[KChiefs1]

Matheny taking an analytics class?

https://theathletic.com/1900488/2020...ned-to-evolve/

The reinvention of Royals manager Mike Matheny, a man determined to evolve
Alec Lewis

Last summer, the professor of a baseball analytics course received an email from an administrator.

“Hey, we’ve got Mike Matheny joining the class,” it read.

Ari Kaplan, a former special assistant to the GM for the Baltimore Orioles, teaches the class via Zoom video conference for Sports Management Worldwide. Once he heard Matheny was in his next 10-week session, he emailed Matheny to ask whether he wanted to stay anonymous.

“No, I’ll introduce myself,” Matheny wrote back.

“So right away,” Kaplan said, “he was fine with it, which was great. And he approached it like he didn’t want to be treated any differently. He was a student there to learn.”

The analytics-class introduction itself says something about Matheny’s managerial evolution. It was back to the basics for the former National League pennant-winning skipper. For more than a year’s time, Matheny remained in the background, listening and learning.

Successes and failures filled Matheny’s life before he became the 17th skipper in the Kansas City Royals’ history. All of them provided opportunities for him to grow, especially those that occurred in St. Louis.

In 2011, the Cardinals won the World Series with Hall of Fame manager Tony La Russa at the helm. After the season, La Russa retired, paving the way for the surprising choice of a first-time manager in Matheny.

The four-time Gold Glove Award winner had caught games for 13 years in the majors before he retired, began coaching a youth team in St. Louis and became a roving coach for two years in the Cardinals’ minor-league system. As a manager, Matheny’s Cardinals maintained the momentum it had built under La Russa. Matheny became the first manager in MLB history to make the playoffs in his first four seasons, seasons that provided a foundation of knowledge about how to communicate within a clubhouse from a different seat.

As early as 2014, though, questions arose about Matheny’s tactical approach. Infamously, with the Cardinals facing elimination in the 2014 NL Championship Series, Matheny brought in right-hander Michael Wacha, whose last appearance in a major league game came 20 days earlier and hadn’t pitched in relief all season, to a tie game rather than go to more proven relievers Trevor Rosenthal or Carlos Martinez. Wacha allowed a single, walked a batter then gave up a walk-off home run to Travis Ishikawa.