Here’s what Guardians want in a new manager: The week in baseball

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CLEVELAND, Ohio — The Guardians are known for casting a wide net when it comes to pursuing players through trades and free agency.

They will do the same in the search to replace Terry Francona, who will leave his job at the end of the season as Cleveland’s longest-tenured and winningest manager.

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The last time they did a wide-ranging managerial search was after Eric Wedge was fired at the end of the 2009 season. They hired Manny Acta after interviewing dozens of candidates.

Acta and the Indians never meshed and he was fired at the end of the 2012 season. The search for Acta’s replacement lasted about as long as it took Francona, between jobs at the time after leading Boston to two World Series titles, to say yes.

It’s going to be a longer process this time around.

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There is a school of thought that Cleveland’s high-tech front office will hire a young, analtically-inclined manager that they can shape, mold and control as he tries to get the best out of a roster that has been the youngest in the big leagues in the last two years.

Chris Antonetti, president of baseball operations, and GM Mike Chernoff took a deep diving into the anaylitical side of the game a long time ago. Agree or disagree it is one of the reasons the Guardians/Indians have been a postseason presence for the last decade despite one of the lowest payrolls in the game.

But it would be a mistake to think the next Cleveland manager will be a human computer/yes man.

No one who has been around Francona for long would call him a computer geek. Especially him.

But in 23 years managing big-league teams, one of Francona’ strengths has been combining the vast universe of stastics from sabermetrics and the Statcast era to his traditional beliefs about the game.

Watch him in the dugout. He has pages and pages of stats taped to the wall next to him. Those are his numbers, boiled down from the infomation provided to him by the front office.

He does it every day and doesn’t feel comfortable until those stats are taped to the wall next to him.

There’s more to it than just that.

When Antonetti, Chernoff and the Guardians’ baseball scientists run ideas past him, he doesn’t just nod with glazed-over eyes. Sometimes he pushes back, telling them why he doesn’t think that data would work in the flesh-and-blood reality of a lineup or the clubhouse.

In doing so, the front office has learned things from Francona.

That is one of the qualities Antonetti and Chernoff will be looking for in a new manager whether he’s experienced or non-experienced. They want someone who will challenge them. Someone they can learn from.

The days of old school and new school managers is long gone. Every manager in the big leagues uses some form of analytics. They’d be cheating their organizations if they didn’t.

A big question in some organizations is who makes out the lineup. Some front offices make out the lineups for their manager. The Guardians make suggestions and offer help to Francona, he has the last say.

It sounds like the new manager will have that ability as well.

No matter how a manager leaves the job, the coaching staff is left hanging. That’s what going on with Cleveland’s big league staff right now in the final days of the season.

The new manager has to have a say in the hiring of his coaching staff. Cleveland’s staff has plenty of experience. If they do hire a younger manager, he could lean on them as he learns the roster and the opposition.

When a team makes a managerial change at the end of the year, the front office usually likes to have the new hire in place by the GM meetings in early Novermber or by the winter meetings in December by the latest.

Then comes the coaching staff.

After Francona was hired following the 2012 season, his coaching staff was in place by Nov. 1. Here’s who was on that staff: Sandy Alomar, bench coach, Brad Mills, third base coach, Mike Sarbaugh first base coach, Mickey Callaway, pitching coach, Ty Van Burkleo, hitting coach and bullpen coach Kevin Cash.

Alomar, Sarbaugh and Callaway were already in Cleveland’s organization. The others were interviewed and hired on a collabarative basis by Francona and the front office. Alomar and Sarbaugh are still on Francona’s staff.

One more thing about Francona. He will be gone at the end of this season, but his influence on the game will remain.

Cash, Tampa Bay’s successful manager, is one of 10 men currently managing big league teams with a direct link to Francona. The others are Rocco Baldelli, Twins; Alex Cora, Red Sox; Gabe Kapler, Giants; Matt Quatraro, Royals; David Ross, Cubs; Mark Kotsay, A’s; Dave Roberts, Dodgers; Bud Black, Rockies and Torey Lovullo, Diamondbacks.

Black and Francona were teammates in Cleveland. Lovullo was Boston’s Triple-A manager when Francona was managing the Red Sox. The others played for or coached under Francona.

While the Guardians will cast a wide net to replace Francona, he has already cast his.

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