him a job.

For as impressed as the 40-year-old managerial candidate was with the people he’d met so far in Cleveland, it was the Astros who’d signed him as an undrafted free agent in 1986 out of San Pedro de Macoris, Dominican Republic. And it was Houston for whom he later broke in with as a young coach when he faced the fact that managing was his ticket to the major leagues.

A bit surprised by the question, Acta said he was humbled by the mere mention of the idea but insisted he simply couldn’t fathom it.

Just four days later, that exact scenario became reality when the Astros first offered Acta their managerial job Saturday, only to be outbid by the Tribe later in the day.

Realizing Acta was in talks with Houston, the Indians put a halt to their managerial search and quickly swooped in and one-upped Houston by offering Acta a three-year contract with a club option for 2013 against the Astros original offer of two years.

“I knew we might lose him because he got offered a job,” Indians general manager Mark Shapiro said. “They offered him a job first (while) we were still working through our process. So we sped up our time frame, since we were headed that direction anyway.”

That is how Acta became the 40th Indians manager late Saturday, a decision that was ceremonially confirmed Monday at 4 p.m. when Shapiro slipped a No. 11 jersey on the broad shoulders of the 6-foot-2 Acta in a press room int he bowels of Progressive Field.

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WKYC.com is offering live streaming coverage of Manny Acta’s introductory news conference. Click here to launch the player (note: may not work in all Web browsers).

Read the story on Acta’s hiring.

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Manny Acta spent a majority of the second half of the baseball season paying close attention to the television, watching and then re-watching games by teams he had a hunch would soon be looking for a new manager.

To say that Acta saw his share of Indians losses is an understatement.

Armed with a wealth of knowledge about the team, Acta impressed Tribe front office personnel during the first round of telephone interviews then again last week in an all-day in-person interview that ended with a sit-down with local media.

While the hiring of Acta was confirmed late Sunday afternoon, the Indians will make it official at a press conference Monday at 4 p.m. at Progressive Field.

Acta, the 40th manager in Tribe history, is signed thru 2012 with a club option for 2013.

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Listen to the press conference

Bobby Valentine has been in baseball over 42 years. He’s managed in major league baseball for the Texas Rangers and New York Mets. Most recently, however, Valentine also spent six years managing in Japan for the Chiba Lotte Marines, an experience he called “a magic carpet ride.”

Last week upon his return to the states Valentine began working as an ESPN baseball analyst, although he admits he’s not really well versed in what’s been going on the American game since he left.

Thursday, the 59-year old came to Cleveland to interview for the Indians vacant managerial job.

After meeting with key members of the Indians front office for six hours, Valentine spent a little over 30 minutes taking questions from the media in the late afternoon. At times long-winded and at others fall-off-your-chair hilarious, find below some of the questions to Valentine and his responses.

Q) Why are you interested in managing the Indians?
“When you go to work, it’s not about where you’re going to work, it’s about who you’re going to work with. I’m looking for a good group of people, and from what I’ve seen so far, they really have a good group of people here. (People who) would make my going to work challenging, enjoyable and something to look forward to everyday.”

Q) What do you remember about Cleveland before you left to manage in Japan?
“Before I left the states, Cleveland was a progressive-thinking organization that signed young guys for longer terms than anyone was.
“It was an organization who built a new stadium in a city that had that mistake on the lake and then all of a sudden filled the stadium everyday for 500 days. It was the envy of all the baseball world. That somehow there was some magic performed in Cleveland. Everyone was envious of that. And I, from afar, was one of them.”

Q) How did it strike you when told you would meet with the media on your interview?
“(Long pause). Well, it strikes me as part of a very organized culture. I think a lot of places you kind of sneak into and out of town…This kind of gets it right out in the open. And I think that’s very up front and very creative.”

Q) How did Japanese baseball change you?
” I had a six-year love affair with the game of baseball in another country. Their baseball society is something that should be kept forever. Women play it, kids play it. They still have bicycles with gloves on the handle bars and still have dad’s pitching to kids in the park and kids throwing balls against the wall. There’s 125 million people in the country who 90 percent of them follow their professional or high school baseball teams.
“It’s (a country) that cherishes and loves baseball, and I do, too…Leaving there was a very emotional time of my life. I don’t think that experience can ever be duplicated. I hope that it can be here or somewhere else in my life.”

Q) How did you connect so well with their fans?
“I really have no clue. I don’t know. And when I look back at it, I’m amazed…We didn’t do well this year, (yet) there’s 30,000 people standing on the last day of the season.”

Q) What do you know about the Cleveland Indians?
I haven’t been following these teams as much I like to think I should. And I don’t know as much about Cleveland as someone interviewing for these jobs probably should. And I could have crammed for the last six days, read every article, called every friend and read every bit of information – but I didn’t. I don’t know much about the American League, about the Central and I don’t know about the Indians. But I sure as hell am willing to learn.”

