Doyel: Indians manager is master of the send-off
The story about the horse is a good one. The best one? Can’t say. These are Indianapolis Indians manager Dean Treanor’s stories, and each one represents a player with a dream. No way could he rank the players. So he can’t rank the stories.
But the horse story, I tell Treanor. It’s pretty good.
“It is,” he says, and he’s smiling behind his desk at Victory Field.
So, the horse story. It’s 2014 and Triple A Indians pitcher Casey Sadler has just been called up to the Pittsburgh Pirates. Sadler doesn’t know. Treanor hasn’t told him, not yet. First is the game, an Indians loss. So what Treanor does is, he calls a team meeting.
“And I’m chewing their a--,” he says.
One at a time, each player gets chewed a little. Pretty soon it’s Sadler’s turn. What you need to know about Casey Sadler is that he met his wife, Marin, at Western Oklahoma Junior College, where she had a rodeo scholarship. She’s a professional barrel jumper, and she travels with her horse, Zipper. At various times in 2014 you could find Zipper in a trailer behind Victory Field.
So here’s Dean Treanor, chewing out his players just to get to Sadler, just for this moment:
“… and I don’t want to see that horse trailer in the parking lot any more, Sadler,” Treanor was saying. “And they sure don’t want to see that in the parking lot in Pittsburgh.”
Pause.
“You should hear what happened next,” Treanor says.
“Absolute eruption,” says Indians catcher Tony Sanchez.
This is how Treanor delivers that kind of news. He makes it special, memorable, because that’s what a major-league promotion is. He’s made it hard for himself, though. Players now expect good news at every “team meeting.” When it really is just a meeting, Treanor picks out a player he knows can handle it, like veteran Tony Sanchez, and says, “Nobody’s going up – and definitely not you, Sanchez.”
What you need to know about Dean Treanor is that he has set managing records in three leagues, wins everywhere he goes, but he’ll never manage in the majors. Won’t be a full-time coach up there, either. He’s 67, a minor-league lifer who rides buses or flies commercial. Last week when the Indians flew to Charlotte, Treanor was in boarding Zone 5.
“I didn’t know there was a Zone 5,” he says.
There’s no Zone 5 in The Show. Charter flights only. Over the years Treanor figures he’s told 40 players, maybe 50, they’re going up.
All those promotions, all those stories, and Dean Treanor doesn’t have one. So let’s give him one. Let’s give him a story right here.
* * *
“Everyone loves the guy,” Sanchez is telling me, but my first look at Dean Treanor is intimidating. Won’t lie. The killer gray hair, impeccable. The ice-blue eyes. His face is sun-beaten, his skin the color, probably the consistency, of leather. He could outstare a stone gargoyle, is my guess.
He looks like a cop, which he was for 13 years in his hometown of San Luis Obispo, Calif., after his pitching career stalled in Double A in 1975. He was an undercover narcotics agent when ex-San Francisco pitcher Mike Krukow, a friend from home, suggested he come back to the game. Treanor took a coaching job with Single A Fresno. The son of a railroad lifer, he wasn’t afraid of the road.
Like Sanchez says, players love the guy. Watch batting practice. Treanor is swarmed by players – his team, other team, doesn’t matter. Real recognizes real, as the kids say, and minor-league ballplayers recognize a kindred spirit in Dean Treanor.
Indians broadcaster Andrew Kappes, in his 10th year in the minors, has worked with seven managers. “I’ve never been around one as popular as Dean,” Kappes says.
Treanor’s tough on his players, though. Believe that. He works for Pirates general manager Neal Huntington, president Frank Coonelly and manager Clint Hurdle, and their vision for this small-market franchise hinges on the farm system and player development and places like Indianapolis and men like Dean Treanor.
Sometimes a player is summoned to Treanor’s office for tough love. Sometimes that player is Robert Andino, a middle infielder who played for Treanor last year in Indianapolis, and before that for Treanor in the Marlins’ organization.
