Brendan Gulick gives his thoughts on Terry Francona's exit press conference
Category
🥇
SportsTranscript
00:00 [BLANK_AUDIO]
00:10 Well, hi everybody, Brendan Gulick with you from Progressive Field on a day
00:14 that's a little bittersweet, quite frankly here at the corner of Carnegie and Ontario.
00:19 You always knew this day would come at some point and
00:22 it certainly isn't a surprise that it's here.
00:24 But it's official today, Terry Francona is stepping down from the Cleveland Guardians
00:29 as their manager after 11 incredible seasons here in Cleveland.
00:33 He just wrapped up talking to the media,
00:35 Terry did, along with Chris Antonetti for about 25 minutes.
00:38 It was a great press conference,
00:39 just wanted to give you a couple of thoughts from that here this afternoon.
00:42 Look, I think when you hire a manager, you kind of have this introductory
00:50 press conference where everybody's really excited, and there's hugs and
00:53 handshakes and a jersey exchange and lots of photo opportunities.
00:57 And everybody's feeling optimistic about the direction things go,
01:00 because you hire a guy you believe in.
01:02 It's pretty rare that when a guy leaves, you still have those same feelings.
01:09 And I get the impression that Terry, who alluded to that in his press conference
01:13 today, and certainly with the comments that Chris Antonetti made today and
01:17 has made for a long time.
01:18 There is no ill will between these two sides.
01:25 It's basically Terry's decision just to say, look, it's time.
01:29 It's time for me to walk away from managing, and it's time for
01:32 me to take care of my health.
01:34 And I can't do this job at the level it needs to be done every day anymore.
01:37 But true to the end, he never used the word retire to say that the door is closed,
01:44 I'm never gonna be back in baseball.
01:46 He specifically didn't say anything like that.
01:49 He kind of laughed and he said, there's no major league team in Tucson.
01:54 And he clearly wants to be back home where he can have some rhythm and
01:59 flow of whatever normal, the new normal, might look like for him.
02:03 It's clear that he expects he's going to miss the game, but
02:06 he said he really hasn't thought much about what he's gonna miss.
02:11 And he doesn't wanna have to plan so much, because his schedule and
02:15 his life has revolved around such a regimented schedule the last 40 years
02:21 as a player, and then certainly once he got onto the coaching side.
02:24 So he's excited about the opportunity to just live life, see what kind of happens.
02:31 The hope and the expectation that he'll still be a part of this team and
02:35 be around the Guardians franchise in some way, shape, or form.
02:39 But he said, I don't really know exactly what that's gonna look like or
02:41 feel like.
02:42 Somebody asked him about his brief television career, and he laughed.
02:47 He goes, I genuinely, I'm not trying to be a jerk about it, I don't know.
02:50 I don't know what I'm gonna miss, what I want to continue to do moving forward.
02:55 He kind of alluded to maybe some sort of role where he could be
02:59 around some minor league guys where he's helping them develop somehow.
03:03 But he made it clear, I'm not gonna have a role in whoever comes here next to be
03:08 the next manager.
03:09 If they ask my opinion in the front office, sure, I'll give it to them.
03:13 But it is not my job to help them fill that role, and
03:16 they certainly are capable of the direction they want to set.
03:21 It's about as amicable a parting as you could possibly have.
03:26 And obviously, there's been quite a nice but somewhat muted farewell for
03:31 Tito on the grand scheme of things.
03:33 Because he really didn't want a ton of attention and spotlight,
03:36 despite the fact that he really deserves it with what he accomplished here.
03:39 I wrote about this when the Guardians had their last home game.
03:45 And I think it's really important to reiterate, in the last probably 25 years,
03:49 when LeBron James decided in the prime of his career,
03:53 even after he spurned the city, to come home.
03:56 And he was a national focal point in the sport, and he wanted to play here.
04:05 Outside of that, I don't know that I can think of a moment in Cleveland sports in
04:09 the last 25 years or so that resonated the same way with me that it did when
04:16 Terry Francona said, hey, I wanna manage the Cleveland Guardians.
04:20 Here's a guy that managed one of the biggest payrolls, some of the biggest
04:24 players, and certainly the biggest egos in the sport for the big bad Boston Red Sox.
