Man-Up

BY KEVIN KERNAN

Managers need to manage again. Man-Up.

That became clear with the latest man-child Rafael Devers temper tantrum. Giants manager Tony Vitello blew it big-time when Devers questioned his authority, refusing to come out of a game for a pinch-runner in the ninth inning with no outs and the Giants trailing the Marlins by one run.

Pure insubordination. Inmates running the asylum once again. The first base umpire eventually got the much faster pinch runner Jonah Cox into the game as Devers tried to wave-off Cox.

There was a time when Jim Leyland was not afraid to confront his superstar, Barry Bonds, back in spring training with the Pirates in 1991 and the incident was captured by a camera crew in the days before cell phones.

The definition of a manager is: “A professional responsible for overseeing, leading and coordinating a team of employees or operations to help an organization achieve its strategic goals.’’

It is not to be an excuse-maker or a Nerd puppet, which is what is going on in most major league dugouts these days; one of the few MLB managers who still manages is Pat Murphy over in Milwaukee. Good for him. He is not afraid to meet a player, who is in the wrong, at the top step and take him to task. His leadership once again has the Brewers in first place in the NL Central. Remember when all the know it alls thought the Brewers would be in trouble because they lost both David Stearns and Craig Counsell? Not the case.

As for Leyland, a Hall of Fame manager, this is part of what the camera caught that day in Bradenton when Bonds was being Bonds, arguing with coach Bill Virdon over something.

“Don’t f— with me,’’ Leyland screamed at Bonds. “I’ve had enough of this f— shit. I’m the manager of this f— team. If you don’t want to be here, get your f— ass out. Let’s get this shit over with right now.’’

To me the best part of Tirade Day was when Leyland was asked by the media about the incident afterwards in his spring training office, a place I visited in my baseball travels where Leyland would sit behind his desk, smoking a cigarette. “I do know one thing,’’ Leyland said after the blowup. “I am the goddamned manager, and I am going to run this goddamned team.’’

Hallelujah!

Vitello, who came over from the college ranks where he was the King of Baseball at Tennessee, had the weakest of answers after the incident with Devers, who was a pain in the neck in Boston with manager Alex Cora. Devers is now a coast-to-coast pain in the neck, who makes $30 million a year but acts like a five-year-old throwing a tantrum.

After the one-run loss to the Marlins, Vitello played dumb, saying he did not have a conversation with Devers about the incident and had no plans to do so. Yikes!

“We talk every day, I’m good.”

You’re good, Tony? Really? Your team is not good — but that’s MLB managerial leadership in a nutshell in 2026.

“Don’t continue to make excuses for selfish, bad actors who are supposed to be superstars, and who are being paid to be superstars.”

Avoid the question and make it seem like everything is good and then gaslight everyone by chalking up the incident to Devers’ hunger to win.

Devers has a hunger for food, that’s for sure. How about getting in better shape? How about playing like you are worth a portion of your ridiculous paycheck? The last-place Giants are in free-fall under the leadership of Buster Posey, GM Zack Minasian and Vitello. Vitello had the chance to be a man and came up soft. Hard to believe Vitello is the son of a legendary high school coach, Greg Vitello.

There is no man in manager anymore. There are times you have to Man-Up as a manager and Vitello blew a golden chance to show leadership, instead of just looking the other way. The game continues to corrode from its center.

Talking to a longtime baseball man this week, he did not pull any punches, and neither do we at BallNine. “Tony Vitello is a fraud,’’ he said.

“All these managers, if I were friends with them, I would send them the Jim Leyland-Barry Bonds video,’’ the baseball man said. “It’s okay to yell at your stars when they act like jerks. It’s okay. And you know what, if they don’t like you for that moment, and they don’t like you for a week, and they try to poison the clubhouse, in most cases if you have a good enough clubhouse, it is not going to get poisoned.’’

