Murphy: Charlie Manuel thinks Matt Stairs has what it takes as Phillies' hitting coach
CLEARWATER, Fla. - It doesn't matter what you know if nobody will listen. The man who made this point on Monday afternoon has spent most of his life talking hitting with players, enough to know that the first part matters just as much as the second.
CLEARWATER, Fla. - It doesn't matter what you know if nobody will listen. The man who made this point on Monday afternoon has spent most of his life talking hitting with players, enough to know that the first part matters just as much as the second.
"You've got to be a communicator," Charlie Manuel said as he stood in the shadow of the foul pole behind the leftfield fence at the Phillies' training complex. "You let them talk and you listen to them, too."
When the Phillies announced in the offseason that they'd hired their new hitting coach straight out of their own broadcast booth, the move might have come as a surprise to local fans who remembered Matt Stairs first and foremost for his role on the 2008 world champions, when he was an all-or-nothing pinch-hitter who enjoyed joking about his swing-from-the-heels approach and his aversion to defense.
In his brief tenure with Manuel's clubs, Stairs batted .208 in 120 regular-season at-bats, with 12 of his 25 hits going for extra bases, none of them as big as his game-winning two-run homer off the Dodgers' Jonathan Broxton in the eighth inning of Game 4 of the 2008 National League Championship Series.
But as his former manager will attest, Stairs was always far more serious a hitter than the public persona he fashioned while making the transition from the playing field to the broadcast booth, where he served as a color commentator on Phillies telecasts for three seasons. The coach Manuel has seen since spring training began is one much more defined by the .351 on-base percentage he posted in those 115 games with the Phillies. It's easy to forget that Stairs rose to prominence while playing five seasons for those Oakland As teams of Moneyball fame, where he hit 122 home runs but also drew walks in 12.6 percent of his plate appearances, hit for extra bases in 10.1 percent, and struck out in 18 percent.
By comparison, last year's Phillies walked in 7.1 percent of their plate appearances, struck out in 23 percent, and tallied extra-base hits in 7.1 percent. The only player on last year's team who posted a walk rate higher than Stairs' 11.9 percent career mark was Carlos Ruiz, who drew a walk in 12.4 percent of PAs.
"He was always talking about hitting with me, always talking to the other guys about hitting," Manuel said of Stairs. "He's very dedicated. He loves everything about it. Offense was definitely his forte. He was successful at it, if you go look at what he accomplished in the major leagues. But not only that, he has a good feel for it, he has a good knowledge of it. He understands it."
Yet the reason Manuel gave Stairs his resounding endorsement had more to do with the former slugger's ability to communicate that understanding, a process that requires a level of trust that can come only by thinking, talking and, above all, working like a player.
"You've got to spend time with your hitters," Manuel said. "You let them talk and you listen to them, too. The mental part of the game definitely relates back to the physical. That's the big thing, you touch base with every guy every day. You've got to spend time with that guy, and he's got to feel like you do. You've got to show him that you have confidence in him. He'll reward you."
Manuel knows more than anybody that a hitting coach can do only so much. One of the most difficult decisions he ever made during his managerial career was to fire hitting coach Milt Thompson midseason in 2010 after six-plus years on his staff. The team later parted ways with Thompson's replacement, longtime Phillie Greg Gross, before finally firing Manuel himself late in the 2013 season.
At the same time, Manuel always treated the position of hitting coach with great respect. He began his coaching career in that role before moving into the manager's office with the Indians. Throughout his time with the Phillies, Manuel went out of his way to defer to his hitting coach, dispensing personal advice to players only when accompanied by the coach.
"Most hitters at the major league levels, they have a routine, and you establish a relationship with them," Manuel said. "You try to make sure they prepare every day and you learn their swing. I always say know thyself, know who you are, know how you play the game; as a hitting coach, you do the best you can to keep them in that frame of mind. If you spend a lot of time with a guy, a lot of times they'll reward you for that, because they'll know you are there with them, and you've got their back."
By all accounts, Stairs checks off all of those boxes.
Said Manuel: "I'll be surprised if some of our young hitters don't show improvement."
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