The boys of summer are almost ready to put away their bats and gloves. In our hometown of Minneapolis, the Twins are wrapping up a second straight abysmal season, on pace for 100 losses as we go to press after finishing one short of that mark last season.
The business world loves to look to the sports world for insights — usually about competing and winning. But there are lessons to be learned from losing as well.
With a slew of injuries sidelining starters in early August, the squad called up Tsuoyoshi Nishioka from its Rochester Red Wings farm club. Nishioka, 28, was an award-winning middle infielder with Japan’s Chiba Lotte Marines who won the 2010 Nippon Professional League batting title with a .346 average. After paying Chiba Lotte $5.32 million for exclusive negotiating rights, the Twins signed Nishioka to a three-year, $9.5 million contract in November 2010. He was the starting second baseman on opening day 2011, broke a bone in his foot on a double play one week into the season and missed 59 games. When Nishioka did return last year, he was clearly overmatched by major league pitching and stumbled in the field as well.
Twins fans wondered if they would ever see him again after such a discouraging rookie season. He started 2012 playing for AAA Rochester and was only called up in August because the team had no other bodies to put in the lineup. In three games in Cleveland, Nishioka went 0-12 and made three errors. He didn’t see the field again and was “outrighted” to Rochester a couple
of weeks later. (There’s something catchy about the term “outrighted.” It’s better than “downsized” at least.)
The smart baseball fans in Minnesota (there are a handful) laid off Nishioka and ripped into Twins management instead, specifically departed General Manager Billy Smith, who signed Nishioka, current General Manager Terry Ryan and longtime Manager Ron Gardenhire.
Management, it is said, is about putting people in positions where they can succeed. It isn’t Nishioka’s fault that the club invested nearly $14 million in him and it became almost immediately apparent that, while he may have been a star in Japan, he is inept at the plate against MLB pitchers and doubly deficient in the field.
Of course, if you manage a team long enough, you will make a bad hire or two. The key is to cut your losses early and figure out how your judgment was so far off the mark.
Paul Nolan, Editor
paul@salesandmarketing.com
