Phil Wood: New Nats manager needs to know flow

WASHINGTON (Map, News) - I’m going to go out on a limb and predict Joe Girardi will not — repeat, not — be the next manager of the Washington Nationals.

No obvious reason, really, other than the one Marlins general manager Larry Beinfest used when he recently fired Girardi: He’s not a “good fit.” Girardi’s inability — or outright refusal — to make nice with his owner and GM in Miami may end up delaying his return to a big league dugout.

Despite what many fans believe — and you can read it every day on the Internet message board of your choice — most big league managers do not possess complete autonomy within an organization. Recently deposed A’s manager Ken Macha found that out when Oakland GM Billy Beane revamped his ALCS pitching rotation.

Every manager knows he’s hired to be fired. He’s also prepared to be overruled any given day. The more successful skippers get a much longer rope. But there was no way the Marlins were going to allow Girardi — a rookie skipper — to call every tune. One current big league executive told me he thought Girardi either never paid attention to the manager-general manager dynamic on the other clubs he’s been on, or simply had “a death wish.” Wishes do come true now and then.

Looking at the remaining names on the Nats’ managerial search list, the interview with New York Mets third base coach Manny Acta may bear fruit. Acta, who served as the Expos’ third base and infield coach their final three seasons in Montreal, is already familiar with much of the Washington personnel. He has won multiple Manager-of-the-Year awards in the minors and winter ball. At 37, he’s the youngest candidate on the Nats’ ballot, and given that ownership seems to want someone for the long run, would also meet the criteria.

Acta is the current “hot” managerial prospect. With other teams interested — Texas and San Francisco, in particular — the Nationals may need to decide quickly if Manny is their man.

Having multiple suitors may pay off in a longer or more lucrative initial deal for Acta, whose own playing career was limited to six years in the Houston Astros farm system. Acta was managing in the low minors at age 25, so running the show would not be a new experience. Hot managerial prospects sometimes crash and burn. Witness the failures of Phil Regan and Lee Mazzilli in Baltimore, though their tenures were also linked with a personal aloofness that isolated both men. “Aloof” is not an adjective anyone’s heard applied to Manny Acta.

Acta, or whoever the Nats hire to steer the club through their final season at RFK, has to know up front the specific flow chart regarding communication with his bosses.

Following the Nats’ 71-91 season — the same record, incidentally, the Detroit Tigers compiled in 2005 — expectations are likely reasonable for 2007. Fans will hopefully cut the new guy some slack. I suspect, barring a Girardi-like performance, ownership will do the same.

Phil Wood has covered sports in the Washington-Baltimore market for more than 30 years.

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