Matt Quatraro is the right guy to manage this team

He will be in the running for Manager of the Year this year, and he will deserve it.

It’s the top of the ninth, the game is tied. The Royals have struggled mightily to score runs. They’ve scored four, today, which is as many as they had scored in their previous four games combined. It’s the most they’ve scored in a game since they had lost 7-6 to the Tigers more than a week prior. But the game is tied. The Nationals call upon their closer, Kyle Finnegan, to maintain the status quo giving them a chance to walk it off in the bottom of the inning.

Royals manager Matt Quatraro goes to work.

It’s a right-handed pitcher, so MJ Melendez will pinch-hit for Hunter Renfroe. When Melendez walks, that first run means everything, so Dairon Blanco will run. Michael Massey bats next, because he pinch-hit earlier. Blanco successfully steals second - the thing he is best at and the reason he was summoned - and Massey walks. Time for another pinch-hitter, this time Kyle Isbel replaces Paul DeJong so he can sacrifice the go-ahead run and the insurance run into better scoring positions. Isbel is successful. Finally, Quatraro asks Adam Frazier to pinch-hit for Garrett Hampson and make sure the Royals get at least one run.

Quatraro isn’t done, though, he goes to his bullpen one more time and calls out Lucas Erceg, the Royals' dominant closer, and asks him to close his third game in as many days. The Royals win 7-4. Most of that is on the players for executing - no manager looks smart when he only has bad choices or when the good choices flop, but that day, like every other day since he joined the team prior to the 2023 season, Quatraro did everything he could to put his players in the best possible position for them to succeed.

Two nights before that, Quatraro asked Blanco to steal a pair of bases while the Royals were in a miserable scoreless stretch to try and get the offense jumpstarted. Blanco was thrown out trying to steal third, but the thought was a good one. Unlike most teams in September, Quatraro is operating with a bench of 6 position players. He will mix and match them endlessly and freely pinch-hit to give the Royals the best opportunities he can to win the game. Two weeks before that he stretched out his best relievers, Kris Bubic and Erceg, to two innings each while the team attempted to steal a tough win against a very talented Yankees team.

Matt Quatraro is the best manager the Royals have had in at least 30 years and it isn’t particularly close.

Listen, you’ll be hard-pressed to find a bigger fan of Ned Yost than me, but the man had obvious flaws. He had a lot of strengths, and those strengths helped guide the Royals to back-to-back World Series appearances, but Quatraro brings a lot of the same strengths - a calm demeanor under most circumstances and a good relationship with his players - without as many flaws as Ned Yost. Where Ned Yost was married to pitching certain guys in certain innings and had his roster favorites who played every day, Quatraro has used his relievers wherever they are most needed and puts the bats in the hands of whichever hitters he thinks give the Royals the best chance to win, which means no one is sitting on the bench for weeks at a time wondering if they’ll ever get a shot, but guys who aren't contributing won't start every day either.

Will Smith was the de facto closer to start the season. But it didn’t take long for Quatraro to make the change once it became apparent Smith couldn’t hack it. From that point on, Smith got low-leverage innings as much as possible. When James McArthur began to struggle Quatraro tried to go to a closer-by-committee approach as much as possible until Lucas Erceg could establish himself as truly, exceptionally reliable. Hunter Renfroe went from batting sixth to batting seventh or eighth and getting lots of days off after he had a cold start. I could go on and on.

But it's not like guys couldn’t earn their way back in, either. Once Renfroe became lava-hot, he started more regularly and moved up in the lineup again. When Smith and McArthur seemed to be regaining their bearing they were given additional opportunities before they both got hurt. Angel Zerpa was demoted for ineffectiveness, but since his return, he’s been terrific and Quatraro has used him liberally in high-leverage innings once again, including in every game of the vital Nationals series.

Some people will complain that Quatraro doesn’t yell at the umpires enough. That he needs to fire up his guys. But that’s wrong. These are professional athletes at the highest level they can attain. If they couldn’t fire themselves up, they wouldn’t be here. Leaders who feel the need to scream at people when they don’t get their way also look weak and ineffective. Think about it, if you saw your boss screaming at someone - even someone who you think made a bad choice - would you really respect them more? If you’re feeling anxious, wouldn’t you feel better seeing that the person in charge is acting decisively, calmly, and confidently?

Baseball, more than any other sport, is a game that demands consistency. Fiery passion can help you occasionally, but if you can’t find ways to succeed day in and day out no matter how passionate you’re feeling, you’ll never succeed. Another part of that is that you want a consistent leader. Someone whose message and belief don’t waver. Someone who can show you the reasons why they made a decision, even if you might still disagree with them, you have to respect that there was a logic to it. One of Yost’s strengths was his consistent ability to instill belief and confidence in his players. Yes, sometimes he got fired up and argued with umpires, but that wasn’t what made him a good manager and it wasn’t what made those Royals teams good.

We’ve seen lots of goofy mantras from Royals’ managers in the past. None are more memorable to me than Tony Pena’s “Believe” in 2003. That said, Matt Quatraro’s “Today” does pretty well for itself. It helps that Quatraro has embodied it all year, not just lately.

The Royals are on the brink of the playoffs mostly because of the players and especially because of Bobby Witt Jr. and the fantastic work of the starting rotation. But they’re also here because of how good Matt Quatraro and his coaching staff have been. We always blame the managers when a team plays poorly, let’s not forget to praise them when the team plays well.