New manager Skip Schumaker could be great hire — if Marlins spend to give him fair shot | Opinion

Hiring a baseball manager with experience in the job can be a misleading safety net offering false security. Hiring a first-time manager can feel like a gamble, but also one teasing with possibility. Recycling an old guy with a resume’ might be the safe play, but taking a calculated shot at finding the next big thing can be worth the risk.

Erik Spoelstra worked his way up from Miami Heat video-room wonk when Pat Riley gave him his first chance at coaching. Today he is among the NBA’s most highly respected leaders.

Mike McDaniel not only had not been a football head coach at any level but had never even interviewed for the position in the NFL when the Dolphins made him a surprise choice. Early indications are it was a smart hire.

Lending benefit of doubt to almost anything the Marlins do is always tougher. It has not been earned across 12 straight losing years other than the asterisk aberration of 2020 and that 31-29 record in the pandemic-wracked, shortened season.

Still, hiring Skip Schumaker this week as the new manager feels like a fresh step for a franchise that needed a shakeup.

Don Mattingly had seven seasons, a long time, to be the face of a turnaround that never happened. He arrived with a gleaming resume’, five years and three straight division titles as Dodgers manager, but could not win in Miami until finally his time here petered out in the ol’ “mutual agreement” to part ways.

Schumaker, 42, arrives as the third-youngest manager in MLB, hungry to make the most of his big break. Most of his career was spent with the St. Louis Cardinals, a franchise of great pedigree, where he was bench coach last season in his sixth year as a big-league coach.

World Series-winning manager Bruce Bochy was available (before the Texas Rangers hired him), but none of the the Marlins finalists among about a dozen men interviewed had managerial experience in the bigs.

Economics may have been a factor (that benefit-of-doubt thing again). Schumaker surely is a cheaper hire than Bochy would have been, and the Marlins’ notoriety for not being lavish spenders is well-earned.

Miami was 26th of 30 club in player payroll last season. It’s hardly a surprise that the World Series teams, Philadelphia and Houston, both had top-10 payrolls. It’s also a fact that two teams with payrolls lower than the Fish, Tampa Bay and Cleveland, also made the playoffs.

Clearly, though, the correlation between big spending and winning is strong.

Marlins owner Bruce Sherman says, again, that he will increase spending next season. He said that before this season but did not spend nearly enough. Nor did his front office led by general manager Kim Ng spend wisely enough.

Miami’s two biggest free agent signings, outfielders Avisail Garcia and Jorge Soler, had dreadful seasons. The Fish batted .230 as a team and were last in the National League in runs scored.

The Marlins must spend more money and spend it more wisely to significantly beef up the offense or the team will continue to be an underdog whenever Sandy Alcantara isn’t pitching.

Miami is five years into a slow rebuild from the ground (farm system) up. There needs to be a finish line soon so the club doesn’t keep wasting Alcantara’s brilliance.

The Astros had three straight 100-loss seasons in 2011-13 but won a World Series by ‘17 and are after another one now.

The Marlins’ rebuild needs a payday soon, not someday.

Mattingly couldn’t manage that.

Maybe Skip Schumaker can. But he deserves his team owner to have his back and spend more to score more.

The new manager deserves a fighting chance to prove he was a smart hire.