The MATTINGLY Thread

i thought it might have an effect
but had no idea it would be so substantial

agree with both you and fordie on this 100%
i'm guessing donnie's rationale for keeping him in the 3-spot is to get him better pitches (ahead of adrian)
but that failed experiment has gone on too long and mattingly needs to make an adjustment
once hanley comes back, might make sense to go adrian/hanley/dre/kemp or hanley/adrian/matt/dre
that way he keeps the right/lefty balance we've talked about -- making pitching changes tougher on opposing managers late in games

agreed
plus if simers is right, then disciplining a selfish player makes a lot more sense (and sends a much better and more effective message) than benching a guy who is much more popular in the clubhouse and a fan favorite

agreed
but this impatience/lack of plate discipline could be the result from trying too do to much

 

some great thoughts/quotes from mattingly...

Dodgers seem to lack grit, and Don Mattingly finds it hard to bear
Dodgers have hit poorly with runners in scoring position, something their manager, Don Mattingly, did well as a player. He suggests mental toughness is an issue.
By Dylan Hernandez, Los Angeles Times | 1 hour ago​

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In the fall leading up to his first season as Dodgers manager, Don Mattingly was asked if he could control his frustration as he relied on players who were unlikely to ever reach the individual heights he reached as a first baseman with the New York Yankees.

Mattingly said he believed he could empathize with his players. Even though he was one of the best players of the 1980s, Mattingly said the game never came easily to him. He was a 19th-round draft pick with below-average speed and a modest throwing arm.

But as the last-place Dodgers head into the opening game of a three-game home series against the St. Louis Cardinals on Friday, the under-fire manager finds himself wondering why his players can't do what he used to do.

Mattingly's comments implying the Dodgers lacked mental toughness came in response to questions about why they had so much trouble hitting with runners in scoring position.

Mattingly, who batted .324 and drove in 145 runs when he won the 1985 American League most-valuable-player award, was a career .307 hitter and hit .314 with runners in scoring position.

The Dodgers are hitting .229 in such situations, eighth-worst in the major leagues entering Thursday. They have scored fewer runs than any team except the Miami Marlins.

In Mattingly's view, the problem is an inability to handle high-stress situations. And as someone who overcame his perceived athletic shortcomings as a player, Mattingly appears to have less patience for mental and emotional deficiencies.

In explaining why he thinks the Dodgers have trouble driving in runs, he recalled how he used to prepare himself as a player for crucial moments.

"I want to put pressure on myself all the time," Mattingly said. "So, every time I walk up there, I want to put pressure on myself that I'm going get a good pitch to hit, I'm going to hit a ball hard somewhere. That's from the very first day of spring training through the end of the season. If I can do that, just because there's a guy on second in the ninth inning with two outs, that doesn't change my thinking. My process always stays the exact same: Get a good pitch, hit a ball hard."

Mattingly shared these ideas with his players in spring training but said he hasn't always seen them applied.

"What happens to us is, nobody on base, 'Oh, it doesn't matter if I get a hit or not,' you're more relaxed, boom, you get on base," Mattingly said. "Now, you get a guy on second, it's like, 'Oh, I've got to get this guy in now.' It's a whole different mind-set and it shouldn't be. As a club, you want to put pressure on yourselves and put an expectation on yourselves that is so high that it doesn't matter what anybody would say."

Asked if he thought his players had the necessary emotional resolve to deal with that kind of constant stress, Mattingly replied, "You're saying emotional resolve, but really what that is, it's just a mental toughness that you have."

And his players have that?

"You should have it," he said. "We're in the big leagues. We're not playing Little League or T-ball."

But outside of perhaps Clayton Kershaw, is there a player in the Dodgers' clubhouse who is as mentally resilient as Mattingly was as a player?

"There are lots of guys that are tough in that clubhouse, no question about it," he said. "And I don't put myself in a category of being above any of them. . . . I was just saying what I tried to do. I wasn't able to do it all the time."

Asked if he thought there was a difference between mental fortitude and effort, Mattingly said, "Not a lot different."

So was Mattingly dissatisfied with his team's effort?

"You can't get my whole club into that category," he said.

Only Andre Ethier, whom he benched Wednesday?

"No, I didn't say any names," Mattingly said. "But there's a touch difference in just saying, 'OK, I gave you my best effort,' and basically be like willing to fight you for something. If you and I are going to go after something, we could both go after it hard, but some guys are willing to go another level for that prize. They'll do whatever it takes to beat you. It's almost something inside of you that says, 'You're not beating me today and you're not going to get me out and I'm going to make every play and I'm not going to make any mistakes.' That's one you can't measure with the sabermetrics. You can't put a number on this one. There are certain things you flat out can't put a number on."​

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agreed
and they don't necessarily have to win, just compete

 

meh, fwiw...

For Mattingly, could an LA firing lead to a National opportunity?
by Danny Knobler | CBS Sports Baseball Insider
May 23, 2013 3:28 pm ET

Remember when Fredi Gonzalez got fired by the Marlins?

Best thing that ever happened to him. He stepped out of a mess in Miami, and soon enough he stepped right into a great situation with the Braves.

There are already some in baseball who predict that something similar could happen to Don Mattingly.

Mattingly hasn't yet been fired by the Dodgers. He might not be fired.

But if he is, keep the Nationals in mind.

Mattingly wouldn't be as sure a bet to replace the retiring Davey Johnson as Gonzalez was to replace the retiring Bobby Cox in Atlanta three years back. But the connections are there.

People who know Nationals general manager Mike Rizzo say Rizzo is and has always been a Mattingly fan. The Nationals considered Mattingly as manager once before, according to sources, although they never officially interviewed him for the job at that point.

Rizzo, not surprisingly, didn't want to come anywhere near discussing Mattingly or the Nationals' succession plans for Johnson when CBSSports.com colleague Jon Heyman spoke to him this week. Mattingly still has a job, and the Nationals still remain fully focused on 2013, not 2014.

Eventually, though, they will need someone to take over for Johnson, who has said that this will be his final year as manager. Both ownership and the front office are believed to strongly favor hiring a high-profile manager, rather than simply promote someone like Randy Knorr or Trent Jewett from Johnson's coaching staff.

There are some obvious differences from the Gonzalez situation. Gonzalez worked with the Braves before going to the Marlins, and he and Cox were and have remained close friends. And the Dodgers, for all their faults, are nowhere near the mess that the Marlins were then and still are now.

Still, it's easy to think that the Nationals job is a better one, given the young talent on the roster and the commitment of ownership. The clubhouse environment with the Dodgers is challenging enough that one friend of Mattingly's said this week that he was almost hoping that Mattingly would get fired.

"He might be better off going somewhere else," the friend said.

As Heyman wrote Wednesday, Mattingly does not seem to be hoping for that himself. If he does get fired by the Dodgers, it's not as if he would be guaranteed to get a job elsewhere, with the Nationals or with anyone else.

There's no guarantee that he would end up like Gonzalez.

It is, according to sources, a real possibility.​

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mattingly sucks
the team sucks
i don't care