"A good clubhouse guy" - overrated?

[Sciosciapath]

Can we discuss this a bit. I'd like to hear from the heavy hitters and contrarians too (Straddling, notti____)

Does this truly exist? Is there some magical potion because Jonny Gomes puts a whoopie cushion on someone's chair in the clubhouse? How do we know these guys exist and to what extent they really contribute? None of us walk have access to a clubhouse.

Sure theres bad environments like WAS last year. But Jonny Gomes dancing around to Miley Cyrus isn't making Matt Williams manage his bullpen better. Talent trumps all.

If this clubhouse guy crap exists, what it worth?

[Erstad Grit]

There are definitely bad clubhouse guys. Jose Guillen and Mo Vaughn come to mind.

 

My guess would be someone like Hunter was a huge asset, but if Hunter wasn't playing well it would be annoying. 

[Docwaukee]

Good clubhouse guys come in different shapes and sizes.  The good usually put the team in front of themselves.  Some guys are 'good' because they keep everyone loose.  Some are all business and go about it quietly.  Others are very vocal.  

 

The bad ones seem to put their own interest in front of what may be best for the team.  As an example, it was said that the players were pissed when CJ Wilson opted for surgery at the end of last season even though he could have played through it to help the team with a playoff push.  Yet he went for the surgery knowing that he was entering a contract year and didn't want to put himself behind for the following season.  

[tomsred]

Yes, I believe there is a lot to good clubhouse guys.  Baseball players have a really unique work place situation.  They spend a lot of time together (more than in most workplaces), not just training, practicing and at games, but also in traveling and even in their off time they do things together in groups.  Because they have so much public visibility in unique high visibility jobs, they rely a lot on the support of their teammates, sometimes as mentors, other times to keep themselves from troublesome situations.  To me, a good clubhouse guy would be a player who can communicate well with his team mates, provide advice not only about baseball matters but sometimes family issues, disputes with friends or others, and generally be sympathetic to the unusual problems all baseball players face throughout their career.  They can also provide leadership about how to address the technical skills necessary to play a long and grueling season, and provide leadership in playing for team, not individual results.  CALZONE posted in another thread some photos of Albert and Aybar, I believe Albert was an especially effective mentor for him and they seemed to bond really well.  I think Albert helped him a lot, and Aybar has said so on many occasions.  There was also an article on Iannetta after the season ended, that focused on just how much he helped mentor Perez, and Perez acknowledged that the information and leadership he provided was very useful to him in getting through the season even though he knew that his job was likely to be displaced by Perez by 2016.  Those are just a couple of simple examples.  Pujols and Iannetta haven't been able to provide as much on field leadership as we, as fans, would like.  However, I do believe they are useful to the team in other, less obvious, ways.

 

I think it's good to have a "character" as well in the clubhouse, like Torii Hunter or Eric Aybar.  Too many times players get wound up too tight when things are going bad, and dwelling on mistakes and past bad performances doesn't help future performance after you have mined it for the reasons things have gone bad.  Overall, I think the Angels have really benefited from having good character guys in their clubhouse.  I think Scioscia knows the advantages of having these types around, and he's enough of a control guy to squash anyone who isn't of that ilk (Jose Guillen anyone?).

 

By the way, I don't think the 2015 Dodgers handled themselves very well in many of these ways, and it was one factor that held them from advancing.  I liked the way the Angels of September 2015 played, they were really into it and the high level team support for one another was readily evident in spite of not having the best talent.

 

Sorry for the long post, but I think it's an interesting topic of discussion.

Edited November 16, 2015 by tomsred

[Second Base]

I think good clubhouse guys are underrated. I don't think it's coincidence that the year Jerry brought in Raul Ibanez and John McDonald was the only time in the last 5 years we made the playoffs. It certainly wasn't their on the field performance that guided this team to victory. That's why I wouldn't be oped to signing a veteran UT like Bloomquist to be basically another coach.

[JAHV76]

I have read and heard interviews about how good Freese is in the clubhouse which would be one of the reasons the Angels would resign him.