And if you don’t have a good clubhouse, you fix it and make changes. Don’t continue to make excuses for selfish, bad actors who are supposed to be superstars, and who are being paid to be superstars. The Giants went into action on Wednesday 18 games back of the Dodgers in the NL West, 14 games under .500 at 32-46.

What do you have to lose by getting in Devers’ face for refusing to come out of a one-run game in the ninth inning for a pinch-runner? This is the same guy who refused to play first base in Boston, another temper tantrum. Maybe if you confront him, he may change his ways for the better. He may not, but at least you would show the rest of the clubhouse you are trying to develop a culture of accountability. That is what good managers used to do. That’s what Jim Leyland established with Bonds back in 1991.

Times change, but situations don’t.

And let me point out to all of baseball that Wally Backman is back managing in the professional ranks in Staten Island in the Atlantic League and he has a coaching staff that includes longtime baseball man Mark Weidemaier, who has done everything in the game.

A struggling major league team might want to look into bringing Backman, 66, in to manage. That would be fascinating. He was part of the second base platoon – along with Tim Teufel – the last time the Mets won a World Championship, 40 years ago in 1986.

By the way, the Mets’ 10-3 loss to the Cubs Wednesday afternoon in the first game of a day-night doubleheader, dropped them to a season-high 11 games under .500.

EXTRA BASES: Watching Pete Crow-Armstrong fly around the bases on Wednesday and score from first on Michael Conforto’s double (two former No.1 Mets draft picks) in the Cubs 10-3 blowout of the Mets at Citi Field was just another reminder that the Mets have had baseball issues in their front office for years. Interim GM Zack Scott was the one who traded PCA for Javier Baez back in 2021. Crow-Armstrong was 19 at the time. Geez, in Rob Manfred’s world he should not even had been drafted by the Mets.

Drafted out of Harvard-Westlake High School in 2020, then-Mets scouting exec Tommy Tanous said at the time of Crow-Armstrong: “All spring I called him the left-handed magician in center field. He was one of the rare players where you would watch batting practice and watch him play defense. When I see a defensive player who likes to show their tools and likes to show off like that in pregame while he is getting his work done, I know you have a pretty advanced defensive player. We see Pete as a top-of-the order type hitter. He has such advanced bat to ball skills. High contact guy, with some power behind it. And it’s been increasing power since he was 15 years old. He keeps getting stronger.’’

Tanous nailed that evaluation. Like PCA, Tanous is no longer with the Mets. He now works for the Rockies.

EXTRA BASES II: Rob Manfred’s latest trial balloon is proof positive he hates baseball. Manfred and the owners, in their pursuit to make gobs of even more money, want to reduce the domestic draft from 20 to 12 rounds and incredibly ban high school players from the draft; a player would have to be at least 20 years old by September 1 to be eligible for the draft. A former GM reached out to me in total disgust and said, “Under the proposal, imagine I am 17 years old and have just graduated from high school. I can join the U.S. Armed Forces but not be eligible to be drafted to play professional baseball?’’

The former GM then pointed out: Mike Trout was 17 when he graduated from high school. Ken Griffey Jr. was 17 when he graduated from high school. Bryce Harper was 17 when he graduated from high school. Konnor Griffin was 18. Hunter Greene was 17. He also pointed out something I was not aware of when he said, “Since 2017 MLB has held the ‘MLB Dream Series’ in Tempe, Arizona over the Martin Luther King Day weekend. Online it describes ‘the event is designed to educate, expose and develop elite baseball talent and diversify the pool of talent prospects. The series specifically targets approximately 80 elite high school baseball players. While open to diverse talent, it places heavy emphasis on predominantly African Americans and Latino pitchers and catchers.’’’

He asked: “What happens to these players’’ under the proposal. Good question. He then added, “Didn’t I read somewhere that the MLB idea was to grow the game?’’

That was only a good catch phrase.

It really is all about growing the profit. With a lockout coming, baseball is entering some dangerous waters. With the World Cup going strong now it is all about soccer and baseball continues to tempt fate, losing even more fans and the younger generation. In the end, that may be Manfred’s Legacy.