Before there was Ned Colletti, before there was Jim Tracy, before there was Joe Torre, Don Mattingly, the Guggenheim Baseball Management Group, Stan Kasten, Andrew Friedman and Farhan Zaidi, there was Tim Wallach – a former 17-year major league veteran who was the Dodgers hitting coach under then manager Grady Little.

But in 2009, Wallach was replaced by former Dodger (and Hall of Famer) Eddie Murray and was reassigned to manage the Dodgers Triple-A affiliate Albuquerque Isotopes where, after only one season, was named the Pacific Coast League Manager of the Year.

When the Eddie Murray experiment failed after only one season, Wallach returned to the Dodgers – this time as their third base coach – where he was very successful. In fact, after the 2013 season, Wallach interviewed for managerial jobs with the Detroit Tigers and Seattle Mariners, and many in the Dodgers organization thought for sure that the then 56-year-old Huntington Park, CA native and former Cal State Fullerton standout would be a shoo-in for one of those two jobs. He was not.

With his experience as a player, minor league manager, hitting coach, third base coach and bench coach, it’s hard to believe that Tim Wallach hasn’t landed a managerial job somewhere in the MLB.
(Photo credit – Ron Cervenka)

In 2014 Wallach was promoted as the Dodgers new bench coach under third-year manager Don Mattingly – this after the team failed to get past the St. Louis Cardinals in the National League Championship Series in 2013. Many felt that because of Wallach’s tremendous baseball experience and savvy, Mattingly would become an even better and more successful manager. He did not.

After three (consecutive) failed attempts to lead the Dodgers into the World Series, Mattingly was let go by the Dodgers on October 22 under wide speculation that Miami Marlins owner Jeffrey Loria had already offered Mattingly the Marlins managerial job nearly two months earlier should he ever leave the Dodgers which, if true, was a direct violation of MLB’s “tampering” rules. But alas, Mattingly left the Dodgers and was officially introduced at the Marlins new manager on Monday, November 2.

After Mattingly left the Dodgers, the rumors of his possible successor ran rampant and included names such as Wallach, Dodgers Director of Player Development Gabe Kapler (a Friedman/Zaidi appointee), Dodgers third base coach Ron Roenicke (ditto), Cubs bench coach Dave Martinez, former Angels All-Star and University of Nebraska head coach Darin Erstad, former Padres manager Bud Black and former Padres bench coach and longtime Dodgers fan-favorite Dave Roberts – among several others.

However, during Monday’s press conference and to the surprise of no one, Mattingly said that he hoped to bring Wallach with him to Miami to continue to serve as his bench coach with his new team.

“We’ve been in conversations about the staff. I don’t know if it’s something I really want to get into at this point,” Mattingly said. “We’ve talked about some guys. I think Tim Wallach is going to come with me to be the bench coach.”

If Wallach doesn’t get the Dodgers managerial job, he will more than likely end up as the Marlins new bench coach under Mattingly. (Photo credit – Jon SooHoo)

The caveat, of course, is that if Wallach is offered the job as the Dodgers new manager, he would be foolish not to accept it. After all, we’re talking millions of dollars here. And although Friedman, Zaidi and Mattingly himself all claim that their parting of the ways was amicable, it’s probably safe to say that the Dodgers brass could care less what Mattingly wants at this point.

But does an old-school guy like Tim Wallach fit the master plan of sabermetrics and analytics gurus Andrew Friedman and Farhan Zaidi and their oft-stated goal to “get younger” as an organization?  Maybe… maybe not. Keep in mind that it was Wallach who came up with the many variations of the defense shift (which are based on hitting analytics of individual players) used by the Dodgers over the past two seasons – including the infamous “Wally Wall” – which puts four infielders on one side of the infield in do-or-die situations where any ball not hit into this extreme shift will result in a loss. Over the past two seasons the Dodgers have used the Wally Wall several times and it has worked exactly once.

Unfortunately the one time that it did work and the Dodgers were able to get the second out without a run scoring, the very next batter hit a clean single to right with the Dodgers in a normal defense and lost the game anyway.

The Dodgers have used the Wally Wall several times over the past two seasons. It has worked once.
(Photo credit – Ron Cervenka)

Also keep in mind that it was during one of Wallach’s defensive shifts in Game-5 of the NLDS that Mets second baseman Daniel Murphy caught Dodgers rookie shortstop Corey Seager and veteran right-hander Zack Greinke napping and alertly stole third base (and eventually scored), as neither was covering the bag during a defensive shift after Greinke issued a walk to Mets first baseman Lucas Duda. A defensive shift works well in many situations but not paying attention isn’t one of them.

Over the past three seasons Wallach’s name has came up whenever a managerial spot opened up around the league and to be quite honest, it’s surprising that in spite of several interviews, he was never offered a managerial job. And while we will never know exactly why this is, it’s hard to argue that Wallach wouldn’t make an excellent MLB manager somewhere.

But is Tim Wallach the guy that Friedman and Zaidi want at the helm? We should know the answer to that question within the next week or so.

Stay tuned…