[UndertheHalo]

i saw this title and immediately knew we were talking about shitty baseball players.

[Homebrewer]

It's something positive to say about a player with severely diminished skills.

 

"He'll probably only hit .250, doesn't steal bases, has a weak arm, but he's a great clubhouse guy"

[ten ocho recon scout]

As someone who does have access to the clubhouse i can say it does exist...

Obviously if a guy sucks, all the charm in the world wont carry his weight (ibanez 2014). But chemistry is a big deal, bigger than some give it credit for.

[Inside Pitch]

I'd argue the good clubhouse guys are just in tune with the emotions in the clubhouse.  They know what to say and when to say things.   Some are even that guy when saying absolutely nothing.

[Blarg]

Any of you work with guys who aren't good clubhouse guys but are talented? I work with a team of assists, all with varying degrees of talent. They put in a lot of hours, have a pretty full workload and even though we run two shifts oftem the overlap has many of them logging more than 12 hours a day in crunch time. It's almost always crunch time.

We train from within but also need to hire from outside. Interviews only go so far so it isn't until they sit down and start following our program of how it is done our specific way do you find out what you hired.

Some get it, even though it goes counter of what they learned on the job somewhere else. We are very detailed in how we populate a library of media and organize our workflow because of the volume of material and the amount of different departments it must be shared with. There is no room for shortcuts.

Now and then we get that person that is adament we don't have to do all of the steps we take and fights the process claiming they have a better way without even logging one season to see how it unfolds and what the post season archiving requires. So when they decide to shortcut something it puts the pressure on everyone else to rebuild what they did and redistribute it along the entire system.

You will get excuses from this person and promises they will follow guidlines and then you find they are watching netflix instead of doing their tasks, more excuses, find them sleeping in the edit bays, more excuses, all along telling everyone how we are wasting time, there is an easier better way until no one wants to work with that person. They are no longer a team member, just an annoyance and someone slowing everyone else down.

We get more productivity out of lesser talented crew members simply because they are conciously trying and even though they make mistakes we can identify them, give them instruction and they don't willfully make them again. We can trust them and they eventually move up and take on more important roles while the beligerant but talented guy packs his bags.

There are a lot of talented guys that only want to do it their way and in our industry they fly solo and some reach a level of success on their own.

In baseball you can't be a clubhouse disturbance, defy your manager or coaching staff, make crass and rude statements in the press or start fights no matter your talent level. You can't fly solo, this isn't tennis. It is all about talent but you have to be that six tool player, that final tool is not being one.

An example is Mike Trout for good clubhouse guy that is emmensly talented. Then you have Puig on the Dodgers. You can clearly see the divergence in career paths because one has the wrong sixth tool.

Edited November 16, 2015 by notti

[ELEVEN]

Any of you work with guys who aren't good clubhouse guys but are talented? I work with a team of assists, all with varying degrees of talent. They put in a lot of hours, have a pretty full workload and even though we run two shifts oftem the overlap has many of them logging more than 12 hours a day in crunch time. It's almost always crunch time.

We train from within but also need to hire from outside. Interviews only go so far so it isn't until they sit down and start following our program of how it is done our specific way do you find out what you hired.

Some get it, even though it goes counter of what they learned on the job somewhere else. We are very detailed in how we populate a library of media and organize our workflow because of the volume of material and the amount of different departments it must be shared with. There is no room for shortcuts.

Now and then we get that person that is adament we don't have to do all of the steps we take and fights the process claiming they have a better way without even logging one season to see how it unfolds and what the post season archiving requires. So when they decide to shortcut something it puts the pressure on everyone else to rebuild what they did and redistribute it along the entire system.

You will get excuses from this person and promises they will follow guidlines and then you find they are watching netflix instead of doing their tasks, more excuses, find them sleeping in the edit bays, more excuses, all along telling everyone how we are wasting time, there is an easier better way until no one wants to work with that person. They are no longer a team member, just an annoyance and someone slowing everyone else down.

