Kapler taking baby steps as he gets to know new team
PHILADELPHIA » To Gabe Kapler, a dusting of snow on a January morning had blossomed into what he optimistically described as, “seemed a little warmer today.”
You’ll have to forgive a 42-year-old guy whose hometown is actually Hollywood (yes, the one in California) for being a little naive about winters here. He has less experience with them than he’s had managing baseball teams.
But Kapler has wasted no time this winter warming to what will be his first major league managerial job, right here in Philadelphia, with a team full of youth, vigor and naivete, which he knows could bode well for the way he and general manager Matt Klentak want to re-invent the art of baseball in this town.
“What happens with these guys as people is going to unfold very organically as we have these conversations with them in spring training,” Kapler said in a Citizens Bank Park managers office that he was in the process of turning upside down. “Right now, my mission is to get to know these guys as dudes outside the lines and start to build that trust, so that when we hit spring training those conversations are about, ‘OK, so like, tell me about last year and what happened between the lines.’”
You might have heard about Gabe Kapler, former baseball player and FOX Sports analyst with a website where he blogged about philosophy, lifestyle choices and the ins and outs of healthy food. Or the way he competed in bodybuilding competitions. Or how he went from being the 1,487th player in the major league draft in 1995 and willed himself on to a 12-year major league career complete with a World Series ring with Boston in 2004.
He was the utility player that so often overachieved, a nonPED health nut who served a big chunk of his playing career in the steroid era, and did so in tenures, with a stop in Japan early on and one season managing in the minors about halfway through.
He’s a fan of old blues and jazz, and while talking to a group of writers Tuesday, had something that sounded like a 1950s Chess Records 78rpm disc playing in the background.
He’s a divorced father of two teenage boys who lives in Malibu, became known as a virtuoso of analytics while working in the Dodgers’ front office, almost ended up managing them a few years ago and, while speaking to a rather crusty, dusty sports crowd at the Philadelphia Sports Writers Association’s annual dinner Monday night, wowed ’em by using the roots of trees as metaphors for how this young Phillies team can grow from the ground up.
All very groovy ... and exciting for the kids?
“We’re energized,” fellow California kid Rhys Hoskins said of his new manager. “He’s very intense. Very thorough. I think he’s a guy that walks into a room and captivates a room. So I’m curious to see how that dynamic works in the clubhouse.”
It is in that clubhouse that Kapler might make a major difference this summer for a Phillies team that for the first time in four seasons won’t really be in transition. It also shouldn’t be in the mix for a playoff spot, but hey, the youth believe in miracles.
What they no longer can rally around is the leadership of shortstop Freddy Galvis, who was moved out and has moved on. Hoskins, who at 24 has 50 games of major league experience, will be one of the leaders, but just one of them.
“We still have some guys who have been in this clubhouse ... that are willing to take that role,” he said. “(Maikel) Franco, (Cameron) Rupp, Tommy Joseph. ... But it might be one of those things where it’s by committee and that’s OK, I think. With Gabe, who’s such a captivating personality, he’s going to teach a lot of us how to lead and I think we’re OK with that.”
On this not-so-cold January day, he chatted up and shook hands with a few of them, but it wasn’t like he was inviting them into the office with the moving boxes and asking them to slip off their spiked sandals and gather in a circle on the shag rug.
Or did he?
“It happens organically, the more you’re in a room with somebody,” Kapler said. “So today we had an opportunity to be in a room together and build relationships. I learned little bits and pieces about each of them; mostly about pizza and video games and TV shows and stuff like that. All of this is in an effort, of course, to get to be better leaders when it comes time to talk about the nuts and bolts of who they are as baseball players.”
Along for the relationshipbuilding session on this day was Hoskins, Nick Williams, Jerad Eickhoff and bullpen hopeful Mark Leiter Jr. Others will be arriving later in the week to take part in fan meet and greets — like the one with season-ticket holders Tuesday — and perhaps pre-spring training workouts and lifting and lifestyle chats.
There should also be some baseball talk in that mix, because it doesn’t take a long conversation with Kapler to suspect that behind all that Hollywood glitter is a lifelong baseball man determined to make this first managing job a memorable one.
“I talked to Nick Williams for the first time today,” Kapler said. “Today we were talking about the workout he was doing and the shoes he was wearing. Honestly, we know how fast and explosive Nick Williams is. He talked in front of the group (of season ticket holders) today how he wants to be able to translate that power and that explosiveness into speed on the bases and first-step quickness and getting better jumps and being a more productive baserunner.”
Kapler mused on his starting rotation — still a weak point here — by spending 10 or 15 minutes analytically assessing the numerical argument that Eickhoff’s 2017 season wasn’t as bad as it appeared.
He admitted most of the club question marks are with the pitchers, but showed his earthy baseball experience by saying, Klentak is “busting his ass every single day looking for every possible opportunity to upgrade our team from every perspective.”
Gabe Kapler’s first big-league managing gig might be at the roots stage, but unlike his taste in the blues he’s already singing a happy tune.
Contact Rob Parent at rparent@21st-centurymedia. com; follow him on Twitter @ReluctantSE