And Andino, this second-round pick in 2002, he was a handful.
“Probably in my office more than any player I’ve ever had,” Treanor says of Andino, who made his big-league debut in 2005. He was 21. All those visits to the manager’s office? They worked.
Treanor tells me about Andino, then leans to his right and taps the picture on a corkboard. Other than photos of his grandkids on the desk and Pirates legend Roberto Clemente on the wall, this photo – it’s Robert Andino – is the only picture in the room.
Andino is a friend, and a metaphor. He’s the reason Treanor rides buses and boards in Zone 5.
The call-up stories are another reason. Like the one with Ryan Reid, a reliever last season. The Indians were in Columbus when Treanor called the team together to bid Reid adieu – he’d been traded to Triple A Gwinnett of the Atlanta Braves.
No, Treanor was saying that night in Columbus, not really.
“I got a call today,” he tells Reid. “The Pirates are going to Turner Field tomorrow – and you’re going with them.”
The room erupts, and the manager returns to his office. Home or away, there’s always a phone in that office.
It never rings for Dean Treanor.
* * *
All right, the truth: Treanor has been to the big leagues. He’s been so many times, he’s lost count. He thinks it’s 10. But he hasn’t gone to The Show the way everyone in the minor leagues dreams of it.
Treanor goes up in September, after his minor league season ends. Major League rosters expand, coaching staffs expand, and people like Dean Treanor get their cup of coffee. But it’s not the same as going with a chance of staying.
This coffee, it’s decaf.
And this bugs the people who know Treanor best. Former players. Buddies in coaching. His son, Matt Treanor. Lord does it bug Matt Treanor, a big-league catcher from 2004-12, that the old man never got his own break.
“It bothers him more than it ever bothered me,” Dean Treanor says.
Treanor’s the all-time wins leader at Triple A Albuquerque (429). Three-time manager of the year in the Dominican Winter League. Talent comes and goes in Triple A, but in two organizations his teams have finished first or second nine times in 10 years.
Treanor is the first manager in the Indians’ 113-year history with five consecutive winning seasons, and his .559 winning percentage is tops among the franchise’s 59 managers. He develops talent, and the Pirates are on their best three-year stretch since 1990-92 in part because they take that talent away. Former National League MVP Andrew McCutchen passed through here. Pirates ace Gerrit Cole. Gregory Polanco. Starling Marte.
Marte, that’s a story.
It was July 2012 and Marte was a future big-leaguer, but on this night he grounded into a double play and didn’t hustle to first. Treanor confronted him in the clubhouse afterward:
“Did you run as hard as you could on that double play?”
“No sir,” Marte said.
Treanor nodded. “Unacceptable. Tomorrow, you won’t be in the lineup.”
Pause.
“You won’t be in the lineup because you’re going to be in Houston,” Treanor said. “You’re going to be in the lineup there for the Pirates.”
Eruption.
Later Treanor will find Marte, get him alone, and give him two pieces of advice. Run everything out in Pittsburgh, he’ll say. And don’t come back to the minors.
But for now Treanor leaves the clubhouse, still exploding in happiness for Marte, and goes back to his office. He is alone.
Some of the best stories, they never get told.
Find Star columnist Gregg Doyel on Twitter at@GreggDoyelStar or atwww.facebook.com/gregg.doyel
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Indians’ final homestand of 2015, Wednesday-Saturday at Victory Field:
Wednesday: 7:05 p.m. vs. Columbus; Thursday: 7:05 p.m. vs. Columbus; Friday: 7:15 p.m. vs. Toledo; Saturday: 6:05 p.m. vs. Toledo
For tickets: Click this link, email Tickets@IndyIndians.com or call the Indians’ ticket office at (317) 269-3545.
Correction: Dean Treanor's son is former Marlins minor-league pitcher Bryan Treanor, not former Marlins' catcher Matt Treanor.