We get more productivity out of lesser talented crew members simply because they are conciously trying and even though they make mistakes we can identify them, give them instruction and they don't willfully make them again. We can trust them and they eventually move up and take on more important roles while the beligerant but talented guy packs his bags.

There are a lot of talented guys that only want to do it their way and in our industry they fly solo and some reach a level of success on their own.

In baseball you can't be a clubhouse disturbance, defy your manager or coaching staff, make crass and rude statements in the press or start fights no matter your talent level. You can't fly solo, this isn't tennis. It is all about talent but you have to be that six tool player, that final tool is not being one.

An example is Mike Trout for good clubhouse guy that is emmensly talented. Then you have Puig on the Dodgers. You can clearly see the divergence in career paths because one has the wrong sixth tool.

Agree 100%

When do I start?

[Blarg]

Can you work the 7pm to 8:30am shift?

Edited November 16, 2015 by notti

[ELEVEN]

Can you work the 7pm to 8:30am shift?

Damn, regular hours? I dunno.. been a Grip for 32 years, so not starting at Dawn on Mondays and at dusk on Fridays would just be... weird.

[Blarg]

Damn, Eleven, you've been in the industry as long as I have. Changed a lot since then, except for the insane hours and uncertain downtime.

[ELEVEN]

Damn, Eleven, you've been in the industry as long as I have. Changed a lot since then, except for the insane hours and uncertain downtime.

Truth. My Son in law wants to be a grip and became a Permit recently. I tried to steer him and his College degree away for a while. He seems to really enjoy it so far, so who am I to reason with that? If you can get past the fact there is absolutely no job security whatsoever, then its kinda like running away with the Circus.

[Stradling]

I don't view "good clubhouse guy" as just the diminishing skills guy that is still around because he is good in the clubhouse. It's pretty simple to decide if there is any relevance to good clubhouse guy. If there is such thing as a clubhouse cancer, then there is such a thing as good clubhouse guy. I would probably put a little more value in clubhouse guys now that the clubhouse is so international than maybe it was a long time ago.

[Blarg]

It certainly is a circus. When I started I was in a non union post house, then went to a union shop for six months, had to pay a rediculous amount for initiation, then dropped out after securing another non union gig. As years went on I've had temp Union contracts with NABET, the Writers Guild and now am in IATSE. There was a 20 year stretch where unions were folding shop, the first one I had to join dissapeared about that time. So I am still no where near retirement vesting because of work interuptions and changing unions.

Circus.

[Chuck]

I think good clubhouse guys are underrated. I don't think it's coincidence that the year Jerry brought in Raul Ibanez and John McDonald was the only time in the last 5 years we made the playoffs. It certainly wasn't their on the field performance that guided this team to victory. That's why I wouldn't be oped to signing a veteran UT like Bloomquist to be basically another coach.

 

Yep.

 

Both Tim Mead and Jerry Dipoto alluded to that at our Spring Fanfest two years ago. 

 

In fact, Tim Mead who has been with the organization for 35+ years said it was the best he's seen the clubhouse atmosphere since the 2002 club. 

[Stradling]

This is one of those arguments that will have people (probably the younger crowd and people that discredit mentorship on a team) take one side or the other on when it isn't necessary. No one is saying you should be kept on a team if your only asset is you are good in the clubhouse. But a guy like McDonald was fantastic with the glove and fantastic, by all accounts, in the clubhouse. He is a good that will be a coach one of these days. The opposite is probably also true. If you have one great skill set but you are awful in the clubhouse, you will probably move around a lot in your career and more likely than not have your career cut short despite your true talents.

[Hollyw00d]

I really couldn't care less if they're friends. These are millionaires playing baseball for a living.

Just win, baby.

[Stradling]

Of course you don't. However I would assume that in order to really optimize talent you would almost always have to have a good clubhouse.

[Hollyw00d]

Why?

[Stradling]

Why?

Because people perform better when they are comfortable with their surroundings.

[Hollyw00d]

The giants won rings with guys like:

Pablo Sandoval, who by most accounts is a lazy asshole

Buster Posey, who by some accounts is kind of a dick

Brian Wilson, nuff said

Barry freakin zito