Q) Why interested in a rebuilding job at this stage in your career?
“I’ve managed 3,500 games and if you count the ones in Japan, about 1,600 victories. I love the fact that I’ve had that opportunity. I cherish the thought of having another opportunity to manage a major league team.”

Q) How will handle the potential of losing (while rebuilding)?
“It’s probably the thing I do worst. And I really am a lousy loser.”

Q) Would you change the way manage in the major leagues after your experience in Japan?
“There’s a lot of things from Japan I would like to bring here. When you go out to argue with the umpires they give you five minutes to do it a two-minute warning…If you stay the same you go backwards. I think I have changed. I think I have learned. So, I probably would in some way.”

Q) What do you have to catch up on since being gone?
“I have to catch up on at least four years worth of the new statistical information and abbreviations there are. I think I have to brush up on six years worth of players who have entered the league – a whole generation…And I think I have to get abreast of the drug situation. This thing that happened (the Steroid Era), I guess I was part and parcel to it. I didn’t really know what going on right under my nose.”

Q) Why should the Indians hire you?
“Because I do a good job of being a manager…in Japan they call it a director. And I really think I am a director, I can put things in place well. And I can adjust the volume of the orchestra. And I can put the right sounds in the right places, and the right instruments in the right right places to make a sound that’s really pleasing to the ear.”

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Indians general manager Mark Shapiro met briefly with the media late Tuesday afternoon to give an update on where the team is in the process of hiring a new manager. Among a few other things, Shapiro touched on candiates Manny Acta, Bobby Valentine, Mike Hargrove and Travis Fryman.

In short, Shapiro shareed the following:

- Triple-A Columbus manager Torrey Lovullo will be in Cleveland to interview for the job Friday.

- Veteran manager Bobby Valentine is “coming in at some point, as we’re working around his post-season obligations (as an analyst) for ESPN.”

- One other unnamed finalst “will be coming in at some point.” This is believed to be Dodgers bench coach Don Mattingly, who is in the midst of the post season.

- The team is “vetting” two other candidates that haven’t been contacted. “We haven’t talked to them at all, but we may consider (them) depending upon how these four finalists go.”

- There are five or six other candidates who have been interviewed (by phone) “that we’ve talked to and told they are no longer candidates for us.”

- Shared the extent to which the front office has gone to research and interview the final candidates. “The process has been far more than just meeting with these guys. If anything, that’s probably been about 1/10th of the time spent on each candidate.”

- He and his staff has already begun putting together a list of candidates for the other coaching roles on the big league staff.

- Confirmed that short-season Mahoning Valley manager Travis Fryman and former Indians manager Mike Hargrove are not among the final candidates.

Here are a few of the media’s questions:

Q) Has your timetable for naming a manager changed?

A) I still hope that we can get it done by the end of the World Series, and I think that’s still a realistic time frame. But what I did say going in, that if we still feel there’s a reason to (hold off) because maybe the best candidate is not available, there’s no reason to set a time limit. There’s nothing this decision this is keeping us from getting done. We’ll take as long as we need to make the right decision.

Q) How much say will the new manager have in selecting his coaching staff?

A) I haven’t sensed that any of the people we interviewed had a line-in-the-sand guy (they wanted to bring in as a coach). I certainly would be open to it though if they said, ‘There’s one guy I have to have.’ But no one’s said that yet, and we’ve talked to nine guys already…It takes a collaberative approach to come up with a list of candidates. Hopefully, for me, I’ll just be a sign-off for what they want to do.

Q) Because Manny (Acta) is a candidate in Houston also, does that change your timeline to hire a manager?

A) We’re going to proceed with our process…I feel like it’s important for us to be thourough and not to feel like there’s a sensitive time period.

Q) Can you give us an update on (Mike) Hargrove and (Travis) Fryman ?

A) Mike and I talked a couple of times. He’s a guy who I have an immense level of appreciation and respect for. (But) I made the decision that at this time, it just wasn’t the right fit for a variety of reasons. I will say that one thing I wasn’t completely sure of is that Mike has a passion for and desire to manage again. I think that energy is there and in the right situation given the opportunity, he can be sucessful again. I just didn’t think that right now, here, this was the right job.

A) Travis Fryman was somewhat of an atypical candidate for us with only two short seasons of experience to interview. But based on our respect for who he is as a man and what he brings as a leader, we did spend an afternoon talking to him in Goodyear, Ariz. I came away, as I always do, impressed. Impressed by his passion for his players and for his leadership vision. The more he worked into it, it was clear that he has a desire to do it, and I think will do it in an impactful way at some point. I learned some things talking to him, without a doubt. But I think with where he is in his life and with where we are, managing more games and gaining more experience will be a positive and make him a better candidate down the road.

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For eight hours on Tuesday Tribe managerial candidate Manny Acta meet with key members of the Indians front office and then took questions from the media before dashing off to the airport to make a 4:15 p.m. flight home.