04:29 And he broke the curse of the great Bambino, and he won the World Series.
04:33 And he had a ton of success, and
04:37 obviously didn't end the way he wanted to in Boston.
04:39 But it was this feeling as a fan of we convinced a larger than life
04:46 guy in this game to come from a big market to come want to be here, wow.
04:51 And the hope that it would turn out to be just as special as it ended up becoming.
04:57 It's so rare that those two things line up.
05:01 And did the Guardians, or at the time the Indians,
05:03 did they win the World Series?
05:05 No, and look, it was exceptionally painful in 2016.
05:11 But he had an unbelievable run.
05:15 And I'm gonna use the word retires as manager because he says he doesn't
05:19 foresee managing again.
05:21 He retires as the manager, as the winningest manager in club history,
05:25 at 927 wins overall, which is substantially more than what Lou Boudreau had
05:30 back in the 40s and into 1950.
05:32 He guided a Guardians franchise that from 2013 to 2023,
05:37 had the fourth best aggregate record in all of Major League Baseball in that time.
05:44 Only the Dodgers, Yankees, and Astros had accumulated a better record.
05:48 And at that, the Astros only won one more game over that 11-year
05:53 stretch than the Guardians did.
05:55 The Guardians qualified for the playoffs six times in that 11-year stretch.
06:02 Tito won more games as the manager in that stretch than any other manager in
06:06 Major League Baseball over that time.
06:08 We've detailed it several times.
06:11 This is a career that probably will wind up in Cooperstown someday.
06:15 You never have guarantees, but it sure feels like that's where it's going.
06:20 And so it's bittersweet because Cleveland needs to celebrate the fact today that
06:25 Terry Francona put a winning product on the field.
06:29 Did it in incredibly fun ways that our city could be proud of.
06:36 And I think that fans genuinely really enjoyed.
06:40 And I think these will be years that we look back on for a long,
06:43 long time as fun teams, despite the fact that ultimately,
06:46 they never won the World Series.
06:48 There was a heck of a lot more winning here than there was losing.
06:51 And having Tito here was really cool for that stretch.
06:55 So I know Cleveland fans are really grateful.
06:57 In terms of moving forward, Chris Antonetti said they are gonna continue to
07:01 consider internal and external candidates.
07:05 They don't really have a timeline.
07:06 They are just concerned with let's just come up with
07:09 whomever the right person is to lead the organization.
07:12 He said they actually went back and
07:14 reviewed part of their blueprint of 11 years ago of what they went through.
07:17 And he said, we might change a few things,
07:19 because things have changed in the game since they last had to hire a manager.
07:25 But the reality is they feel very good about where they're at.
07:28 And Chris joked and said, we will not have a lack of interest in
07:33 the opportunity in our search to try to find the right person.
07:37 So there's a lot of hope and optimism right now around this franchise with
07:41 a lot of really good, young, controllable talent.
07:44 We saw some incredible young pitchers this year that give a lot of people hope
07:48 that this could continue on a great trajectory.
07:51 But it is gonna look and feel a little bit different in 2024 when
07:54 the Guardians take the field.
07:56 So that's the latest from Progressive Field.
07:58 We'll continue to bring you some news and
08:00 information along the way in the offseason for sure as things progress.
08:04 Hopefully we'll know sooner than later who the next manager will be.
08:08 And we'll be right back here when they have that press conference eventually to
08:12 introduce who the new person is.
08:13 Will it be somebody already on staff?
08:15 Will it be somebody from another organization?
08:17 Perhaps somebody from the minor leagues in the Guardians organization, who knows?
08:22 But I choose to believe that the Guardians are gonna find the right person here
08:27 moving forward and that this franchise is gonna really excel because they've got
08:30 a lot of great pieces that are coming back on the field.
08:34 Okay, I'm Brendan Gulick.
08:35 Thanks for hanging out here for a little bit at Progressive Field.
08:38 And look forward to seeing what this franchise does in the offseason.
08:41 Of course, we will follow it all along for you.
08:44 ClevelandBaseballInsider.com is your home for all the latest news and
08:47 information on the team.
08:48 And in the meantime, please subscribe to our YouTube channel so
08:51 we can bring you more content just like this.
08:53 [BLANK_AUDIO]