Healthy Francona excited to return to dugout
DALLAS — Terry Francona remembered the specific moment that sparked his return to the dugout.
“My girls went to Europe for 10 days, and I watched the grandkids,” he said Monday. “That was the one day I thought maybe I’ll go back to baseball.”
A three-time manager of the year who turns 66 in April, Francona was hired to run the Cincinnati Reds on Oct. 4.
“I haven’t had a surgery in like 11 months,” he said, laughing. “It’s like I’m on borrowed time.”
Francona led Cleveland for 11 seasons before retiring at the end of the 2023 season, when he needed a shoulder replacement and double hernia surgery.
“It just physically was really hard and I felt like I was starting to shortchange people and I didn’t feel good about that, either,” said Francona, who missed extended time in 2020 and 2021 because of health complications.
“I didn’t get out of baseball because I hated it. I just didn’t think I was doing a very good job and it wasn’t as much fun as it can be because it was just hard,” he said.
Francona takes over a Reds team that has reached the postseason just once since 2013, in the pandemic-shortened 2020 season.
“I love watching baseball,” he said. “If I’m healthy, I feel like I can get in there and get dirty and, OK, how are we going to get better as a ballclub and be a part of that instead of just watching or relying on some coaches to do it.”
Francona has a 1,950-1,672 record in 23 seasons managing Philadelphia (1997-2000), Boston (2004-11) and Cleveland (2013-23). He won World Series titles with the Red Sox in 2004 and 2007 and took the Guardians to Game 7 of the 2016 World Series.
“He has the ability to welcome people, teach people. You’re going to learn a lot just by watching him and listening to him,” said Kansas City manager Matt Quatraro, who was on Francona’s staff in Cleveland from 2014 to ’17.
Quatraro learned “how to keep things light in the clubhouse, how to respect what the players go through every day, and how to include everybody, not be a micromanager. Let your people work,” he said.
Francona replaced David Bell, who was fired with a week remaining in his sixth season. He inherits a talented young core that includes Elly De La Cruz, Hunter Greene and Tyler Stephenson.
“There are always the same challenges. We want to see how good we can get,” Francona said. “And when we lose, it’ll kill me. When we win, I’ll be fine. I’ve never found a way to gain perspective. I think it’s too late for that.”
Francona didn’t try to think like a manager when he watched games on television last season. He remembered watching games with executives Chris Antonetti and Mike Chernoff at times in Cleveland when health forced him from the dugout.
“They would ask me, ‘Skip, hey, what do we do here?'” Francona said. “I would try to explain to them that, man, when you’re in the dugout, you get into this tunnel and you know everything. You have all the information. When you are sitting up there, you don’t. You don’t know who is not available. You don’t know whose arm’s sore.”
While he is excited to be back with a team, Francona won’t be throwing batting practice.
“I don’t want to have a heart attack,” he said. “I actually thought about that at one point this year. I think it was in — oh, it was Halloween and I was throwing a football with my grandson. And the next day I could barely move my arm, so I think BP is out.”
The Baltimore Orioles are “very, very hopeful” that star shortstop Gunnar Henderson (intercostal strain) will be ready for Opening Day.
Orioles manager Brandon Hyde told reporters Wednesday that Henderson suffered a mild strain on his right side.
“I’m very, very hopeful. But we’re going to not push a strain there, and we want to make sure that he gets it taken care of. It’s one of those sensitive areas where we don’t want anything to reoccur,” Hyde said.
Henderson departed last Thursday’s 11-8 spring training victory over the Toronto Blue Jays after the first inning with what the team termed “lower right side discomfort.” Henderson made a leaping catch in the top of the first inning and apparently felt soreness after hitting the ground.
Henderson is batting .167 in six plate appearances so far this spring.
The 2023 American League Rookie of the Year earned his first All-Star nod in 2024 batting .281/.364/.529 with 37 home runs and 92 RBIs. He also stole 21 bases. He finished fourth in MVP balloting.
Henderson dealt with a left oblique injury during spring training in 2024 but recovered in time for the start of the regular season.
WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. – New Houston Astros first baseman Christian Walker was scratched from the lineup for a spring training game Wednesday because of soreness in his left oblique.
Walker missed more than a month last season with Arizona because of a strained left oblique muscle. He joined the Astros on a $60 million, three-year contract during the offseason.
In his first four spring training games for Houston, Walker was 4 for 8 with three doubles. He also had two walks.
Adding a first baseman over the offseason was a priority for the Astros after struggling Jose Abreu was released less than halfway through a $58.5 million, three-year contract.
Walker, who turns 34 on March 28, hit .251 with 26 home runs and 84 RBIs in 130 games for the Diamondbacks last season. He won his third consecutive Gold Glove at first base.
In 832 big league games, Walker has hit .250 with 147 homers. All but 13 of those games came with Arizona over the past eight seasons, after his MLB debut with Baltimore in 2014 and 2015.
Walker had two stints on the injured list because of right oblique issues in 2021. He played 160 games in 2022 and 157 in 2023, hitting 69 homers and driving in 197 runs combined over those two seasons.
COOPERSTOWN, N.Y. — The Hall of Fame made some small adjustments to its veterans committee system to limit people with relatively little support from repeatedly remaining on future ballots, a decision that could make it harder to gain entry to Cooperstown for steroids-tainted stars such as Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens.
Any candidate on the eight-person ballot who receives fewer than five votes from the 16-member panel will not be eligible for that committee’s ballot during the next three-year cycle, the hall said Wednesday. A candidate who is dropped, later reappears on a ballot and again receives fewer than five votes would be barred from future ballot appearances.
Bonds, Clemens, Rafael Palmeiro and Albert Belle each received fewer than four votes in December 2022, when Fred McGriff was a unanimous pick. Bonds and Clemens were on a hall ballot for the first time since their 10th and final appearances on the Baseball Writers’ Association of America ballot. The rules change could limit reappraisals of their candidacies.
In addition, the historical overview committee appointed by the BBWAA that selects the ballot candidates must also be approved by the hall’s board of directors. The hall said the decisions were made by its board during a Feb. 26 meeting in Orlando, Florida.
In 2022, the hall restructured its veterans committees for the third time in 12 years, setting up panels to consider the contemporary era from 1980 on, as well as the classic era. The contemporary baseball era holds separate ballots for players and another for managers, executives and umpires.
Each committee meets every three years: contemporary players from 1980 on will be considered this December; managers, executives and umpires from 1980 on in December 2026; and pre-1980 candidates in December 2027.
Dave Parker and Dick Allen were elected last December and manager Jim Leyland in December 2023.
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