It was a day full of thought-provoking questions in addition to a thourough background check as the two sides discussed a range of subjects from Acta’s background having grown up in the Domincan Republic to his thoughts on who’d he’d like to bring in to join his coaching staff if hired.

In additon to Acta, the Indians are also expected to bring to Cleveland to interview veteran manager Bobby Valentine (who has spent the last six years managing in Japan), Indians Triple-A Columbus manager Torrey Lovullo and two other unnamed candidates, one of which is widely believed to be Don Mattingly.

In a brief session with the media, Acta gave good insight into the type of manager he will be, whether in Cleveland or Houston – the organization who originally drafted him and for whom he has prior experience coaching for.

Below you will find some of the questions and Acta’s responses from Tuesday’s sit-down with the media:

Q) How has your two years managing for the Washington Nationals prepared you to manage elsewhere?:

A) Let’s be realistic, everybody in this town and in every town in America would want a top-notch guy like a Joe Torre or a Tony LaRussa to walk in and manange their club. But the reality is those guys don’t go for those kind of (rebuilding) jobs. Everyone of them already paid their dues, and those types of jobs go to guys like me at the beginning. I needed to get my feet in the door and I was in no position to turn down a job like (Washington). I felt it was important for me to start my managerial career and I took advantage of it…I have absolutely no regret – I knew what I was getting into.

Q) How different is the situation you walked into at Washington compared to here in Cleveland?

A) This is far away advanced. The Indians have a lot more pieces in place. In D.C., we were looking to identify the 25 core guys to continue rebuilding the franchise. Here, you have pretty much a whole lineup in place with exciting young players. Now it’s just moving forward and bringing in a little bit of a supporting cast and get ready to bring some exciting times to Cleveland.

Q) What kind of manager are you?

A) I’m a common sense kind of manager. I’m a guy who brings a lot of positive energy and communication skills.

Q) What do you bring to the table that separates you from the other candidates?

A) I just try to be myself…I’ve already paid my dues for a rebuilding process. Baseball people know what we went through (in Washington), how our character was tested for two and a half years and we didn’t break down. So we are ready to move on, take this talent and move to the next level.

Q) What do you think about the Indians current pitching staff compared to the one you inherited in Washington and who would you handle it?

A) It’s different here (than in Washington) because you have guys who have already been in the big leagues for years. The game in the American League is different than in the National League, you don’t have to worry pinch-hitting and doing double switches. Hopefully here, Fausto (Carmona) can bounce back and we can get Jake (Westbrook) back for spring training – and that’s going to be a big part of the battle.

Q) What would you do differently this time around?

A) It’s a different scenerio. Over there, there weren’t that many pieces in place. Here, it’s just about bringing the right attitude right off the bat and convincing the club and making them believe that with a little bit of improvement in our bullpen and starting rotation, we’re ready to win here because this division is probably the most balanced one in baseball. It’s a division where every year everyone comes in with hopes that they can win it.

Q) What is the most important thing a manager has to do?

A) I think it’s the communication…This is a job where handling people and working with people is the key.

Q) How much time did you spend studying the Indians before coming to interview?

A) Like the baseball motto, I live for this. This is what I do…I could probably talk to you about the other 29 clubs, too, because this is what I do. But don’t ask me about the Browns, I’m going to support them because I’m here, but I’m not very good at football…I did research on the club, I actually spent the last month of the season (watching) late at night, so I’m familiar with (the Indians)…(The team) has a good core of players. There’s already an offense in place that if Grady (Sizemore) would have been healthy all season and (Travis) Hafner would have been healthy and Jhonny (Peralta) would have had his typical year, that’s as good as it gets in the (American League) Central.

Q) How do you put together a successful bullpen and how do you handle it?

A) In the American League you basically need power arms, and we’re in the right direction here. You look at the numbers, a lot of the guys we have here are able to miss bats when you look at the strikeout ratio. I think the bullpen here has a chance to be very good. Guys like Chris Perez can be huge for this bullpen. We already have (closer) Kerry Wood and Jensen Lewis has been a good pitcher here out of the pen since 2007…I think this bullpen can come around. I like to have some balance. I would love to have a minimum of two lefties in the bullpen who can get lefties out. I would also love to have a guy from the right side and the left side who can pitch multiple innings.

Q) When did you know you wanted to be a manager?

A) When I was 22 years old, the Houston Astros told me to my face I wasn’t good enough to play in the big leagues. Since that was my goal, it was pretty tough to swallow in the beginning. Then I just made the goal that if I can’t make it as a player, now you’re going to have to make it as a coach. So I went down there in the minor leagues and worked very hard. Now that I made it as a manager, my goal is to become a mainstay manager in the major leagues, to manage for 20, 25 years with those top five, six guys that you guys know about and eventually win some championships.

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