Mattingly hired as Yanks hitting coach....

[Reds]

Today the Yankees hired Donnie Baseball as hitting coach...so now..what if he eventually becomes Yanks skipper?  Then a HOF birth has to follow doesnt it?

[Baines]

Looks like you got to it first, anyway here's a link:

http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/news/story?id=1653418

I wish I didn't hate the Yankees so much b/c with Randolph and Mazilli (if he doesn't get the O's job) that's 3 RBI players on the staff.

[fknmclane]

HOLY SHIT! HOLY SHIT!  My favorite Yankee of all time has finally gone to work for the Evil Emperor Steinbrenner.  I can't believe he finally broke but I'm fuckin' pumped.  Torre is done after next year.  Is Donnie waiting in the wings?

This totally changes the HOF picture.  If he can get a couple of rings as a manager, he'll get in for sure.  Any thoughts?

[vgp100]

Come on man. Only Yankee fans think he was that good. If he played for anyone else, you'd never hear from his ass.

[BeefMaster]

This totally changes the HOF picture.  If he can get a couple of rings as a manager, he'll get in for sure.  Any thoughts?

Actually, I believe (and a quick check of some Hall inductees seemed to confirm it) that managers are considered separately from players, such that a player's managing and playing careers aren't summed.  Unless he comes out of retirement and impersonates Bonds for a couple years, he's still not getting in.  The new job (especially if followed by a managerial job) will put him back in the minds of the voters, which could help him, but it's not going to change his career hitting numbers, and those are what keeps him out.

As for his chances of making it in as a manager (we're really getting ahead of ourselves here, but it's fun to speculate), I don't think he'll get much of a shot.  In a best-case scenario, he'll be as good as Torre.  The fact that he was preceded by a successful manager will diminish anything he does, plus he'll be hurt by the fact that he's with the Yankees, who can afford to put together elite teams every year.  Sure, it isn't easy by any means to win titles, even with a great team, but it's a heck of a lot easier than doing it with the Royals.

Despite all that, he was a very technically good hitter, and I think he makes a good hire as a hitting coach, assuming he has the ability to communicate well with the players.  And Yankees fans love him, so it's good for PR as well.

[MarquisEXB]

HOLY SHIT! HOLY SHIT!  My favorite Yankee of all time has finally gone to work for the Evil Emperor Steinbrenner.  I can't believe he finally broke but I'm fuckin' pumped.  Torre is done after next year.  Is Donnie waiting in the wings?

This totally changes the HOF picture.  If he can get a couple of rings as a manager, he'll get in for sure.  Any thoughts?

It'd have to be a handful of rings before the hall came calling. Aren't we jumping the gun a little bit? He's just the hitting coach, not a multiple World Series manager.

Mke

[fknmclane]

Alright, so maybe I'm going a little crazy.  But he is my favorite Yankee and most Yankee fans have been waiting for him to come back into the fold for quite some time.

My bad.  In my drunken stupor I forgot that playing and managing are totally separate.  Brings us to another interesting question about the Yankees.  Their present manager Joe Torre will be a Hall of Famer. But for playing or managing?

Speaking of drunken stupors, where the hell is DoveRBI?

[RockRaines4life]

No firm distinction is made when a person gets inducted into the Hall of Fame as to whether they are there as a manager or player.  For instance, the Hall's website lists Frank Chance under the HOF players list, but his plaque doesn't mention anything about his playing, only his managing.  I'm sure when Torre is inducted (probably right after he retires) his plaque will mention both his playing and managing, like those of Frankie Frisch, Joe Cronin, and Lou Boudreau do now.  Interestingly, Clark Griffith is listed as an executive on the HOF site, even though he won more than 200 games on the mound, then managed for 20 years before becoming the owner of the Senators.  

[BeefMaster]

My bad.  I know I'd heard about the separation somewhere before (now that I think of it, maybe it was the football HoF), and on the site I saw, inductees were listed in categories (player, manager, contributor), so I just assumed they were separate.  In that case, a few WS rings might help Mattingly's case, although I don't they will too much, for the same reasons I stated above.

[fknmclane]

Torre was just in the right place at the right time.  He definitely didn't say, "you know, my playing career came up just short of HOF status.  I think I'll go manage the New York Yankees and get four rings to cement my place in the HOF."  He just happened to stumble upon a dynasty and was the right man for the job.