ESPN may be losing yet another talented MLB analyst to the ranks of the league. On Friday, the Tampa Bay Rays interviewed ESPN’s Doug Glanville for their managerial position, the ninth of ten candidates identified by the club this winter as a replacement for new Cubs manager Joe Maddon. On Saturday, they interviewed ESPN’s Barry Larkin, who earned election to the Baseball Hall of Fame after an illustrious career with the Cincinnati Reds. A week ago, the club interviewed ESPN’s Manny Acta, the former manager of the Washington Nationals and Cleveland Indians.
The candidate list is going to get chopped down this week, and the second round of interviews will begin. But as of right now, 30% of the Rays’ managerial candidates work for ESPN – I think that’s a testament to the type of MLB analyst that ESPN has brought in over the past few years. You’ve got these smart, thoughtful guys that have served in a variety of roles in the baseball world, and can really do whatever they want, be it TV, an on-field position, or a front office position.
Selfishly, I hope none of the three accept the job – I’d love to keep seeing all of them on television. But I think this further emphasizes a point I made last week when writing about Fox’s Gabe Kapler leaving TV to take a job with the Los Angeles Dodgers – the best analysts aren’t staying in TV because teams are recognizing their abilities. We’ve seen it with Baseball Prospectus, a popular baseball website that has seen numerous writers get hired by MLB teams. The best minds don’t stay in the public eye for too long before they end up exclusively working for a team or a league. It’s awful for us as viewers, readers, and fans, but it’s also encouraging to see teams abandoning the old guard and breaking the cyclical hiring and firing of the same managers and executives.
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