Business Insight Zone

One of the side effects of spending so much time thinking about (a) the media and (b) business management is that I can’t even read the recap of a baseball game in peace. I come across something like this . . .

Tigers score most runs this season, hand Rangers sixth straight loss

DETROIT (AP) — The Detroit Tigers’ biggest inning in four years could mean a lot more to the foundering Texas Rangers. Manager Ron Washington’s job might be in jeopardy.

. . . and the rant just boils up inside me.

Please bear with me here, because this isn’t so much about baseball as it is about management decisions and how the media covers them.

There are several things wrong with those two opening sentences:

1. The Tigers didn’t need their biggest inning in four years to beat the Rangers. They were already beating them. Sure, the score would have been 7-6 instead of 19-6, but a loss is a loss — and the psychological weight is still heavy when it extends a losing streak. Sure, when a team puts up an 11-run inning, that ought to be in the story’s lead, but the way it’s used here is not apt.

2. Washington’s job might be in jeopardy? According to whom? The writer? “Anonymous sources close to the Rangers’ front office”? No sources besides Washington are cited. The manager, for his part, said the right things: “Any time a team is in a losing streak, the manager’s job is on the line . . . It falls on me when the team isn’t playing well. I’m the manager . . . that’s the way it goes.” But this is a still just a unsubstantiated notion on the beat writer’s part — and not a helpful one, since the lead conveys a hunch or rumor as though it’s an established fact.

3. From the perspective of how the Rangers club is managed, the real story is the mediocre-to-low quality of the pitchers that Washington has been given to work with. It’s bad enough that the Rangers were facing the Tigers, who have one of the most dangerous lineups in the Major Leagues. Fact is, though, that the Rangers have been getting shelled frequently throughout this season — because their pitching isn’t strong. And whose job is it to acquire good pitching for the team? (Hint: not Ron Washington’s.)

It’s that last point I want to harp on, because we see this all too often in the “real” business world, too: a middle manager is handcuffed in terms of resources, personnel, decision latitude, or whatever — and then blamed when things go wrong.

The real fault here lies with the Rangers front office for assembling a thin pitching staff. Knowledgeable analysts were saying before the season ever started that the Rangers weren’t very good. Now those predictions are coming true on the field.

Here’s the thing: part of the blame for the team’s poor showing could fall to Washington. But if it does, he should be fired because of his overall qualities as a manager — not because of what happens in one game . . . against a heavy-hitting opponent . . . on a day when Ranger pitchers melt down one after another.

And an AP beat writer should help readers to understand that, not confuse the issue.

Here endeth the rant . . . for now.

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(Photo by Dave Hogg.)