Could you manage a baseball team? What if you were 13?

[Tyler]

I picked up a copy of GQ today and found an interesting article about a Cactus League team called the Ash Fork Miners that is managed by a 13 year old who hired a 9 year old stats guy.  Here's a link to this crazy article http://men.style.com/gq/features/full?id=content_5633&pageNum=1

[socctty]

As much as I love baseball, I've always thought it wasn't a very hard game to be a manager in. Basketball, soccer, and football would be much tougher to coach. In baseball, if you teach the athletes the fundamentals and some strategy, you can kinda just sit back in cruise control and take some motivational speaking classes in your spare time.

[BaldRob]

As much as I love baseball, I've always thought it wasn't a very hard game to be a manager in. Basketball, soccer, and football would be much tougher to coach. In baseball, if you teach the athletes the fundamentals and some strategy, you can kinda just sit back in cruise control and take some motivational speaking classes in your spare time.

I wouldn't say that socctty...  Managing a baseball team is more about decision making, i.e., pitching changes for the best matchup vs. the batter, when to argue a call and when to not, how to manage the bullpen relievers and closer, when to steal, bunt, sac, etc.

In reality, coaching any sport is not an easy thing, even at the lowest levels.

[Paul]

That is one shrewd teenager.  Like Rob said coaching is not an easy thing...(I've been doing high school coaching for 8 years) and for a 13 year old to be able to get the respect and the motivation out of men older than himself, says alot about this guy.

[schro]

I spent most of Saturday watching my son's little league and daughter's softball games. Since I'm coaching my daughter's soccer team this fall, I started watching how the coaches interact with the players. I would think as the players got older, coaching baseball / softball would get easier. However, at the 6-10 year old levels, I would think that teaching baseball would be extremely difficult, especially fielding (positioning, hitting the cut-off) and situational hitting.

However as kids get older, they become less willing to listen to instruction because they already know it all.

[GBORN]

In reality, coaching any sport is not an easy thing, even at the lowest levels.

Amen.  Sometimes dealing with parents is the worst part.  Half of them want to slap you on the back, and have want to stab you in the back. 

[PigPen]

WOW that kid is smarter than I'll ever be. Not hard to do though.

Lots of ambition too.

[Tyler]

I think we're confusing two different aspects of the game.  Managing a professional team is much different than actually coaching the team.  Sometimes the duties of the person can overlap, but in this case, Jake the kid is handling the day to day management of the team, ie. payroll, hiring, firing, trade negotiations, etc.  Jake has a coach that handles the aspect of getting the best out of the players that he decides should be on the team.

[MagmaBabe]

However as kids get older, they become less willing to listen to instruction because they already know it all.

Amen to that! 

[Paul]

I think we're confusing two different aspects of the game.  Managing a professional team is much different than actually coaching the team.  Sometimes the duties of the person can overlap, but in this case, Jake the kid is handling the day to day management of the team, ie. payroll, hiring, firing, trade negotiations, etc.  Jake has a coach that handles the aspect of getting the best out of the players that he decides should be on the team.

See the point Tyler...even more respect for this guy, (hard to call him a kid with that kind of responsiblity.) .  He has to be one shrewd judge of people for a guy his age and one hell of a lot of business sense.