Stop the search! Tribe picks Manny

So, Manny Acta, eh?

I can't disagree too much with general manager Mark Shapiro's decision, which the Indians announced today. I wanted someone who was an outsider, a strong voice with a different perspective, to manage the Indians. Acta sounds like that voice.

"We are very excited to have Manny Acta as our Major League manager,” Shapiro said in a press release. “After speaking with an impressive array of candidates, we feel that Manny is a very strong and experienced leader who possesses great energy and enthusiasm along with tremendous communication skills and a positive mindset that will command a presence in the dugout, clubhouse and with our fans.”

Seems like a nice choice, right?

Acta might be, too. He would not, however, have been my choice; I preferred Bobby Valentine, a less-risky hire. But I'll have to defer to Shapiro on who was the best fit for the ballclub he's trying to remake.

In picking Acta, Shapiro brought in a respected teacher who is bilingual and comfortable with a bad organization.

I do wish Acta, 40, had a record of success on his managerial resume. I mean, what he did with the Nationals doesn't suggest he's the next Walter Alston or Sparky Anderson. But under the circumstances -- and the circumstances in D.C. were dire -- Acta did about as well as anybody else could have done. A bad organization needs miracles to succeed, and miracles don't fall out of the baseball tree too often.

Now, the question is this: Is Acta trading one bad organization for another?

He won't be inheriting a team deep in talent. The Indians are short of top-shelf pitching, have a bullpen in disrepair and lack speed. At times last season, they displayed the fundamental soundness of a Little League team, which is an indictment of fired manager Eric Wedge.

Not sure if the Nats were the symbol of a fundamentally-sound team, because I didn't see much of them. Why would I? If baseball fans in D.C. didn't bother with them, I had no reason to watch them either.

But the shipwreck that was the 2009 Nats is behind Acta. What is ahead of him is hard to tell, the obvious shortcomings of the Indians notwithstanding. Yet if he thought he was inheriting a pennant contender, he is sadly mistaken.

He's coming into a rebuilding project, a job that might be worst than what he left. It won't be a quick turnaround either. The job will test Acta's patience, as it will tests the patience of the hungry-for-a-winner Tribe faithful.

For now, fans know who will be at the helm of this team. It will be run by a man in Acta, who reportedly turned down the Astros job, with experience and the ability to communicate. The team will also be run by someone who can bring a fresh eye to it all.

That's what Shapiro needed for the organization: an outsider. The question he can't answer now is did he pick the "right" outsider.

Will Valentine's day come early for Indians?

I don’t know much about Manny Acta – as a person or as a Major League manager. I’ve never interviewed Acta; never seen the man either. What I do know about him is the managed one of the worst teams in baseball last season. Now, managing the Nationals isn’t a fate the baseball gods should put in any decent man’s hands. The Nats are a hopeless lot in a league with other going-nowhere organizations like the Padres and the Pirates. Acta could have been Walter Alston, Connie Mack, Casey Stengel and Sparky Anderson rolled into one, and he still wouldn’t have been able to turn the Nats into a winner. He might develop into a Sparky-like manager -- someday. Yet I find it curious that Indians GM Mark Shapiro (and team president Paul Dolan) has kept Acta, 40, on a short list of candidates to replace Eric Wedge. Aside from being a Latino and bilingual, two plusses in baseball, Acta brings little else. In my opinion, he's a gamble. But managing in the Major Leagues isn't like playing roulette in Vegas, so Shapiro should go for a manager whose resume looks a bit more substantial than Acta’s. I saw that candidate on Shapiro's initial list: Mike Hargrove. And maybe if the Astros can think about rehiring Phil Garner, the Indians could have brought Hargrove back. He certainly knew the organization and Cleveland, a city where he played and managed. If Hargrove, 60, had rekindled the passion inside, I would have welcomed the man back. Hargrove, however, wouldn’t have been my first choice anyway. Shapiro has been looking at another candidate as seasoned as Hargrove in Bobby Valentine, a man fresh from managing in Japan. Valentine, 59, has never lost his passion. When the Mets fired him in 2002, Valentine chased managerial openings elsewhere. Nobody rush to hire him, despite the fact he had won with the Rangers and with the Mets. His only opportunity came with the Chiba Lotte Marines in Japan, and Valentine took it. He’s back from Japan now; he’s ready for another go at the bigs. Shapiro should give it to him. He should pick Valentine because he’s an experienced outsider, someone who can judge the ballclub without appearing to be, as Wedge did, Shapiro’s footman. The organization seems to have enough Shapiro lackeys in the front office to last it a decade. He won’t be hiring a lackey in the frank-talking Valentine, whose enthusiastic candor might not keep him on Shapiro’s list. Still, Valentine's glibness would be a wonderful change, though, from the reticence Wedge showed he favors. In Shapiro's delusional world, the Indians are a ballplayer here or there from being a contending club. The organization is filled with players with high ceilings – talent that just needs to be nurtured. To him, bad isn’t as bad as it seems; just disregard the fact the Tribe finished light-years away from .500 last season. Shapiro won’t be able to sell Valentine this fiction. Valentine won’t let him. He also won’t let his players dodge responsibility – to the team, to the community and to the media. Keep in mind that Shapiro isn’t necessarily going to pick a manager who will warm to the media; he’ll pick a manager who can lead an inexperienced and rebuilding ballclub. The fact his choice might be able to curry favor with the media could be a bonus. What he needs is somebody who isn’t inexperienced like Dodgers bench coach Don Mattingly, a rumored candidate. If Shapiro's choice happens to be Mattingly or Valentine or Acta, the Indians will be better for it. The organization (and its flaws) will certainly be more transparent than it ever was during the Wedge years.