Melvin can teach Bochy to adapt

Sometime during the offseason, Bob Melvin might want to pop open a bottle of Sonoma Pinot Noir and invite his friend Bruce Bochy over for a glass. And for a nice long conversation about the brave new world of baseball managing.

Because Melvin, a few years younger than Bochy but basically from the same generation, is proving that an “old school” manager can succeed in a “new school” baseball world. Exactly what Bochy will be asked to do next season.

On Tuesday afternoon, Melvin joined exclusive company. He became the eighth man in history to win the Manager of the Year award three or more times. He won it once in Arizona with the Diamondbacks, and in 2012 with the A’s.

Don’t forget that the A’s, under the control of Billy Beane and an analytics-driven system, once were considered the team that didn’t value managers. Melvin has changed that perception. He has made it work beyond anyone’s expectations.

“It’s just part of what’s gone on here for years,” Melvin said. “The success the teams had without the resources, always looking for an advantage. Our guys have been on the cutting edge of that and you have to understand as a manager that if you want to have longevity, there are certain things you have to do.

“The lead has to come from me to get the players to buy into it. My staff does a great job of communicating the reasons we’re doing it. To let them know what they’re trying to do.”

That’s the Pinot discussion he could have with Bochy. Adapt and communicate. Melvin reflected on his growth, from his first managing job in Seattle in 2003.

“Front offices are more a part of it now, and you have to understand that,” he said. In Seattle, “their job was to give me the players and my job was to put them in the right spots. These days, it can be a little top heavy, but you have to adapt or you might not have one of these jobs.”

Melvin was a revelation back in 2012, when his team seemed to come out of nowhere to win the division in his first full year as Oakland’s manager. But the 2018 season was his most impressive work. Melvin took a team that had the lowest Opening Day payroll and zero expectations and won 22 more games than the season before. That was despite a starting rotation thinned by injury.

Still, there were many who thought Melvin wasn’t going to win the award this year. That it would go to Boston’s likable Alex Cora, who was a steady hand at the helm of the most expensive operation in the major leagues and is — bonus points — a fresh new face.

But Melvin won in a relative landslide, receiving 18 out of 30 first-place votes. That’s proof that the voters understand the odds that work against him in Oakland: relatively minuscule payroll, lousy stadium, unengaged owner, relative invisibility in the market, uncertain future.

And then there’s the Beane factor. Some of his previous managers fumed and struggled as though restrained in a computer crunched strait-jacket, without the full authority they expected.

But Melvin has thrived with Beane and general manager David Forst. And, just as important, he has proved to them the value of a manager.

Melvin is evidence that you can’t live by analytics alone; that clubhouse chemistry and communication, as well as in-game competency, are critical. That a steady leader — when injuries tear through a team, or when a player’s mother dies of ALS, or when a long road trip goes sour, or when a player is asked to play out of position — can make all the difference in an outcome.

“I can’t say enough about how important his leadership was for this group,” Forst said Tuesday. “I don’t know that there’s a more difficult task than what we gave him this year.”

Melvin clearly enjoyed this year, despite all the challenges. He had players who, as he observed, have “a passion for being an Oakland A.” That hasn’t always been the case. Fom the start — even when outsiders raised a skeptical eyebrow — Melvin was optimistic about his team.

He’s happy working at home in the Bay Area, and even managed to make a Big Game reference in his conference call (he hopes this is finally the Bears’ year). He now has lasted longer (7½ years) than any of Beane’s other managers and he’ll be here longer; last month, he (finally) received a contract extension through 2021.

“We feel like we’re just at the the start of something big for us,” Melvin said.

It feels like a new A’s era is on the horizon. Led by a man who has learned to adapt.